still the scene which surrounded me—the metropolis of a great nation in its first stage from a sylvan state—was strikingly singular. I thought it the more so, as the accounts which I had received of Washington while at Philadelphia, and the plan which I had seen hung up in the dining-room at Bladensburg, had prepared me for something rather more advanced. Looking from where I now stood, I saw on every side a thick wood pierced with avenues in a more or less perfect state."
Sometime before this, and in answer to an
advertisement by the Commissioners, James
Hoban, an Irish architect, then acting as supervising
architect of the Capitol, had submitted
plans for a "President's House," and
they had been accepted. Inasmuch as the Act
of Congress creating the District decreed that
the houses for Congress and the President
should be ready for occupancy by the year
1800, the work on both was now carried forward
vigorously. Washington, retiring to his
home at Mount Vernon at the close of his
second term in 1797, gave over the care of the
Federal city to his successor, John Adams.
President Adams first appointed a new architect
for the Capitol, Stephen Hallett, who
resigned after holding the position for one
year. George Hadfield, an Englishman, next
appointed, resigned in 1798, and left James
