I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character it should be in terms like these. His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, tho’ not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon or Locke;...

I am sensible how far I should fall short of effecting all the reformation which reason would suggest and experience approve, were I free to do whatever I thought best. but when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions...