LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Lewis Willis, of Fredericksburg, who was at school with Washington,
used to speak of him as an unusually studious and industrious boy, but
recalled one occasion when he distinguished himself and surprised his
schoolmates by "romping with one of the largest girls."[1] Half a
century later, when the days of romping were long over and gone, a
gentleman writing of a Mrs. Hartley, whom Washington much admired,
said that the general always liked a fine woman.[2] It is certain that
from romping he passed rapidly to more serious forms of expressing
regard, for by the time he was fourteen he had fallen deeply in love
with Mary Bland of Westmoreland, whom he calls his "Lowland Beauty,"
and to whom he wrote various copies of verses, preserved amid the
notes of surveys, in his diary for 1747-48. The old tradition
identified the "Lowland Beauty" with Miss Lucy Grymes, perhaps
correctly, and there are drafts of letters addressed to "Dear Sally,"
which suggest that the mistake in identification might have arisen
from the fact that there were several ladies who answered to that
description. In the following sentence from the draft of a letter to a
masculine sympathizer, also preserved in the tell-tale diary of 1748,
there is certainly an indication that the constancy of the lover was
not perfect. "Dear Friend Robin," he wrote: "My place of residence at
present is at his Lordship's, where I might, were my heart disengaged,
pass my time very pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young lady
in the same house, Colonel George Fairfax's wife's sister. But that
only adds fuel to the fire, as being often and unavoidably in company
with her revives my former passion for your Lowland Beauty; whereas
were I to live more retired from young women, I might in some measure
alleviate my sorrow by burying that chaste and troublesome passion in
oblivion; I am very well assured that this will be the only antidote
or remedy." Our gloomy young gentleman, however, did not take to
solitude to cure the pangs of despised love, but preceded to calm his
spirits by the society of this same sister-in-law of George Fairfax,
Miss Mary Cary. One "Lowland Beauty," Lucy Grymes, married Henry Lee,
and became the mother of "Legion Harry," a favorite officer and friend
of Washington in the Revolution, and the grandmother of Robert E. Lee,
the great soldier of the Southern Confederacy. The affair with Miss
Cary went on apparently for some years, fitfully pursued in the
intervals of war and Indian fighting, and interrupted also by matters
of a more tender nature. The first diversion occurred about 1752, when
we find Washington writing to William Fauntleroy, at Richmond, that he
proposed to come to his house to see his sister, Miss Betsy, and that
he hoped for a revocation of her former cruel sentence.[3] Miss Betsy,
however, seems to have been obdurate, and we hear no more of love
affairs until much later, and then in connection with matters of a
graver sort.
[Footnote 1: Quoted from the Willis MS. by Mr. Conway, in _Magazine of
American History_, March, 1887, p. 196.]
[Footnote 2: _Magazine of American History_, i. 324.]
[Footnote 3: _Historical Magazine_, 3d series, 1873. Letter
communicated by Fitzhugh Lee.]
[Illustration: Mary Cary]
When Captain Dagworthy, commanding thirty men in the Maryland
service, undertook in virtue of a king's commission to outrank the
commander-in-chief of the Virginian forces, Washington made up his
mind that he would have this question at least finally and properly
settled. So, as has been said, he went to Boston, saw Governor
Shirley, and had the dispute determined in his own favor. He made
the journey on horseback, and had with him two of his aides and two
servants. An old letter, luckily preserved, tells us how he looked,
for it contains orders to his London agents for various articles, sent
for perhaps in anticipation of this very expedition. In Braddock's
campaign the young surveyor and frontier soldier had been thrown among
a party of dashing, handsomely equipped officers fresh from London,
and their appearance had engaged his careful attention. Washington was
a thoroughly simple man in all ways, but he was also a man of
taste and a lover of military discipline. He had a keen sense of
appropriateness, a valuable faculty which stood him in good stead in
grave as well as trivial matters all through his career, and which in
his youth came out most strongly in the matter of manners and personal
appearance. He was a handsome man, and liked to be well dressed and to
have everything about himself or his servants of the best. Yet he
was not a mere imitator of fashions or devoted to fine clothes. The
American leggins and fringed hunting-shirt had a strong hold on his
affections, and he introduced them into Forbes's army, and again into
the army of the Revolution, as the best uniform for the backwoods
fighters. But he learned with Braddock that the dress of parade has as
real military value as that of service, and when he traveled northward
to settle about Captain Dagworthy, he felt justly that he now was
going on parade for the first time as the representative of his troops
and his colony. Therefore with excellent sense he dressed as befitted
the occasion, and at the same time gratified his own taste.
