Joshua Brookes' Report on Jefferson on Washington

Numerous times I've reproduced the quotation from Thomas Jefferson where he notes that both George Washington and G. Morris were not believers in presumably some orthodox version of the Christian faith.

I've never (from what I remember) reproduced this from one Joshua Brookes. It's not from Jefferson's hand, but rather an eyewitness account from a personal meeting between Jefferson and Brookes. Below are the remarks that Brookes recorded Jefferson saying:

George Washington is a hard master, very severe, a hard husband, a hard father, a hard governor. From his childhood he always ruled and ruled severely. He was first brought up to govern slaves, he then governed an army, then a nation. He thinks hard of all, is despotic in every respect, he mistrusts every man, thinks every man a rogue and nothing but severity will do. He has no idea of people being left to themselves to act; he thinks that they cannot think and that they ought only to obey. As I lived near him and saw him every day, I thought I knew what was in his mind at that time, but afterwards I found that ideas were there that I had no conception of. If he had died when Congress met in New York, he would have been the greatest man that ever lived, but he is now losing his reputation daily. He is not the man he was, else he would not allow himself to be led as he does, or give his sanction to things he does sanction. He has divines constantly about him because he thinks it right to keep up appearances but is an unbeliever.