His resolution never again to appear in the busy scenes of political life, though believed by himself, and by his bosom friends, to be unalterable, could not render him indifferent to those measures on which the prosperity of his country essentially depended.
To a person looking beyond the present moment, it was only necessary to glance over the map of the United States, to be impressed with the importance of connecting the western with the eastern territory, by facilitating the means of intercourse between them.

To this subject, the attention of General Washington had been directed in the early part of his life.

While the American states were yet British colonies, he had obtained the passage of a bill for opening the Potomac so as to render it navigable from tide water to Wills creek.[21] The river James had also been comprehended in this plan; and he had triumphed so far over the opposition produced by local interests and prejudices, that the business was in a train which promised success, when the revolutionary war diverted the attention of its patrons, and of all America, from internal improvements to the still greater objects of liberty and independence.

As that war approached its termination, subjects which for a time had yielded their pretensions to consideration, reclaimed that place to which their real magnitude entitled them; and internal navigation again attracted the attention of the wise and thinking part of society.

Accustomed to contemplate America as his country, and to consider with solicitude the interests of the whole, Washington now took a more enlarged view of the advantages to be derived from opening both the eastern and the western waters; and for this, as well as for other purposes, after peace had been proclaimed, he traversed the western parts of New England and New York.