Excerpts from the Journal of William Maclay, ca. 1790s

From William Maclay. Journal of William Maclay. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1890. 9, 137-138, 374-375, 7, 14, 206-207, 272, 310, 261-263.

[Maclay on Washington]

As the company returned into the Senate chamber, the President took the chair and the Senators and Representatives their seats. He rose, and all arose also, and addressed them (see the address). This great man was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket. He trembled, and several times could scarce make out to read, though it must be supposed he had often read it before. He put part of the fingers of his left hand into the side what I think the tailors call the fall of the breeches [corresponding to the modern side-pocket], changing the paper into his left [right] hand. After some time he then did the same with some of the fingers of his right hand. When he came to the words all the world, he made a flourish with his right hand, which left rather an ungainly impression. I sincerely, for my part, wished all set ceremony in the hands of the dancing-masters, and that this first of men had read off his address in the plainest manner, without ever taking his eyes from the paper, for I felt hurt that he was not first in everything. He was dressed in deep brown, with metal buttons, with an eagle on them, white stockings, a bag, and sword. . . .

We went to the President's to dinner. The company were: President and Mrs. Washington, Vice-President and Mrs. Adams, the Governor and his wife, Mr. Jay and wife, Mr. Langdon and wife, Mr. Dalton and a lady (perhaps his wife), and a Mr. Smith, Mr. Bassett, myself, Lear, Lewis, the President's two secretaries. The President and Mrs. Washington sat opposite each other in the middle of the table. It was a great dinner, and the best of the kind I ever was at. The room, however, was disagreeably warm.
First was the soup; fish roasted and boiled; meats, gammon, fowls, etc. This was the dinner. The middle of the table was garnished in the usual tasty way, with small image, flowers (artificial), etc. The dessert was, first apple-pies, pudding, etc.; then iced creams, jellies, etc.; then water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts.
It was the most solemn dinner I ever sat at. Not a health drink; scarce a word said until the cloth was taken away. Then the President, filling a glass of wine, with great formality drank to the health of every individual by name round the table. Everybody imitated him, charged glasses, and such a buzz of 'health, sir,' and 'health, madam,' and 'thank you, sir, ' and 'thank you, madam,' never had I heard before. Indeed, I had liked to have been thrown out in the hurry; but I got a little wine in my glass and passed the ceremony. The ladies sat a good while, and the bottles passed about; but there was a dead silence almost. Mrs. Washington at last withdrew with the ladies.
I expected the men would now begin, but the same stillness remained. The President told of a New England clergyman who had lost a hat and wig in passing a river called the Brunks. He smiled, and everybody else laughed. He now and then said a sentence or two on some common subject, and what he said was not amiss. Mr. Jay tried to make a laugh by mentioning the circumstance of the Duchess of Devonshire leaving no stone unturned to carry Fox's election. There was a Mr. Smith, who mentioned how Homer described Aeneas leaving his wife and carrying his father out of flaming Troy. He had heard somebody (I suppose) witty on the occasion; but if he had ever read it he would have said Virgil. The President kept a fork in his hand, when the cloth was taken away, I thought for the purpose of picking nuts. He ate no nuts, however, but played with the fork, striking on the edge of the table with it. We did not sit long after the ladies retired. The President rose, went up-stairs to drink coffee; the company followed. I took my hat and came home. . . .

But after this digression let me turn to the unexpected incident of dining with the President and his marked attention to me. He knows the weight of political odium under which I labor. He knows that my uniform opposition to funding systems (at least to ours), assumptions, high compensation, and expensive arrangements have drawn on me the resentment of all speculators, public creditors, expectants of office, and courtiers in the State. There is another point which, I presume, he does not know, viz., that I will receive no support from the Republican or opposition party, for there is not a man of them who is not aiming at a six-dollar prize, and my place is the best chance in the wheel. But he knows enough to satisfy him that I will be no Senator after the 3d of March, and to the score of his good nature must I place these attentions. Be it so. It is, at least, one amiable trait in his character.
I have now, however, seen him for the last time, perhaps. Let me take a review of him as he really is. In stature above six feet, with an unexceptionable make, but lax appearance. His frame would seem to want filling up. His motions rather slow than lively, though he showed no signs of having suffered by gout or rheumatism. His complexion pale, nay, almost cadaverous. His voice hollow and indistinct, owing, as I believe, to artificial teeth before his upper jaw, which occasioned a flatness of ö [The following leaf, on which the rest of this description was written, has been torn out and is lost.].

