CHAPTER III.

THE WORK BEGUN IN EARNEST.

Washington's Faith in the Future-Mr. Sparks is "inclined to think "—A Slight Miscalculation-Theoretical Spartans-Clinging to Old World Glories-Jefferson Acts the Critic-Ile Communicates Some IdeasModels of Antiquity-Babylon Revived-Difficulty in Satisfying a Frenchman's Soul-The Man who Planned the Capital-Who was L'Enfant?-His Troubles-His Dismissal-His Personal Appearance, Old Age, Death and Burial-Place-His Successor-The French Genius "Proceeded"-The New City of Washington-A Magnificent Plan-All About the City-The Major not Appreciated-"Getting on Badly"-L'Enfant Worries Washington-A Record which Can Never Perish-An Overpaid Quaker-Jefferson Expresses his Sentiments-A Sable FranklinThe Negro Engineer, Benjamin Bancker-A Chance for a Monument.

TH

HE majority of Congress were opposed to a commercial Capital, yet there are many proofs extant that to the hour of his death George Washington cherished the hope that the new city of his love would be not only the capital of the nation, but a great commercial metropolis of the world. Mr. Jared Sparks, the historian, in a private letter says: "I am inclined to think that Washington's anticipations were more sanguine than events have justified. IIe early 'entertained very large and just ideas of the vast resources of the West, and of the commercial intercourse that must spring up between that region and the Atlantic coast, and he was wont to regard the central position of the Potomac as affording the most direct and easy channel of communication.

WASHINGTON'S FAITH IN ITS FUTURE.

39

Steamboats and railroads have since changed the face of the world, and have set at defiance all the calculations. founded on the old order of things; and especially have they operated on the destiny of the West and our entire system of internal commerce, in a manner that could not possibly have been foreseen in the life-time of Washington." Throughout the correspondence of Washington are scattered constant allusions to the future magnificence of the Federal City, the name by which he loved to call the city of his heart, allusions which show that his faith in its great destiny never faltered. In a letter to his neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax, then in England, he said: "A century hence, if this country keeps united, it will produce a city, though not as large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe." At that time, after a growth of centuries, London contained eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Three-fourths of Washington's predicted century have expired, and the city of Washington now numbers one hundred and fifty thousand people.

The founders of the Capital were all very republican in theory, and all very aristocratic in practice. In speech they proposed to build a sort of Spartan capital, fit for a Spartan republic; in fact, they proceeded to build one modeled after the most magnificent cities of Europe. European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the new Capital which they so zealously began to build in the woods. The art-connoisseur of the day was

Jefferson. He knew Europe, not only by family tradition but by sight. Next to Washington he took the deepest personal interest in the projected Capital. Of this interest we find continual proof in his letters, also of the fact that his taste had much to do with the plan and architecture of the coming city. In a letter to Major L'Enfant, the first engineer of the Capital, dated Philadelphia, April 10, 1791, he wrote: "In compliance with your request, I have examined my papers and found the plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Carlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by post. They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me while in those respective cities myself.. . Having communicated to the President before he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the town as occurred to me, I have no doubt in explaining himself to you on the subject, he has interwoven with his own ideas such of mine as he approved. Whenever it is proposed to present plans for the Capital, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the president's house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of good judges. Such are Galerie du Louise, the Gardes Meubles, and two fronts of the IIotel de Salm." On the same day he writes to Washington: "I received last night from Major L'Enfant a request to furnish any plans of towns I could for examination. I accordingly send him by this post, plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc., which I procured while in those towns respectively. They are none

THE MAN WHO PLANNED THE CAPITAL.

41

of them, however, comparable to the old Babylon revived in Philadelphia and exemplified." But these two fathers of their country, as time proved, "did not know their man." Had they done so, they would have known in advance that a mercurial Frenchman would never attempt to satisfy his soul with acute angles of old Babylon revived through the arid and level lengths of Philadelphia.

The man who planned the Capital of the United States not for the present but for all time, was Peter Charles L'Enfant, born in France in 1755. He was a lieutenant in the French provincial forces, and with others of his countrymen was early drawn to these shores by the magnetism of a new people, and the promise of a new land. He offered his services to the revolutionary army as an engineer, in 1777, and was appointed captain of engineers February 18, 1778. After being wounded at the siege of Savannah, he was promoted to major of engineers, and served near the person of Washington. Probably at that time there was no man in America who possessed so much genius and art-culture in the same directions as Major L'Enfant. In a crude land, where nearly every artisan had to be imported from foreign shores, the chief designer and architect surely would have to be. Thus we may conclude at the beginning, it seemed a lucky circumstance to find an engineer for the new city on the spot.

The first public communication extant concerning the laying out of the city of Washington is from the pen of General Washington, dated March 11, 1791. In a letter dated April 30, 1791, he first called it the Federal City. Four months later, without his knowledge, it received

its present name in a letter from the first commissioners, Messrs. Johnson, Stuart, and Carroll, which bears the date of Georgetown, September 9, 1791, to Major L'Enfant, which informs that gentleman that they have agreed that the federal district shall be called The Territory of Columbia, (its present title,) and the federal city the city of Washington, directing him to entitle his map accordingly.

In March, 1791, we find Jefferson addressing Major L'Enfant in these words: "You are desired to proceed to Georgetown, where you will find Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and map of the federal territory. The special object of asking your aid is to have the drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the federal grounds and buildings."

The French genius "proceeded," and behold the result, the city of "magnificent distances," and from the beginning of magnificent intentions,-intentions which almost to the present hour, have called forth only ridicule-because in the slow mills of time their fulfillment has been so long delayed. As Thomas Jefferson wanted the chessboard squares and angles of Philadelphia, L'Enfant used them for the base of the new city, but his genius avenged itself for this outrage on its taste by transversing them with sixteen magnificent avenues, which from that day to this have proved the confusion and the glory of the city. French instinct diamonded the squares of Philadelphia with the broad corsos of Versailles, as Major L'Enfant's map said, "to preserve through the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time."

A copy of the Gazette of the United States, published