He did not meet Washington on his arrival,
and Washington thereupon did not dine with the governor as he had
agreed to do. It looked a little stormy. Here was evidently a man with
some new views as to the sovereignty of States and the standing of the
union of States. It might have done for Governor Hancock to allow the
President of Congress to pass out of Massachusetts without seeing its
governor, and thereby learn a valuable lesson, but it would never
do to have such a thing happen in the case of George Washington, no
matter what office he might hold. A little after noon on Sunday,
October 26, therefore, the governor wrote a note to the President,
apologizing for not calling before, and asking if he might call
in half an hour, even though it was at the hazard of his health.
Washington answered at once, expressing his pleasure at the prospect
of seeing his excellency, but begging him, with a touch of irony, not
to do anything to endanger his health. So in half an hour Hancock
appeared. Picturesque, even if defeated, he was borne up-stairs on
men's shoulders, swathed in flannels, and then and there made his
call. The old house in Boston where this happened has had since then a
series of successors, but the ground on which it stood has been duly
remembered and commemorated. It is a more important spot than we are
wont to think; for there it was settled, on that autumn Sunday, that
the idea that the States were able to own and to bully the Union they
had formed was dead, and that the President of the new United States
was henceforth to be regarded as the official superior of every
governor in the land.
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