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over to the man in the world to whom I thought it most justly due; into your hands I commit it, requesting of you to pass it, in the event of your decease, to the man in your own country, who shall appear to your judgment to merit it best, upon the same considerations that have induced me to send it to your excellency.

I am with the highest esteem, Sir,

Your Excellency's most obedient

And obliged humble servant,

BUCHAN.

General Washington,

President of the United States of America.

P. S.-I beg your excellency will have the goodness to send me your portrait, that I may place it among those I most honor, and I would wish it from the pencil of Mr. Rob

ertson.

I beg leave to recommend him to your countenance, as he has been mentioned to me favorably by my worthy friend, Professor Ogilvie, of King's College, Aberdeen.

Robertson has left in his personal handwriting a graphic account of this first interview with President Washington, which is best told in his own language:

"The bearer of Lord Buchan's compliments, although familiarly accustomed to intimate intercourse with those of the highest rank and station in his native country, never felt as he did on his first introduction to the American hero. The excitation in the mind of the stranger was evidently obvious to Washington, for from his ordinary cold and distant address he declined into the most easy and familiar intercourse in conversation, with a view to disembarrass his visitor from the agitation excited by the presence of a man whose exalted character had impressed him with the highest sentiments of respect and veneration for such lofty virtue. Washington easily penetrated into the heart and feelings of Lord Buchan's friend, and he left no means untried to make him feel perfectly at ease in his company during the period he intended to spend with him in Philadelphia. The General, not finding his efforts altogether successful, introduced him to Mrs. Washington, whose easy, polished and familiar gayety, and ceaseless cheerfulness, almost accomplished a cure, by the aid of her grandchildren, G. W. Custis and Miss Eleanor Custis, afterwards Mrs. Lewis, and wife to the nephew of General Washington. Another effort of the first President to compose his guest was at a family dinner party, in which the General, contrary to his usual habits, engrossed most of the conversation at the table, and so delighted the company with humorous anecdotes that he repeatedly set the table in a roar. The result of these attentions the General now perceived had nearly produced a radical change, and to have the desired effect of fitting the artist for the task he had undertaken for Lord Buchan, in making as good a likeness of Washington as he possibly could. The artist being now prepared, and left to his own direction in the manner and way he should proceed in his process, preferred making his original first attempt in miniature on ivory, in water-colors; pari passu, he at the same time painted a likeness of Mrs. Washington as a mate to the General's. The original one painted for Lord Buchan was in oils, and of a size corresponding to those of the collection of portraits of the most celebrated worthies in liberal principles and in useful literature in the possession of his Lordship at Dryburgh Abbey, near Melrose, on the borders of Scotland."

Robertson then goes on to describe the dinner at the President's, which he says was at three o'clock, "was plain, but suitable for a family in genteel and comfortable circumstances. There was nothing specially remarkable at the table, but that the General and Mrs. Washington sat side by side, he on the right of his lady; the gentlemen on his right hand and the President Washington. Martha Washington.

Colonel John Trumbull. O

Mrs. General Green.

Colonel Tobias Lear.

O Miss Eleanor Custis.

Major Jackson. Archibald Robertson.

ladies on her left. It being on Saturday, the first course was mostly of

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eastern cod and fresh fish. A few glasses of wine were drunk during dinner, with other beverage; the whole closed with a few glasses of sparkling champagne, in about three-quarters of an hour, when the General and Colonel Lear retired, leaving the ladies in high glee about Lord Buchan and the Wallace box.

This quaint "Wallace box" was about four inches long, three broad, and two deep, constructed of six pieces of the heart of the oak that sheltered Sir William Wallace after the battle of Falkirk. It was one-eighth of an inch thick, finely polished on the outside, and the whole united by an elegant silver binding, the lid opening upon hinges one-third down

the side, having a silver plate inside bearing the inscription: “Presented by the goldsmiths of Edinburgh to David Stuart Erskine, Earl of Buchan, with the freedom of their corporation, by their Deacon, 1791."

