The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools

character.
    Mr. Randolph now set to work to prepare a pamphlet in explanation of his conduct. While thus occupied he addressed several notes to Washington, requiring information on various points, and received concise answers to all his queries. On one occasion, where he had required a particular paper, he published in the Gazette an extract from his note to Washington; as if fearing the request might be denied, lest the paper in question should lay open many confidential and delicate matters.
    In reply, Washington writes: “That you may have no cause to complain of the withholding of any paper, however private and confidential, which you shall think necessary in a case of so serious a nature … you are at full liberty to publish, without reserve, any and every private and confidential letter I ever wrote to you; nay more, every word I ever uttered to you or in your hearing, from whence you can derive any advantage in your vindication.”
    The vindication which Mr. Randolph had been preparing appeared in December. In this, he gave a narrative of the principal events relating to the case, his correspondence with the President, and the whole of the French minister’s letter. He endeavored to explain those parts of the letter which had brought the purity of his conduct in question; but, as has been observed, “he had a difficult task to perform, as he was obliged to prove a negative, and to explain vague expressions and insinuations connected with his name in Fauchet’s letter.”
    Fauchet himself furnished the best vindication in his certificate above mentioned; but it is difficult to reconcile his certificate with the language of his official letter to his government. We are rather inclined to attribute to misconceptions and hasty inferences of the French minister, the construction put by him in his letter on the conversation he had held with Mr. Randolph. The latter injured his cause by the embittered feelings manifested in his vindication, and the asperity with which he spoke of Washington there and elsewhere. He deeply regretted it in after life.
    After a considerable interval from the resignation of Randolph, Colonel Pickering was transferred to the department of State, and Mr. James McHenry was appointed Secretary of War. The office of attorney-general becoming vacant by the death of Mr. Bradford, was offered to Mr. Charles Lee of Virginia, and accepted by him on the last day of November.
    During the late agitations, George Washington Lafayette, the son of the general, had arrived at Boston under the name of Motier, accompanied by his tutor, M. Frestel, and had written to Washington apprising him of his arrival. It was an embarrassing moment to Washington. The letter excited his deepest sensibility, bringing with it recollections of Lafayette’s merits, services, and sufferings, and of their past friendship, and he resolved to become “father, friend, protector, and supporter” to his son. But he must proceed with caution; on account of his own official character as Executive of the United States, and of the position of Lafayette in regard to the French government. Caution, also, was necessary, not to endanger the situation of the young man himself, and of his mother and friends whom he had left behind. Philadelphia would not be an advisable residence for him at present, until it was seen what opinions would be excited by his arrival; as Washington would for some time be absent from the seat of government, while all the foreign functionaries were residing there, particularly those of his own nation. Washington suggested, therefore, that he should enter for the present as a student at the University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and engaged to pay all the expenses for the residence there of himself and his tutor. It was subsequently thought best that young Lafayette should proceed to New York, and remain in retirement, at the country house of a friend in its vicinity, pursuing his studies with his tutor, until Washington should direct otherwise.

    In his speech at the opening of the session of Congress in December, Washington presented a cheerful summary of the events of the year. First he announced that a treaty had been concluded provisionally by General Wayne, with the Indians northwest of the Ohio, by which the termination of the long, expensive, and distressing war with those tribes was placed at the option of the United States.
    A letter from the Emperor of Morocco, recognizing a treaty which had been