Thanks to these precautions, the little cavalcade that left Virginia
on February 4, 1756, must have looked brilliant enough as they rode
away through the dark woods. First came the colonel, mounted of course
on the finest of animals, for he loved and understood horses from the
time when he rode bareback in the pasture to those later days when he
acted as judge at a horse-race and saw his own pet colt "Magnolia"
beaten. In this expedition he wore, of course, his uniform of buff
and blue, with a white and scarlet cloak over his shoulders, and a
sword-knot of red and gold. His "horse furniture" was of the best
London make, trimmed with "livery lace," and the Washington arms were
engraved upon the housings. Close by his side rode his two aides,
likewise in buff and blue, and behind came his servants, dressed in
the Washington colors of white and scarlet and wearing hats laced with
silver. Thus accoutred, they all rode on together to the North.
The colonel's fame had gone before him, for the hero of Braddock's
stricken field and the commander of the Virginian forces was known by
reputation throughout the colonies. Every door flew open to him as he
passed, and every one was delighted to welcome the young soldier. He
was dined and wined and fêted in Philadelphia, and again in New York,
where he fell in love at apparently short notice with the heiress Mary
Philipse, the sister-in-law of his friend Beverly Robinson. Tearing
himself away from these attractions he pushed on to Boston, then
the most important city on the continent, and the head-quarters of
Shirley, the commander-in-chief. The little New England capital had at
that time a society which, rich for those days, was relieved from its
Puritan sombreness by the gayety and life brought in by the royal
officers. Here Washington lingered ten days, talking war and politics
with the governor, visiting in state the "great and general court,"
dancing every night at some ball, dining with and being fêted by the
magnates of the town. His business done, he returned to New York,
tarried there awhile for the sake of the fair dame, but came to no
conclusions, and then, like the soldier in the song, he gave his
bridle-rein a shake and rode away again to the South, and to the
harassed and ravaged frontier of Virginia.
How much this little interlude, pushed into a corner as it has been by
the dignity of history,--how much it tells of the real man! How the
statuesque myth and the priggish myth and the dull and solemn myth
melt away before it! Wise and strong, a bearer of heavy responsibility
beyond his years, daring in fight and sober in judgment, we have here
the other and the more human side of Washington. One loves to picture
that gallant, generous, youthful figure, brilliant in color and manly
in form, riding gayly on from one little colonial town to another,
feasting, dancing, courting, and making merry. For him the myrtle and
ivy were entwined with the laurel, and fame was sweetened by youth. He
was righteously ready to draw from life all the good things which
fate and fortune then smiling upon him could offer, and he took his
pleasure frankly, with an honest heart.
We know that he succeeded in his mission and put the captain of thirty
men in his proper place, but no one now can tell how deeply he was
affected by the charms of Miss Philipse. The only certain fact is that
he was able not long after to console himself very effectually. Riding
away from Mount Vernon once more, in the spring of 1758, this time to
Williamsburg with dispatches, he stopped at William's Ferry to dine
with his friend Major Chamberlayne, and there he met Martha Dandridge,
the widow of Daniel Parke Custis. She was young, pretty, intelligent,
and an heiress, and her society seemed to attract the young soldier.
