TO THE BINDER.

ALTHOUGH the Title-pages and Contents may be considered as sufficient Directions for the Binding, yet, to prevent mistakes, we shall enumerate the arrangement of the Three Volumes for 1799.-The History of Politics, Obituary, and Hymeneal Register form one Volume; the History of Litera ture, and the History of Physical Knowledge, Arts, and Sciences, another Volume; and the Miscellaneous Literature, the Third Volume. The Maps to bind with the History; the Portraits, with the Miscellaneous Literature, at the beginning of their respective subjects.

Those Subscribers who may be pleased to employ G. Cawthorn to bind their Volumes may depend on Accuracy of Arrangement and Neatness of Execution.

OUTLINES OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

GENERAL WASHINGTON.

THE HE American Revolution is among the greatest events that has happened in the 18th century; and the most prominent character of all those that appeared at that era, on the grand theatre of policy and war, was General Washington. The close of the former and the death of the latter nearly coinciding in point of time, conspire to call back the attention of the intelligent and reflecting part of mankind to the whole course of a period so wonderful in the history of society, and so important; and to a life and conduct so highly distinguished by talents and virtues, uniformly directed and employed for the noblest and best of purposes. It is not our present design to blend, or in any other way to undertake two tasks, either of which affords room for endless observation, any farther than it may be proper to shew, in general, the connection that manifestly subsisted between the one and the other. The genius and temper of the age undoubtedly influenced, and contributed to form the mind of Washington. The mind of Washington thus formed, re-acted on the age in which he lived, pushed the principles and opinions that swayed his countrymen to important practical consequences at home, and, by the contagion of example, over all the world.

The enlightened and enter rizing genius of Europe, awakened by those discoveries which led to the pursuits of navigation, commerce, and discoveries of every kind, whether grateful merely to the insatiable curiosity of cultivated minds, or tending to practical purposes, was transported to America; where, in as much especially as it so tended to useful improvements, like vegetation in a fresh soil, it flourished with a luxuriance which, in some instances, outstripped that of European growth. The British colonists in North America, separated from the other quarters of the globe, and set origically afloat, and, indeed, as it were adrift on the wide world, were equally compelled by necessity, and invited by the unbounded prospect that lay before them, to lift up their eyes without fear, to take things on a grand scale, and make combinations and concert projects

that would have appeared to be utterly chimerical to a people whose habits and views were confined within narrower limits of space, precedent, and custom. They were not alarmed at novelty, nor discouraged by degrees of longitude or latitude. Placed at so noble and happy a distance from the old world, their prospects were not bounded by the narrow horizon of one or two nations, but, in one ge neral and comprehensive view, they embraced the whole. The whole world they considered as a theatre for their extended commerce; the history as well as the present state of all nations, as a school for useful improvement in matters of interior police or regu lation; in which the different colonies possessed or claimed a less of greater participation. This spirit of enquiry and bold adventure was nourished and invigorated by all the objects that pressed the most naturally on external and internal sense. Dispersed throughout an immense continent; free as the wilds that surrounded them, amidst their rocks, their mountains, the vast plains of their deserts, on the confines of those forests in which all is still in its savage state, and where there are no traces of either the slavery or the tyranny of man, they viewed, from every thing around, and as far as the eye, and even the imagination so attuned, could carry them, a lesson of liberty and independence. The same lesson, and a strong disposition, too, to attend to it, and learn it well, was inculcated on their minds by a remembrance of the causes that urged the emigration of theit forefathers. In the four New England Provinces, particularly of Massachuset, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode-Island, this was always a favourite subject of discourse. And thus the priaciples that animated the emigrants of the first part of the 17th being carefully transmitted from generation to generation, continued to animate their descendants in the last of the 18th century. These principles may be reduced to two: political and religious enthusiasm, Persecuted at home for opinions in religion, which, to say the truth, were not a little discordant with the tenets established in Church and State, they clung to their own with such fond adherence and invia cible obstinacy, that, rather than forsake them, they chose to abadon their native country, and fly to the remotest and most inhospitable regions, in order to enjoy the unrestrained and public profession of their own sentiments. This enthusiasm supported them under every hardship that could assail the heart, or staggen the for titude of man. The climate was new to their constitutions: the winter cold and summer heat equally insupportable: the productions of the earth miserable and scanty; the soil stubborn; sickness and

death, from physical causes, and also the ferocious indignation and rage of the ancient inhabitants of the land, were the destiny of an alarming portion of the first adventurers.

