judgment of his friends, and sometimes adopted draughts that were
exceptionable. Some parts of his private correspondence must have
essentially differed from other parts in the style of composition. You
mention your own aids to the General in this line. Now, if I had your
draughts before me, mingled with the General's to the same persons,
nothing would be more easy than to assign to each his own proper
offspring. You could neither restrain your _courser_, nor conceal your
imagery, nor express your ideas otherwise than in the language of a
scholar. The General's compositions would be perfectly plain and didactic,
and not always correct."


During the Presidency, scarcely anything of a public nature was penned by
Washington,--Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph acting as his
draughtsmen. "We are approaching the first Monday in December by hasty
strides," he wrote to Jefferson. "I pray you, therefore, to revolve in
your mind such matters as may be proper for me to lay before Congress, not
only in your own department, (if any there be,) but such others of a
general nature, as may happen to occur to you, that I may be prepared to
open the session with such communication, as shall appear to merit
attention." Two years later he said to the same, "I pray you to note down
or rather to frame into paragraphs or sections, such matters as may occur
to you as fit and proper for general communication at the opening of the
next session of Congress, not only in the department of state, but on any
other subject applicable to the occasion, that I may in due time have
everything before me." To Hamilton he wrote in 1795, "Having desired the
late Secretary of State to note down every matter as it occurred, proper
either for the speech at the opening of the session, or for messages
afterwards, the inclosed paper contains everything I could extract from
that office. Aid me, I pray you, with your sentiments on these points, and