CHAPTER them by the State of New York, they continued to draw XLVIII. rations from the United States. 1788. The question of the seat of the federal government, when raised in the Convention by which the new Constitution had been framed, being found very unmanageable, had been left for the new government to settle. An earnest effort was made to forestall that question―ratifications of the Constitution by nine states having been laid before Congress-by fixing upon Philadelphia as the place for organizing under the new Constitution. But Sept. 13. this attempt failed, and the resolution, as adopted, appointed the first Wednesday of January for the choice of presidential electors, the first Wednesday of February for the election of president and vice-president, the first Wednesday, the fourth, of March as the time, and "the present seat of Congress," New York, as the place, for the organization of government under the new Constitution. 1789. Washington received the unanimous vote of the colleges, and became president elect. The next highest number was given for John Adams, who thus became entitled to the place of vice-president. Senators and representatives, under the new Constitution, were also chosen in the eleven ratifying states. The dying embers of the Continental Congress, barely kept alive for some months by the occasional attendance of one or two delegates, as the day approached for the new March 3. system to be organized, quietly went out without note or observation. History knows few bodies so remarkable. The Long Parliament of Charles I., the French National Assembly, are alone to be compared with it. Coming together, in the first instance, a mere collection of consulting delegates, the Continental Congress had boldly seized the reins of power, assumed the leadership of the insurgent states, issued bills of credit, raised armies, de XLVIII. clared independence, negotiated foreign treaties, carried CHAPTER the nation through an eight years' war; finally, had extorted from the proud and powerful mother country an 1789. acknowledgment of the sovereign authority so daringly assumed and so indomitably maintained. But this brilliant career had been as short as it was glorious. The decline had commenced even in the midst of the war. Exhausted by such extraordinary efforts smitten with the curse of poverty, their paper money first depreciating and then repudiated, overwhelmed with debts which they could not pay, pensioners on the bounty of France, insulted by mutineers, scouted at by the public creditors, unable to fulfill the treaties they had made, bearded and encroached upon by the state authorities, issuing fruitless requisitions which they had no power to enforce, vainly begging for additional authority which the states refused to grant, thrown more and more into the shade by the very contrast of former power-the Continental Congress sunk fast into decrepitude and contempt. Feeble is the sentiment of political gratitude! Debts of that sort are commonly left for posterity to pay. While all eyes were turned-some with doubt and some with apprehension, but the greater part with hope and confidence-toward the ample authority vested in the new government now about to be organized, not one respectful word seems to have been uttered, not a single reverential regret to have been dropped over the fallen greatness of the exhausted and expiring Continental Congress. AUTHORITIES. Antiquitates Americanæ, sive Scripto- | abridged, in Purchas (his Pilgrims), part res Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America. Edidit Societas Regia Antiquariorum Septentrionalium. 4to, 1837. Peter Martyr, De Novo Orbe Decades Octo. Voyages of Columbus, Americus, and Magellan in Navarrete. (Collection de los Viages y Descubrimientos que Hiceron por mar los Españoles des de fines del siglo xv.) Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, with other original Documents relating to his four Voyages. Translated by R. H. Major. Published by the Hackluyt Society. Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, with a Re-view of the History of Maritime Discovery. [By Richard Biddle.] Letter of the Venetian Embassador in Portugal, dated October 19, 1501, describing Cortereal's Voyage (In Paesi novamente retrovate et Novo Mundo da Alberico [Americo?] Vesputio Florentino intitulato). Notices of early French Voyages in l'Escarbot and Charlevoix (see below). Verrazzani's Letter to Francis I., in Ramusio (Delle Navigatione and Viaggi Racolte), tom. iii.; in Hackluyt (The principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation, and, in some few places where they have not been, of Strangers), vol. iii.; and in New York Historical Collections, series first, vol. i.; series second, vol. i. Thevet, Singularites de la France Antarctique, autrement nominée l'Amerique. Naufragios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeca de Vaca y Relation de la Jonarda qui hizo a la Florida con Panfilo de Narvaez, in Barchia (Historiadores Primativos de los Indias Occidentales), tom. i.; Italian version in Ramusio, tom. iii.; English version, ii., book viii.; French version, in