The gift of this box to Washington was esteemed one of the highest of compliments. The Scotchman said: “The glory of triumphant military skill and bravery, although sufficiently appreciated by enlightened men of liberal views, was thought nothing to that of being the happy instrument of establishing on correct principles a genuine representative civil government. The progress of the states was anxiously and dubiously regarded by true philosophers and the friends of free principles in Europe until the final establishment of the federal Constitution by the installation of Washington as its first President. For an idea had gone abroad, namely'No Washington, no free government.' But then all doubts vanished. It cannot be denied that there were those who wished for a government founded on the bayonet, but Providence spared Washington sufficiently long to accomplish the great work, and frown down such an attempt. Among no people did the happy settlement of the federal government afford more satisfaction than to the host of enlightened and liberal-minded Scottish patriots of every rank, who, deploring the abuses of the government under which they were born, rejoiced in the happiness of their transatlantic kinsmen, who wished to convey to the American hero, by a palpable memorial, the most expressive idea of a Scotsman's highest respect for the character and virtues of the modern American Wallace."

The correspondence between Washington and Buchan, in reference to the "Wallace box,” is of much interest; but our space will only admit of the following clause from Washington's will, by which the box was returned to its giver on his decease:

"To the Earl of Buchan, I recommit the box made of the oak that sheltered the brave Sir William Wallace after the battle of Falkirk, presented to me by his lordship in terms too flattering for me to repeat, with a request to pass it, on the event of my decease, to the man in my country who should appear to merit it best, upon the same conditions that have induced him to send it to me. Whether easy or not to select the man who might comport with his lordship's opinion in this respect, is not for me to say; but conceiving that no disposition of this valuable curiosity can be more eligible than the recommitment of it to his own cabinet, agreeably to the original design of the goldsmith's company of Edinburgh, who presented to him, and at his request consented that it should be transferred to me—I do give and bequeath the same to his lordship; and in case of his decease, to his heir, with my grateful thanks for the distinguished honour of presenting it to me, and especially for the favorable sentiments with which he accompanied it."

Two brothers of Archibald Robertson, Andrew and Alexander, followed him to this country, and together they opened a school for painting,

sculpture, engraving, and architecture, at 79 Liberty street, New York city—a school which flourished for two score years, with results not easily measured or adequately estimated. One of the pupils in this institution was John Vanderlyn. Robertson also opened a studio for himself, and instituted lecture courses. He painted several portraits of Washington, one in oil, on a slab of marble nine by twelve inches, at the President's suggestion while he was sojourning in the Executive mansion. It is described as "a half-length; three-quarters view, coat of snuff-color with an exuberance of shirt-ruffle, a highly-finished work in appearance as soft as if on ivory." He executed a great variety of sketches of places and scenes, a marked example being the view of New York city from the Jersey shore prior to the beginning of the present century, now in possession of Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet.

It is said that Charles Wilson Peale painted Washington from life. fourteen times-in full, three-quarters, half length, and in miniature. From these originals he made many copies. One of his best known works, Washington as a Virginia colonel, executed in 1772, was reproduced, so says a French writer, more than one hundred times. For upwards of a decade the elder Peale was the only American portrait painter known to fame, and was sought by sitters from afar—not infrequently from Canada and the West Indies. Watson and Smybert, who gave the earliest professional impulse to the art in America, had long since passed away; Copley, who caught his first notions of color and drawing from Smybert's copy of Vandyke, was in England; Trumbull, who conceived a fascinating idea of the career of a painter from Copley's elegant costumes of crimson velvet, and comfortable mode of life, when he visited him at the time of his marriage, and Gilbert Stuart, had not yet become familiar names; and Robert Fulton and William Dunlap were twenty years younger than Peale. Several miniatures were painted by Peale while at Mount Vernon in 1772. There is an entry in Washington's account book of personal expenses as follows:

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Peale also painted miniatures of both Washington and Mrs. Washington in the year 1776. In response to a request from Mrs. Washington,

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