Yet I would wish any thing and every thing essayed to prevent the effusion of blood, and to avert the humiliating and contemptible figure we are about to make in the annals of mankind!" Earnestly as General Washington wished success to the experiment about to be made, he could not surrender his objections to the step its friends urged him to take, without the most serious consideration.

In addition to that which grew out of his connexion with the Cincinnati, and to the reluctance with which he could permit himself to be drawn, on any occasion, into a political station, there were others which could not be disregarded.

A convention, not originating in a recommendation of congress, was deemed by many an illegitimate meeting; and as the New England states had neglected the invitation to appear by their representatives at Annapolis, there was reason to apprehend they might be equally inattentive to the request now made them to assemble at Philadelphia.

To appear in a public character, for a purpose not generally deemed of the utmost importance, would not only be unpleasant to himself, but might diminish his capacity to be useful on occasions which subsequent events might produce.

"If," said he in a private letter to a military friend, "this second attempt to convene the states for the purposes proposed by the report of the partial representation at Annapolis in September, should also prove abortive, it may be considered as unequivocal evidence that the states are not likely to agree on any general measure which is to pervade the union, and of course, that there is an end of the federal government.
The states which make this last dying essay to avoid this misfortune would be mortified at the issue, and their deputies would return home chagrined at their ill success and disappointment.