Terneux. Compans (Voyages, Relations, et Memoires origineaux, pour servir a l'Histoire de la Decouverte de l'Amerique). Voyages of Cartier, in Ramusio, tom. iii., and Hackluyt, vol. iii. (The French original seems to be lost.) Voyage of Hore to Newfoundland, in Hackluyt, vol. iii. Voyage of Robertval, in Hackluyt, vol. iii. Narrative of De Soto's Expedition, by a Portuguese gentleman of Elvas, one of the company. Translated by Hackluyt (see Supplement to Hackluyt). Abridged in Purchas, part ii., book viii. (The original seems to be lost.) Biedma, Relation de ce qui arriva pendans le Voyage du Capitaine Soto, et Details sur la nature de Pays qu'il parcourut. French version from the original Spanish manuscript, in Terneux-Compans (Voyages, Relations, et Memoires origineaux. Second series. Recueil de Pieces sur la Florida). Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en los Islos y Tierra Firma de Mar Oceano, 1492-1553. English translation by Stevens. Anderson, Historical and Chronological Deduction of the History of Commerce. 4 vols. 4to. Life of De Soto, in Sparks's American Biography. Relation of the Friar Marcos de Niza, and Letters of the Viceroy Mendoza and of Vasquez Coronado to Charles V. Italian, English, and French versions in Ramusio, vol. iii.; Hackluyt, vol. iii.; Terneux-Compans-Appendix to Castaneda. Castaneda, Relation du Voyage de Cibola, entrepris en 1540, par Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. French version from the original Spanish manuscript, in Terneux-Compans, Voyages, Relations, &c. Jamarillo, Relation du Voyage fait sur les ordres du General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. French version from the original Spanish, in Terneux-Compans. Voyage of Ulloa for the Discovery of California. (In Ramusio, vol. iii.; Hackluyt, vol. iii.) Voyage of Alarchon. (Italian, English, and French versions as above.) Vanegas, Noticia de la California. 2 vols. Gallatin, Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America. (Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. ii.) Transactions of the American Ethnological Society. 2 vols. Heckewelder, History of the Indian Nations. (Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, vol. i.) Roger Williams, Key into the Languages of the Indians; together with brief Observations on the Customs, Manners, Worship, &c., of the foresaid Natives. 1642. (Reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. iii.) Eliot, Indian Grammar begun. (Reprint ed, with notes and introduction, by Pickering, in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. xviii.) Adair, History of the American Indians, particularly those adjoining the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia (fruits of a forty years' residence among them), 1775. Carver, Travels through the Interior of North America in the Years 1766-68. Long, Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader, describing the Manners and Customs of the North American Indians; to which is added a Vocabulary of the Chippeway Language, and a Table showing the Analogy of the Algonkin and Chippeway Languages. 1791, 4to. M'Kinney, History of the Indian Tribes of North America. Drake, Biography and History of the Indians of America. Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. 2 vols. Costumes of the Aborigines of America. New York, 1841, from De Bry. Priest, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West. Bradford, American Antiquities, with Researches into the Origin and History> of the Red Race. Delafield, Inquiry into the Origin of the Antiquities of North America. Atwater, Antiquities of the State of Zeisberger, Indian Grammar, edited by Ohio. (Transactions of the American AnDu Ponceau. Edwards, Observations on the Language of the Mohegan Indians. (Reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. xx.) Cotton, Vocabulary of the Massachu setts (Natick) Indian Language. (Reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. xxii.) Papers on the Indian Languages, in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vols. ix. and x. Correspondence of Du Ponceau and Heckewelder on the Indian Languages. (Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, vol. i.) Articles on the Indian Languages in the N. Amer. Review, Nos. 50, 59, 60, and 96. Charlevoix, Journal Historique d'un Voyage dans l'Amerique Septentrionale, 1720 21. tiquarian Society, vol. i.) Morton, Crania Americana; or, a Comparative View of the Skulls of various aboriginal Nations of North and South America. Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. (Smithsonian Transactions, vol. i.) Bazanier, Histoire notable de la Florida Continant les trois Voyages faits en icelle en 1562, 1564, et 1565, descrite par la Capitaine Laudonière, plus un quatrième fait par la Capitaine Gourges, 1566, Voyages of Ribault, Laudonière, and Gourges. (Translations from Bazanier.) Also, Voyages of Hawkins, in Hackluyt, vol. iii. Le Moyne de Morgues. Bevis Narratio eorum quæ in Florida Gallis acciderant secunda navigatione in illum duce Laudonière. Addita figuræ et incolorem icones. Latin version, from the French, in De Bry |