The afternoon wore away, the horses came to the door at the appointed
time, and after being walked back and forth for some hours were
returned to the stable. The sun went down, and still the colonel
lingered. The next morning he rode away with his dispatches, but on
his return he paused at the White House, the home of Mrs. Custis, and
then and there plighted his troth with the charming widow. The wooing
was brief and decisive, and the successful lover departed for the
camp, to feel more keenly than ever the delays of the British officers
and the shortcomings of the colonial government. As soon as Fort
Duquesne had fallen he hurried home, resigned his commission in the
last week of December, and was married on January 6, 1759. It was a
brilliant wedding party which assembled on that winter day in the
little church near the White House. There were gathered Francis
Fauquier, the gay, free-thinking, high-living governor, gorgeous in
scarlet and gold; British officers, redcoated and gold-laced, and all
the neighboring gentry in the handsomest clothes that London credit
could furnish. The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and
brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears; while the bridegroom
appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold
buckles at his knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony the bride
was taken home in a coach and six, her husband riding beside her,
mounted on a splendid horse and followed by all the gentlemen of the
party.
[Illustration: Mary Morris born Mary Philipse]
The sunshine and glitter of the wedding-day must have appeared to
Washington deeply appropriate, for he certainly seemed to have all
that heart of man could desire. Just twenty-seven, in the first flush
of young manhood, keen of sense and yet wise in experience, life
must have looked very fair and smiling. He had left the army with a
well-earned fame, and had come home to take the wife of his choice and
enjoy the good-will and respect of all men. While away on his last
campaign he had been elected a member of the House of Burgesses, and
when he took his seat on removing to Williamsburg, three months after
his marriage, Mr. Robinson, the speaker, thanked him publicly in
eloquent words for his services to the country. Washington rose to
reply, but he was so utterly unable to talk about himself that he
stood before the House stammering and blushing, until the speaker
said, "Sit down, Mr. Washington; your modesty equals your valor, and
that surpasses the power of any language I possess." It is an old
story, and as graceful as it is old, but it was all very grateful to
Washington, especially as the words of the speaker bodied forth the
feelings of Virginia. Such an atmosphere, filled with deserved respect
and praise, was pleasant to begin with, and then he had everything
else too.
He not only continued to sit in the House year after year and help to
rule Virginia, but he served on the church vestry, and so held in his
hands the reins of local government. He had married a charming
woman, simple, straightforward, and sympathetic, free from gossip or
pretense, and as capable in practical matters as he was himself. By
right of birth a member of the Virginian aristocracy, he had widened
and strengthened his connections through his wife. A man of handsome
property by the death of Lawrence Washington's daughter, he had become
by his marriage one of the richest men of the country. Acknowledged
to be the first soldier on the continent, respected and trusted in
public, successful and happy in private life, he had attained before
he was thirty to all that Virginia could give of wealth, prosperity,
and honor, a fact of which he was well aware, for there never breathed
a man more wisely contented than George Washington at this period.
He made his home at Mount Vernon, adding many acres to the estate, and
giving to it his best attention. It is needless to say that he was
successful, for that was the ease with everything he undertook. He
loved country life, and he was the best and most prosperous planter in
Virginia, which was really a more difficult achievement than the mere
statement implies. Genuinely profitable farming in Virginia was not
common, for the general system was a bad one. A single great staple,
easily produced by the reckless exhaustion of land, and varying widely
in the annual value of crops, bred improvidence and speculation.
Everything was bought upon long credits, given by the London
merchants, and this, too, contributed largely to carelessness and
waste. The chronic state of a planter in a business way was one of
debt, and the lack of capital made his conduct of affairs extravagant
and loose. With all his care and method Washington himself was often
pinched for ready money, and it was only by his thoroughness and
foresight that he prospered and made money while so many of his
neighbors struggled with debt and lived on in easy luxury, not knowing
what the morrow might bring forth.
