Excerpt from The Diary of George Washington, From 1789 to 1791: Embracing the Opening of the First Congress, and His Tours Through New England, Long Island, and the Southern States, Together With His Journal of a Tour to the Ohio, in 1753

There is a continual and rapidly growing desire in the hearts of Americans to know more and more of the life and character of Washington, in all its minute details. We listen with the most eager attention to the words of revered men (now so few) who have seen the father or his country; and the memory receives these narratives so perfectly, that, amid the thousand other impressions, they are never effaced. Fortunately for posterity, Washington was eminently a man of method. He was careful about small things as well as great; and it was his custom, from early years, to make a record of the events of his daily life, for future reference. This habit he continued until the close of his life; and these notes, kept in books of convenient size for carrying in the pocket, furnish some of the most interest ing pictures of the habits and modes of thinking of the beloved Hero and Sage, that have come down to us. Many of them have disappeared, and are doubtless lost forever. Like the Sibylline leaves, they are becoming more precious as their numbers decrease; and we ought to take special care that the contents of those that remain shall not be lost. To do this, the agency of the printing-press must be evoked in multiplying copies, in numbers sufficient to guarantee the preservation of the precious words.

The Diaries printed in the following pages, constitute some of the most important of Washington's private records, being made while he and his compatriots were arranging and putting in motion the machinery of our federal government. They are comprised in two little volumes, numbered respectively, 13, and 14. They are oblong in form, about four inches in width, and six inches in length, and contain from sixty to eighty leaves.

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