The religious enthusiasm which supported the first settlers in the northern provinces evaporated, by degrees, almost into total indifference, if not scepticism: but the hardihood which it bred, and the political enthusiasm with which it was connected, remained. Hence it was that no branch of knowledge was cultivated with more assi duity in the New England Provinces than that of law. Every New England man was more or less a lawyer. Their attainments in literature, by their knowledge of the laws, were brought to bear on all subjects of public discussion: which subjects were, in most instances, prescribed by a traditional and constant passion for independence, on any authority not founded on republican tenets.

The same frame of mind did not prevail in the southern provinces of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; where there was no prejudice against either monarchical government or the church of England; and where the heat of the climate and the benignity of the soil concurred with a kind of traditional rather than habitual respect for distinctions of rank, to inspire a cheerful and jovial mood, and to form the natural character of country gentlemen in easy and affluent circumstances. The character of the interme diate provinces of New York, the Jerseys, and Pensylvania, was made up of circumstances peculiar to the origin of their colonization from different nations, blended with the characteristic features of their northern and their southern neighbours.

One feature common to all the Americans was great alacrity of mind, supporting and supported by a high spirit of political independence: though, in some provinces, this feature was formed chiefly by physical, and, in others, chiefly by moral causes. The spirit of the Virginians and Carolinians was ardent and eager: the proud and active spirit of the New-Englanders was seasoned with that patience and perseverance which naturally result from a life of labour. At the time of General Washington's birth, and still more, during that of his youth and earliest manhood, when his mind was tinctured and moulded by example and education, a general excitement and fermentation pervaded North America, which prepared the way for innovation. In Europe we read newspapers and all the various productions of the press for amusement, In America, they began to read, as they do now, for political infor mation; ever eager to catch, to adapt, and to apply every hint for

the advancement of public prosperity. In that confederation of republics, which took place at the commencement of the grand career of his glory, a fine sensibility vibrated every sensation from the extremity to the heart; so that the whole virtue and ability of the American nation was collected, and employed in the grand affairs of all the provinces beginning to be formed into one state.

These preliminary observations will not be considered as foreign to the present design by any one who reflects that this leads, on the one hand, to a consideration of the circumstances by which the mind of our hero was formed, and, on the other, to that of the materials on which it was destined to act.

The family of the Washingtons, according to certain reports, had been fixed in the county of Lincolnshire, where, as also in the conti guous province of Yorkshire, the doctrines of the Reformation, or those of religious and political liberty, had been introduced, and taken deep root for a long lapse of time, when, in 1657, Henry Wash ington, its representative head, migrated with his family to Virginia. The date of this migration was that of the proffer that was made to Cromwell of the crown of England; and when a committee was appointed to reason with the Protector, and to overcome those scruples which he pretended restrained him from accepting it. A conference on this subject, between the committee and Cromwell, or his agents, lasted for several days. The difficulty consisted, not in persuading Cromwell, whose inclination, as well as judgment, was entirely on the side of the committee, but how to bring over the soldiers, composed wholly of the puritanical party, and of course averse to monarchy, under any dynasty. Cromwell protracted the time, and seemed still to oppose the reasonings of the committee,* urging him to accept the royal dignity. At last, a motion in form was made by one Pack, one of the members for the City of London, for investing the Protector with the dignity of King. This motion divided the whole House of Parliament into parties, The chief opposition came from the usual adherents of the Protector: the Major-Generals, and such members as usually depended on them. General Lambert, a man of deep intrigue, and of great interest in the army, had long entertained the ambition of succeeding Cromwell in the Protectorship; and he foresaw, that, if the monarchy were restored,

A remarkable coincidence between the conduct of the Protector and that t Augustus Cæsar; who did not accept the Dictatorship of Rome without a shew of reluctance,