A far more serious trouble than bad business methods was one which was
little heeded at the moment, but which really lay at the foundation of
the whole system of society and business. This was the character of
the labor by which the plantations were worked. Slave labor is well
known now to be the most expensive and the worst form of labor that
can be employed. In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, its
evils were not appreciated, either from an economical or a moral point
of view. This is not the place to discuss the subject of African
slavery in America. But it is important to know Washington's opinions
in regard to an institution which was destined to have such a powerful
influence upon the country, and it seems most appropriate to consider
those opinions at the moment when slaves became a practical factor in
his life as a Virginian planter.
Washington accepted the system as he found it, as most men accept the
social arrangements to which they are born. He grew up in a world
where slavery had always existed, and where its rightfulness had never
been questioned. Being on the frontier, occupied with surveying and
with war, he never had occasion to really consider the matter at all
until he found himself at the head of large estates, with his own
prosperity dependent on the labor of slaves. The first practical
question, therefore, was how to employ this labor to the best
advantage. A man of his clear perceptions soon discovered the defects
of the system, and he gave great attention to feeding and clothing
his slaves, and to their general management. Parkinson[1] says in a
general way that Washington treated his slaves harshly, spoke to them
sharply, and maintained a military discipline, to which he attributed
the General's rare success as a planter. There can be no doubt of
the success, and the military discipline is probably true, but the
statement as to harshness is unsupported by any other authority.
Indeed, Parkinson even contradicts it himself, for he says elsewhere
that Washington never bought or sold a slave, a proof of the highest
and most intelligent humanity; and he adds in his final sketch of the
General's character, that he "was incapable of wrong-doing, but did to
all men as he would they should do to him. Therefore it is not to be
supposed that he would injure the negro." This agrees with what we
learn from all other sources. Humane by nature, he conceived a great
interest and pity for these helpless beings, and treated them with
kindness and forethought. In a word, he was a wise and good master,
as well as a successful one, and the condition of his slaves was
as happy, and their labor as profitable, as was possible to such a
system.
[Footnote 1: _Tour in America_, 1798-1800.]
So the years rolled by; the war came and then the making of the
government, and Washington's thoughts were turned more and more, as
was the case with all the men of his time in that era of change and
of new ideas, to the consideration of human slavery in its moral,
political, and social aspects. To trace the course of his opinions
in detail is needless. It is sufficient to summarize them, for the
results of his reflection and observation are more important than the
processes by which they were reached. Washington became convinced that
the whole system was thoroughly bad, as well as utterly repugnant to
the ideas upon which the Revolution was fought and the government of
the United States founded. With a prescience wonderful for those days
and on that subject, he saw that slavery meant the up-growth in the
United States of two systems so radically hostile, both socially and
economically, that they could lead only to a struggle for political
supremacy, which in its course he feared would imperil the Union. For
this reason he deprecated the introduction of the slavery question
into the debates of the first Congress, because he realized its
character, and he did not believe that the Union or the government
at that early day could bear the strain which in this way would be
produced. At the same time he felt that a right solution must be found
or inconceivable evils would ensue. The inherent and everlasting wrong
of the system made its continuance, to his mind, impossible. While
it existed, he believed that the laws which surrounded it should be
maintained, because he thought that to violate these only added one
wrong to another. He also doubted, as will be seen in a later chapter,
where his conversation with John Bernard is quoted, whether the
negroes could be immediately emancipated with safety either to
themselves or to the whites, in their actual condition of ignorance,
illiteracy, and helplessness. The plan which he favored, and which,
it would seem, was his hope and reliance, was first the checking
of importation, followed by a gradual emancipation, with proper
compensation to the owners and suitable preparation and education for
the slaves. He told the clergymen Asbury and Coke, when they visited
him for that purpose, that he was in favor of emancipation, and was
ready to write a letter to the assembly to that effect.[1] He wished
fervently that such a spirit might take possession of the people of
the country, but he wrote to Lafayette that he despaired of seeing it.
