European courts were kept up.  The factotum of the President signed himself as “Steward of the Household,” while Washington himself rode to church in a coach and six, attended by outriders.  Great functionaries were called “Most Honorable,” and their wives were addressed as “Lady” So-and-So.  The most confidential ministers dared not assume any familiarity with the President.  He was not addressed as “Mr. President,” but as “Your Excellency,” and even that title was too democratic for the taste of John Adams, who thought it lowered the president to the level of a governor of Bermuda, or one of his own secretaries.

Only four men constituted the Cabinet of Washington; but the public business was inconsiderable compared with these times, and Jefferson in the State Department had only four clerks under him.  Still, he was a very busy man, as many questions of importance had to be settled.  “We are in a wilderness without a footstep to guide us,” wrote Madison to Jefferson in reference to Congress.  And it applied to the executive government as well as to Congress.  Neither the Executive nor the Legislature had precedents to guide them, and everything was in a tangle; there was scarcely any money in the country, and still less in the treasury.  Even the President, one of the richest men in the country, if not the richest, had to raise money at two per cent a month to enable his “steward of the household” to pay his grocer’s bills,—­and all the members of his Cabinet had to sacrifice their private interests in accepting their new positions.

The head of a department was not so great a personage, in reality, as at the present day, and yet very few men were capable of performing the duties of their position.  Probably Alexander Hamilton was the only man in the country then fit to be Secretary of the Treasury, and Jefferson the only man available to be Secretary of State, since Adams was in the vice-presidential chair; and these two men Washington was obliged to retain, in spite of their mutual hostilities and total disagreement on almost every subject presented to their consideration.  In nothing were the patience, the patriotism, and the magnanimity of Washington more apparent than in his treatment of these two rival statesmen, perpetually striving to conciliate them, hopelessly attempting to mix oil with water,—­the one an aristocratic financier, who saw national prosperity in banks and money and central power; the other a democratic land-owner, who looked upon agriculture as the highest interest, and universal suffrage as the only safe policy for a republic.  Between the theories of these rivals, Washington had to steer the ship of state, originating nothing himself, yet singularly clear in his judgment both of men and measures.  He was governed equally by the advice of both, since they worked in different spheres, and were not rivals in the sense that Burr and Jefferson were,—­that is, leaders in the same party and competitors for the same office.