In a word, I had no leisure to read or answer the dispatches that were pouring in upon me from all quarters." The radical treatment which the situation called for was aided by a general feeling in Congress that arrangements should be made for the President different from those under the Articles of Confederation.

It had been the practice for the President to keep open house.

Of this custom Washington remarked that it brought the office "in perfect contempt; for the table was considered a public one, and every person, who could get introduced, conceived that he had a right to be invited to it.

This, although the table was always crowded (and with mixed company, and the President considered in no better light than as a _maitre d'hotel_), was in its nature impracticable, and as many offenses given as if no table had been kept." It was important to settle the matter before Mrs.Washington joined him in New York.

Inside of ten days from the time he took the oath of office, he therefore drafted a set of nine queries, copies of which he sent to Jay, Madison, Hamilton, and John Adams, with these sensible remarks: "Many things, which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning, may have great and durable consequences from their having been established at the commencement of a new general government.