When he died he did all that lay within his power to impress his views
upon his countrymen by directing that all his slaves should be set
free on the death of his wife. His precepts and his example in this
grave matter went unheeded for many years by the generations which
came after him. But now that slavery is dead, to the joy of all men,
it is well to remember that on this terrible question Washington's
opinions were those of a humane man, impatient of wrong, and of a
noble and far-seeing statesman, watchful of the evils that threatened
his country.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Magazine of American History_, 1880, p. 158.]
[Footnote 2: For some expressions of Washington's opinions on slavery,
see Sparks, viii. 414, ix. 159-163, and x. 224.]
After this digression let us return to the Virginian farmer, whose
mind was not disturbed as yet by thoughts of the destiny of the United
States, or considerations of the rights of man, but who was much
exercised by the task of making an honest income out of his estates.
To do this he grappled with details as firmly as he did with the
general system under which all plantations in that day were carried
on. He understood every branch of farming; he was on the alert for
every improvement; he rose early, worked steadily, gave to everything
his personal supervision, kept his own accounts with wonderful
exactness, and naturally enough his brands of flour went unquestioned
everywhere, his credit was high, and he made money--so far as it
was possible under existing conditions. Like Shakespeare, as Bishop
Blougram has it, he
"Saved money, spent it, owned the worth of things."
He had no fine and senseless disregard for money or the good things of
this world, but on the contrary saw in them not the value attached to
them by vulgar minds, but their true worth. He was a solid, square,
evenly-balanced man in those days, believing that whatever he did was
worth doing well. So he farmed, as he fought and governed, better than
anybody else.
While thus looking after his own estates at home, he went further
afield in search of investments, keeping a shrewd eye on the western
lands, and buying wisely and judiciously whenever he had the
opportunity. He also constituted himself now, as in a later time, the
champion of the soldiers, for whom he had the truest sympathy and
affection, and a large part of the correspondence of this period is
devoted to their claims for the lands granted them by the assembly.
He distinguished carefully among them, however, those who were
undeserving, and to the major of the regiment, who had been excluded
from the public thanks on account of cowardice at the Great Meadows,
he wrote as follows: "Your impertinent letter was delivered to me
yesterday. As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor
would have taken the same language from you personally without letting
you feel some marks of my resentment, I would advise you to be
cautious in writing me a second of the same tenor. But for your
stupidity and sottishness you might have known, by attending to the
public gazette, that you had your full quantity of ten thousand acres
of land allowed you. But suppose you had really fallen short, do you
think your superlative merit entitles you to greater indulgence than
others?... All my concern is that I ever engaged in behalf of so
ungrateful a fellow as you are." The writer of this letter, be it said
in passing, was the man whom Mr. Weems and others tell us was knocked
down before his soldiers, and then apologized to his assailant. It may
be suspected that it was well for the recipient of this letter that
he did not have a personal interview with its author, and it may
be doubted if he ever sought one subsequently. Just, generous, and
magnanimous to an extraordinary degree, Washington had a dangerous
temper, held well under control, but blazing out now and again against
injustice, insolence, or oppression. He was a peaceful man, leading a
peaceful life, but the fighting spirit only slumbered, and it
would break out at wrong of any sort, in a way which was extremely
unpleasant and threatening to those who aroused it.
Apart from lands and money and the management of affairs, public and
private, there were many other interests of varied nature which all
had their share of Washington's time and thought. He was a devoted
husband, and gave to his stepchildren the most affectionate care. He
watched over and protected them, and when the daughter died, after a
long and wasting illness, in 1773, he mourned for her as if she
had been his own, with all the tenderness of a deep and reserved
affection. The boy, John Custis, he made his friend and companion from
the beginning, and his letters to the lad and about him are wise and
judicious in the highest degree. He spent much time and thought on the
question of education, and after securing the best instructors took
the boy to New York and entered him at Columbia College in 1773. Young
Custis, however, did not remain there long, for he had fallen in love,
and the following year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not without
some misgivings on the part of Washington, who had observed his ward's
somewhat flighty disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious
thought to his future. At home as abroad he was an undemonstrative
man, but he had abundance of that real affection which labors for
those to whom it goes out more unselfishly and far more effectually
than that which bubbles and boils upon the surface like a shallow,
noisy brook.
