The approach to the house is on the south, along the side of a lawn, several hundred acres in extent, adorned with cedars, oaks, and forest poplars. On ascending a hill not far from the gate, the traveller comes in full view of the mansion; when the road turns to the right and leads straight to a grove of sugar-maples, around which it sweeps to the house. The edifice is built in the form of an H and of bricks brought from England. The cross furnishes a saloon of 30 feet cube, and in the centre of each wing rises a cluster of chimneys, which form the columns of two pavilions connected by a balustrade. The owner, who before the Revolution was a member of the king's council, lived in great state, and kept a band of musicians, to whose airs his daughters, Matilda and Flora, with their companions, danced in the saloon or promenaded on the house-top. Their young kinsman, attended by his military servant, was recognized as he rode past the grove of maples, and was welcomed with joy; and he, who had recently left the Southern army overwhelmed with grief and despondency, was soon happily restored by his union with the eldest daughter, Matilda.

But in the midst of his happiness he did not forget the brave men he had left in Carolina. His correspondence with General Greene, continued to the end of the war, is filled with evidences of the solicitude he felt for his soldiers and the veneration he cherished for his general. The latter had written to the President of Congress, 18th February, 1782: "Lieut.-Col. Lee retires for a time for the recovery of his health. I am more indebted to this officer than any other for the advantages gained over the enemy in the operations of the last campaign, and should be wanting in gratitude not to acknowledge the importance of his services, a detail of which is his best panegyric." In a long letter to this officer of the 7th of Octobe, of the same year, about the troubles of the Legion, the general says: "No man in the progress of the campaign had equal merit with yourself, nor is there one so represented." He also wrote to Colonel Lee in April, 1782: "I find the war will continue. *** I am not pleased by any means with our prospects. I would it were over and I at supper." When it was over, he wrote to Colonel Lee from Philadelphia, Oct. 27th, 1783: "It is now quite uncertain how fortune will dispose of me, or whether I shall have the happiness of meeting you in this city next May. The army is disbanded, and loth duty and necessity will oblige me to attend to my family affairs. My circumstances are far from being easy, and my family

have not where to put their heads. They have been like the wandering Jews all the war. It is men in my situation in the progress of this war who have had feelings which exceed description. Alas! few know what I have felt; my fonduess for my family has increased my distress. Men of affluence have been in quite different circumstances. Public virtue is best proved by private sacrifices; but enough of this."

Soon after the peace, Colonel Lee was a member of the Virginia delegation to Congress, where he devoted himself to forwarding those measures that prepared the way for the adoption of the Constitution. "He was also among those of Gen. Washington's friends who most earnestly persuaded him to undertake the all-important duties of the first presidency. Happening to be in the vicinity of Mount Vernon, when Washington was about to fill for the first time the office of President, on the impulse of the moment he prepared the address, which was presented to that illustrious man by his neighbors, and was so well adapted to the occasion as to be thought by Marshall worthy to be transferred to the pages of history."*

"The sentiments of veneration and affection which were felt by all classes of his fellow-citizens for their patriot chief, were manifested by the most flattering marks of heartfelt respect; and by addresses which evinced the unlimited confidence reposed in his virtues and talents. Although a place cannot be given to these addresses generally, yet that from the citizens of Alexandria derives such pretensions to particular notice from the recollection that it is to be considered as an effusion from the hearts of his neighbors and private friends, that its insertion may be pardoned. It is in the following words: Again your country commands your care, obedient to its wishes, unmindful of your ease, we see you again relinquishing the bliss of retirement; and this, too, at a period of life, when nature itself seems to authorize a preference of repose. Not to extol your glory as a soldier; not to pour forth our gratitude for past services; not to acknowledge the justice of the unexampled honor which has been conferred upon you by the spontaneous and unanimous suffrage of three millions of freemen, in your election to the supreme magistracy; nor to admire the patriotism which directs. your conduct, do your neighbors and friends now address you.

* Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. v., p. 154.