About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life and to domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York in company with Mr. Thompson and Colonel Humphries, with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations. The journey began with a public dinner at Alexandria. Said the gentlemen of Alexandria in their address to him: Farewell!... Go!... and make a grateful people happy, a people who will be doubly grateful when they contemplate this recent sacrifice for their interest. And Washington in his reply said: At my age, and in my circumstances, what prospects or advantages could I propose to myself, for embarking again on the tempestuous and uncertain ocean of public life? The journey went on with similar interruptions. The rule so often laid down by the Virginians afterward that that is the best government which governs least, was certainly well kept until the thirteenth of April. To this hour the adventurous cyclist, stopping at some wayside inn to refresh himself, may find upon the wall the picture of the maidens and mothers of Trenton in New Jersey. Here Washington met a deputation sent to him by Congress. A triumphal arch had been erected, and a row of young girls dressed in white, a second row of ladies, and a third of their mothers, awaited him. As he passed, the girls scattered flowers, and sang the verses which Judge Marshall has preserved: Welcome, mighty chief, once more Welcome to this grateful shore; Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow-- Aims at thee the fatal blow. Virgins fair and matrons grave, These thy conquering arm did save. Build for thee triumphal bowers, Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers-- Strew your Hero's way with flowers.