From the suggestions that he made in regard to young Custis, it is
evident that Washington valued and respected education, and that he
had that regard for learning for its own sake which always exists
in large measure in every thoughtful man. He read well, even if his
active life prevented his reading much, as we can see by his vigorous
English, and by his occasional allusions to history. From his London
orders we see, too, that everything about his house must have denoted
that its possessor had refinement and taste. His intense sense
of propriety and unfailing instinct for what was appropriate are
everywhere apparent. His dress, his furniture, his harnesses, the
things for the children, all show the same fondness for simplicity,
and yet a constant insistence that everything should be the best of
its kind. We can learn a good deal about any man by the ornaments of
his house, and by the portraits which hang on his walls; for these
dumb things tell us whom among the great men of earth the owner
admires, and indicate the tastes he best loves to gratify. When
Washington first settled with his wife at Mount Vernon, he ordered
from Europe the busts of Alexander the Great, Charles XII. of Sweden,
Julius Cæsar, Frederick of Prussia, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene,
and in addition he asked for statuettes of "two wild beasts." The
combination of soldier and statesman is the predominant admiration,
then comes the reckless and splendid military adventurer, and lastly
wild life and the chase. There is no mistaking the ideas and fancies
of the man who penned this order which has drifted down to us from the
past.
But as Washington's active life was largely out of doors, so too were
his pleasures. He loved the fresh open-air existence of the woods
and fields, and there he found his one great amusement. He shot and
fished, but did not care much for these pursuits, for his hobby was
hunting, which gratified at once his passion for horses and dogs and
his love for the strong excitement of the chase, when dashed with just
enough danger to make it really fascinating. He showed in his sport
the same thoroughness and love of perfection that he displayed in
everything else. His stables were filled with the best horses that
Virginia could furnish. There were the "blooded coach-horses" for Mrs.
Washington's carriage, "Magnolia," a full-blooded Arabian, used by
his owner for the road, the ponies for the children, and finally, the
high-bred hunters Chinkling and Valiant, Ajax and Blueskin, and the
rest, all duly set down in the register in the handwriting of the
master himself. His first visit in the morning was to the stables;
the next to the kennels to inspect and criticise the hounds, also
methodically registered and described, so that we can read the names
of Vulcan and Ringwood, Singer and Truelove, Music and Sweetlips, to
which the Virginian woods once echoed nearly a century and a half ago.
His hounds were the subject of much thought, and were so constantly
and critically drafted as to speed, keenness, and bottom, that when in
full cry they ran so closely bunched that tradition says, in classic
phrase, they could have been covered with a blanket. The hounds met
three times a week in the season, usually at Mount Vernon, sometimes
at Belvoir. They would get off at daybreak, Washington in the midst of
his hounds, splendidly mounted, generally on his favorite Blueskin, a
powerful iron-gray horse of great speed and endurance. He wore a blue
coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, and a velvet cap. Closely
followed by his huntsman and the neighboring gentlemen, with the
ladies, headed, very likely, by Mrs. Washington in a scarlet habit,
he would ride to the appointed covert and throw in. There was no
difficulty in finding, and then away they would go, usually after a
gray fox, sometimes after a big black fox, rarely to be caught. Most
of the country was wild and unfenced, rough in footing, and offering
hard and dangerous going for the horses, but Washington always made it
a rule to stay with his hounds. Cautious or timid riders, if they were
so minded, could gallop along the wood roads with the ladies, and
content themselves with glimpses of the hunt, but the master rode at
the front. The fields, it is to be feared, were sometimes small, but
Washington hunted even if he had only his stepson or was quite alone.
