While at Greenway Court I had other teachers besides his lordship, for
many Indians, frontier traders, and trappers came to claim food and
shelter, which were never denied them. Often the woods were lighted up
by their fires, and I found it of use, and interesting, to hear what
was said and to learn something of the uncertain ways of the savages.
I heard how the Delawares, Shawnees, and Iroquois had wandered from
the north and taken to the lands about the Ohio, and how the French
protected them and claimed all the country up to the Alleghanies.
To these camps came the rude, lawless traders from Pennsylvania, who
had stories to tell of the Indians and of the French beyond the Ohio.
These men foresaw a war on the frontier when scarce any others did,
and, by their accounts of the fertility of the wide savannas beyond the
Ohio, filled me with desire to explore this rich wilderness. I learned
that already the French had warned the fur-traders to leave and had
driven away their hunters, and when I mentioned this to Lawrence he
said we were not easy folk to drive, and, least of all, Pennsylvania
Quakers, and that there would be trouble, which there was soon enough.
We were on the edge of a struggle in which all the world was to share.
Meanwhile, time went on, and what Lord Fairfax called the “frontier
pot” was boiling.
I was often back at home, sometimes with my mother, or at Belvoir, or
at Mount Vernon, riding to hounds, surveying, and making more than I
needed in the way of money, and enough to keep me in horseflesh and
to give me better clothes, for which I have always had a fancy. Only
in the woods I liked best such dress as our rangers wear, and good
moccasins are the best of foot-gear. But as to clothing, when not in
the woods, I found in myself a liking for a plain genteel dress of
the best, without lace or embroidery. Fine clothes do not make fine
men, and the man must be foolish who has a better opinion of himself
because his clothes are such as the truly judicious and sensible do not
advise.
Until I had money of my own I did not venture much at cards; but now I
played a little, although I was never fond of it, and lost more than I
made. I was more inclined to the game of billiards.
If at times I was in danger of leaning towards the rough ways of the
wilderness, I had the advantage of seeing at Mount Vernon, or at the
homes of the Carters and Lees, or among the Lewises of Warner Hall,
and elsewhere, the older gentry, who were orderly and ceremonious, and
who reminded me anew of his lordship’s lesson as to the value of good
manners.
Sometimes on these great plantations I was employed in surveys, but
at others, as at Shirley and the Corbins’, I was only a guest. I was,
I conceive, unlike the idle young men of some of these houses, for I
was over-grave and cared less for card-playing and hard drinking than
suited them.
I found myself at this time preferring the society of women, who are
always amiably disposed to overlook the shyness of men like myself,
and with whom it is possible to be agreeable without either punch or
tobacco; but racing of horses I always liked, and dancing.
In those days cock-fighting was also to my liking. I remember well,
because it was at Yorktown, a great main of cocks in 1752 between
Gloucester and York for five pistoles each battle, and one hundred the
odd. I was disappointed to leave before it was decided. I saw there a
greater cock-fight in after days.
I recall now that my brother Lawrence once wrote home from Appleby
School that each boy must pay to the master on Easter Tuesday a penny
to provide the school with a cock-fight.
As to the hard drinking of rum and bumbo, Madeira and sangaree, I
never had a head for it, or any liking, nor for the English way of
locking doors until the half were under the table. These things were
not encouraged in the better houses, but sometimes they were not to be
avoided without giving offence. The great war helped to better these
foolish customs, and now they are more rare.
I remember, about this time, to have seen such an occasion on a hot
day in July at L―――― Hall, where I was come to survey a plot of
meadow-land. I arrived about 7 P.M., and I must needs go at once to
sup with a gay company of men, very fine in London clothes. I would
have excused myself to be of the party, but no one would listen to
me, and, although dusty and tired, I was pulled in whether I would
or not. We had a great supper, and Madeira wine, and much rum punch,
with wine-glasses which had no stands or bottoms and must, therefore,
be kept in the hand until emptied. When it became very warm, negroes
were sent for to fan us and to keep off the flies. At last there was
a dispute as to gamecocks, and two were fetched in, very sleepy, and
set on the table to fight, which they were little of a mind to, but
were urged until feathers and blood were all over the table. When songs
were sung, and most very drunk, and the King toasted, I slipped away,
and would have got out the door, but found it locked. Being unable
to escape, I was forced to return to the table. At last a lighted
candle having been set before each guest, our host called on us to
rise, and when he cried out his toast, “The Ladies, God bless them!”
each gentleman, having drained his glass, used it to extinguish the
candle-light set before him. It seemed to me a strange custom. I took
advantage of the darkness to get out of an open window, and was pursued
by two or three, who fell on the way, so that I got back to the house
and to bed, liking none of it. But now all this is much amended, and
there is more moderation in drinking, but still too much of this evil
custom.
I am led here to remark that in the War of Independency many officers
who were otherwise competent failed because of drunkenness, and,
indeed, at Germantown this was one cause of our losing the battle.
When it became needful after St. Clair’s defeat in 1791 to appoint
general officers, I furnished my cabinet with a statement of the names
and characters of such officers as, having served under me, I knew
should be considered. As concerned most of them, I found it well to
state whether or not they were addicted to spirits, so common was this
practice.
It seems very remarkable that so few gentlemen should have foreseen
what was plain to the trappers and dealers in furs. All of the Ohio
country was claimed by both French and English. The Indians, although
cheated and made drunk, were still in possession of the woods they
considered to be their own. Virginia claimed what Pennsylvania, and
even Connecticut, said was theirs; Pennsylvania was reaping the only
harvest of the wilderness, of the value of some fifty thousand pounds
a year, the trade in furs; last of all, in 1749, some enterprising
gentlemen in England and Virginia planned the Ohio Company, meaning to
colonize even north of the Ohio.
When Mr. Thomas Lee, president of the council, died, my brother
Lawrence became the head of the Ohio Company, and all of this, as I
now see, had much to do with the next change in my life. I find it
pleasant again to dwell here on the good sense and liberal spirit of my
brother, who, had his life been spared, would surely have been chosen
to do that which has fallen to me. His character is well seen in his
desire that the Dutch from Pennsylvania, whom he invited as settlers,
being dissenters and having come into the jurisdiction of Virginia,
should not be forced to pay parish rates and support clergymen of the
Church of England, as all dissenters were obliged to do. He urged
that restraints of conscience were cruel, and injurious to the country
imposing them, and he wrote:
I may quote as example England, Holland, and Prussia, and, much
more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful
liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who
considers the short time it has been settled, whereas Virginia
has increased by slow degrees, although much older.
There, on our borders, as Lord Fairfax said, was much powder, and only
one spark needed to set it off. Meanwhile Mr. Gist set out to survey
the grant of the Ohio Company, on the south side of the Ohio River, all
of which was greatly to concern my life.
Virginia and Pennsylvania were, at that time, much stirred up by the
hostile threats of France, and efforts began to be made to prepare for
hostilities on the frontier. About this time, but the exact date I fail
to recall, my brother Lawrence abandoned all concern in the military
line of life, and arranged that his place of major in the militia
should be given up to me, and that I should also take his position as
district adjutant.