[Maclay on John Adams]

This is a great, important day. Goddess of etiquette, assist me while I describe it. The Senate stood adjourned to half after eleven o'clock. About ten dressed in my best clothes; went for Mr. Morris' lodgings, but met his son, who told me that his father would not be in town until Saturday. Turned into the Hall. The crowd already great. The Senate met. The Vice-President rose in the most solemn manner. This son of Adam seemed impressed with deeper gravity, yet what shall I think of him? He often, in the midst of his most important airs ö I believe when he is at loss for expressions (and this he often is, wrapped up, I suppose, in the contemplation of his own importance) ö suffers an unmeaning kind of vacant laugh to escape him. This was the case to-day, and really to me bore the air of ridiculing the farce he was acting. 'Gentlemen, I wish for the direction of the Senate. The President will, I suppose, address the Congress. How shall I behave? How shall we receive it? Shall it be standing or sitting?' . . .

Attended Senate. This a day of no business whatever. Langdon came and shook hands very heartily with me. Some of the other New England men [were] shy. Patterson only was at the Senate chamber before me. He passed censure on the conduct of the Vice-President, said he made himself too busy. He hinted as if some of the Senate would have taken notice of the gracious affair if I had not. I told him I was no courtier and had no occasion to trim, but said it was a most disagreeable thing to contend with the Chair, and I had alone held that most disagreeable post more than once. After Senate adjourned, I saw the Vice-President standing disengaged. I stepped up to him, asked for his health, and fell into commonplace chat. He is not well furnished with small talk more than myself, and has a very silly kind of laugh. I have often looked with the utmost attention at him to see if his aspect, air, etc., could inspire me with an opinion of his being a man of genius; but it was like repeating 'Tristam, tristam.' No; the thing seems impossible. It is a silly opinion of mine, but I can not get rid of it, that every man, like a labeled bottle, has his contents marked on his visage.

. . .

Dined with the President of the United States. It was a dinner of dignity. All the Senators were present, and the Vice-President. I looked often around the company to find the happiest faces. Wisdom, forgive me if I wrong thee, but I thought folly and happiness most nearly allied. The President seemed to bear in his countenance a settled aspect of melancholy. No cheering ray of convivial sunshine broke through the cloudy gloom of settled seriousness. At every interval of eating or drinking he played on the table with a fork or knife, like a drumstick. Next to him, on his right, sat Bonny Johnny Adams, ever and anon mantling his visage with the most unmeaning simper that ever dimpled the face of folly. Goddess of Nature, forgive me if I censure thee for that thou madest him not a tailor, so full of small attentions is he, and so well qualified does he seem to adjust the etiquette of loops and buttons. But stay, perhaps I wrong thee. So miserably doth he measure politics, and so unmercifully and unskillfully would he play the shears of government in cutting out royal robes and habiliments, that it may justly be doubted whether the measure of his understanding be adequate to the adjusting the proportions of the back, belly, and breeches of the human form agreeably to the rules of an experienced habitmaker. Thus, goddess, among the savage tribes of the lazy, lying, lumpish Indian, who can neither hunt, fish, nor hoe corn, makest thou the dreaming, smoking, pretended prophet, priest, and politician. Goddess, we acknowledge thy power and submit to thy sway, but humbly pray we may never have another similar example of it.

