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avoided going near his residence. In some negotiations which followed it was intimated on the part of Hancock, that as the representative of the sovereignty of Massachusetts he thought he should receive the first visit even from the President of the United States. His friends, however, remonstrated with him, urging that a just application of his own principle entitled the chief magistrate of all the states to precedence, wherever he might be, within their limits; and he reluctantly assented to this view of the case, and the next evening went in his coach, enveloped in red baize, to Washington's lodgings, and was borne in the arms of servants into the house. The public were informed that this delay was in consequence of the Governor's ill health.

On Sunday the President attended King's Chapel in the morning, and one of the Congregational churches in the afternoon, and on Monday he rode about the city, accompanied by several leading characters, returned the visit of the Governor, and received the officers of the French squadron, to whom he expressed his intention of going on board their ships the following day.

On Tuesday morning, soon after breakfast, he received the clergy, who presented an appropriate address, which he answered in his happiest manner. Among them was Dr. Belknap, to whom, when he was introduced, he said, "I am indebted to you, sir, for the History of New Hampshire, and it gave me great pleasure." The amiable doctor records the circumstance with peculiar satisfaction, in his diary, and it is mentioned that this was the only instance in which he thus noticed the approbation bestowed upon his literary labors. Soon after came the Society of the Cincinnati, accompanied by the Viscount Ponteves, the Marquis de Traversay, and the Chevalier de Braye, members of the society in France (the Marquis de Galissoniere, who had also served in the revolution, being detained on board his ship by indisposition), and received and an-