Lear's knowledge, nor is it within mine at present,
that it has ever been in print before.
RICHARD RUSH.
SYDENHAM, NEAR PHILADELPHIA, February, 1857.
WASHINGTON IN DOMESTIC LIFE.
When first I opened and cursorily read the original letters from General
Washington, mentioned in the foregoing introductory explanation, and
noticed the domestic topics which ran so largely through them, they
struck me as possessing peculiar interest. They were of value as coming
from that venerated source, and doubly so, considering how little is
known, through his own correspondence, of his domestic life; scarcely,
in fact, any of its details. Reading the letters again, I found the
matter to be somewhat more varied than my first eager inspection of
them, as hastily unfolded, had led me to suppose; but they were
desultory, and much broken as to dates. The occasional mixture of other
matter, especially public matter, with the domestic topics, did not
diminish the interest of the letters, but the contrary. In this
publication I follow the order of the dates. Where wide chasms occur, I
have merely supplied a link in the chain by an explanatory remark here
and there, in aid of the reader, not hazarding other remarks until all
the letters are mentioned. Thus much as to the plan. I proceed to speak
of the letters themselves.
The first in date is of the fifth of September, 1790. It is written in
Philadelphia, where Washington had just then arrived from New York, Mr.
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