[Maclay on Thomas Jefferson]

. . . But this was mess-day, and I went at half-past three and found the company already seated and the dinner almost eaten up. I could not stay long, as we had an appointment with Jefferson, the Secretary of State, at six o'clock. When I came to the Hall, Jefferson and the rest of the committee were there. Jefferson is a slender man; has rather the air of stiffness in his manner; his clothes seem too small for him; he sits in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his shoulders elevated much above the other; his face has a sunny aspect; his whole figure has a loose, shackling air. He had a rambling, vacant look, and nothing of that firm, collected deportment which I expected would dignify the presence of a secretary or minister. I looked for gravity, but a laxity of manner seemed shed about him. He spoke almost without ceasing. But even his discourse partook of his personal demeanor. It was loose and rambling, and yet he scattered information wherever he went, and some even brilliant sentiments sparkled from him. The information which he gave us respecting foreign ministers, etc., was all high-spiced. He had been long enough abroad to catch the tone of European folly. He gave us a sentiment which seemed rather to savor of quaintness: 'It is better to take the highest of the lowest than the lowest of the highest.' Translation: 'It is better to appoint a charge with a handsome salary than a minister plenipotentiary with a small one.' He took his leave, and the committee agreed to strike out the specific sum to be given to any foreign appointment, leaving it to the President to account, and appropriated thirty thousand dollars generally for that purpose.

[Maclay on Thomas Jefferson & Alexander Hamilton]

I could not help making some remarks on our three Secretaries. Hamilton has a very boyish, giddy manner, and Scotch-Irish people could well call him a 'skite.' Jefferson transgresses on the extreme of stiff gentility or lofty gravity. Knox is the easiest man, and has the most dignity of presence. They retired at a decent time, one after another. Knox stayed the longest, as indeed suited his aspect best, being more of a Bacchanalian figure.

[Maclay on Alexander Hamilton]

This was ten o'clock. I received between eleven and twelve, at the Hall, a few lines from Mr. Nousee, stating the resolves of Congress: that three warrants had passed for the payments ö one four thousand, the other for two, and the last for one thousand dollars; that the warrants themselves were deposited at the Bank for the Secretary among the papers of the late Treasurer until a settlement could take place. I thought there was evasion on the face of this business, but I concluded that, if Mr. Hillegas had lodged his papers at the bank, the key and the care of them must be with some person; and off I went to the bank. I received for answer that some books, papers, or property of that kind, were lodged at the bank by Mr. Hamilton, who had the keys and the care of them.
I should have minuted that, as I left the Hall in Wall Street, I passed the Baron; he on one side and I on the other. I wished to make him a bow, as usual, but such an aspect he wore! Nay, if he had brought all the gloom of the Black Forest from Germany he could not have carried a more somber countenance. Just as I came out of the bank-door I met Hamilton, and told him what I wanted. He refused me in pretty stiff terms; he could not answer for it, to open any gentlemen's papers. I told I would take unexceptional characters with me ö the Speaker of the Representatives. The papers I wanted belonged to the public and to no private gentleman whatever, nor would it do for him to refuse information to a committee of Congress. He then said if there was a vote of a committee for it he would get the papers. I told him any member of Congress had a right to any papers in any office whatever; that as chairman of the committee I had promised to procure what papers were necessary. I deemed this necessary, and of course called for it. He begged for half an hour to consider of it, and he would write me a note on the subject. I parted with him, telling him I should expect to hear from him in half an hour. He said I should. This was before twelve; the Senate adjourned at one. I sat half and hour longer waiting for my note, but it came not. I went directly to the Treasury. The warrant to draw my indents was delivered to me with all the pomp of official ceremony. I told young Kuhn that I had further business with the Secretary [Hamilton]; that he had promised me a note, which was not come to my hands. He returned to me, and desired me to walk into the inner room, or rather to enter the entry into a room in the other end of the house. I did so, and after being admitted into the sanctum sanctorum I told his Holiness [Hamilton] that he had been good enough to promise me a note which was not come to my hands. He got up, went out, and left me alone for a considerable time.

. . .

I need make no comment on all of this. I think I have his history complete. A schoolboy should be whipped for such pitiful evasions. . .