1061. CABINET OFFICERS, Society and.—
The gentlemen who composed General
Washington's first Administration took up,
too universally, a practice of general entertainment,
which was unnecessary, obstructive of
business, and so oppressive to themselves, that
it was among the motives for their retirement.
Their successors profited by the experiment,
and lived altogether as private individuals,
and so have ever continued to do. Here,
[Washington] indeed, it cannot be otherwise,
our situation being so rural, that during the
vacations of the Legislature we shall have no
society but of the officers of the government,
and in time of sessions the Legislature is become
and becoming so numerous, that for the
last half dozen years nobody but the President
has pretended to entertain them.—
To Robert R. Livingston. Washington ed. iv, 339.
Ford ed., vii, 465.
(W.
Dec. 1800)