His diaries abound with allusions to the sport. "Went a-hunting with
Jacky Custis, and catched a fox after three hours chase; found it in
the creek." "Mr. Bryan Fairfax, Mr. Grayson, and Phil. Alexander came
home by sunrise. Hunted and catched a fox with these. Lord Fairfax,
his brother, and Colonel Fairfax, all of whom, with Mr. Fairfax and
Mr. Wilson of England, dined here." Again, November 26 and 29, "Hunted
again with the same party." "1768, Jan. 8th. Hunting again with same
company. Started a fox and run him 4 hours. Took the hounds off at
night." "Jan. 15. Shooting." "16. At home all day with cards; it
snowing." "23. Rid to Muddy Hole and directed paths to be cut for
foxhunting." "Feb. 12. Catched 2 foxes." "Feb. 13. Catched 2 more
foxes." "Mar. 2. Catched fox with bob'd tail and cut ears after
7 hours chase, in which most of the dogs were worsted." "Dec. 5.
Fox-hunting with Lord Fairfax and his brother and Colonel Fairfax.
Started a fox and lost it. Dined at Belvoir and returned in the
evening."[1]
[Footnote 1: MS. Diaries in State Department.]
So the entries run on, for he hunted almost every day in the season,
usually with success, but always with persistence. Like all true
sportsmen Washington had a horror of illicit sport of any kind, and
although he shot comparatively little, he was much annoyed by a
vagabond who lurked in the creeks and inlets on his estate, and
slaughtered his canvas-back ducks. Hearing the report of a gun one
morning, he rode through the bushes and saw his poaching friend just
shoving off in a canoe. The rascal raised his gun and covered his
pursuer, whereupon Washington, the cold-blooded and patient person
so familiar in the myths, dashed his horse headlong into the water,
seized the gun, grasped the canoe, and dragging it ashore pulled the
man out of the boat and beat him soundly. If the man had yielded at
once he would probably have got off easily enough, but when he put
Washington's life in imminent peril, the wild fighting spirit flared
up as usual.
The hunting season was of course that of the most lavish hospitality.
There was always a great deal of dining about, but Mount Vernon was
the chief resort, and its doors, ever open, were flung far back when
people came for a meet, or gathered to talk over the events of a good
run. Company was the rule and solitude the exception. When only the
family were at dinner, the fact was written down in the diary with
great care as an unusual event, for Washington was the soul of
hospitality, and although he kept early hours, he loved society and a
houseful of people. Profoundly reserved and silent as to himself,
a lover of solitude so far as his own thoughts and feelings were
concerned, he was far from being a solitary man in the ordinary
acceptation of the word. He liked life and gayety and conversation, he
liked music and dancing or a game of cards when the weather was bad,
and he enjoyed heartily the presence of young people and of his own
friends. So Mount Vernon was always full of guests, and the master
noted in his diary that although he owned more than a hundred cows he
was obliged, nevertheless, to buy butter, which suggests an experience
not unknown to gentlemen farmers of any period, and also that company
was never lacking in that generous, open house overlooking the
Potomac.
Beyond the bounds of his own estate he had also many occupations and
pleasures. He was a member of the House of Burgesses, diligent in his
attention to the work of governing the colony. He was diligent also in
church affairs, and very active in the vestry, which was the seat of
local government in Virginia. We hear of him also as the manager
of lotteries, which were a common form of raising money for local
purposes, in preference to direct taxation. In a word, he was
thoroughly public-spirited, and performed all the small duties which
his position demanded in the same spirit that he afterwards brought
to the command of armies and to the government of the nation. He had
pleasure too, as well as business, away from Mount Vernon. He liked
to go to his neighbors' houses and enjoy their hospitality as they
enjoyed his. We hear of him at the courthouse on court days, where all
the country-side gathered to talk and listen to the lawyers and hear
the news, and when he went to Williamsburg his diary tells us of a
round of dinners, beginning with the governor, of visits to the club,
and of a regular attendance at the theatre whenever actors came to the
little capital. Whether at home or abroad, he took part in all the
serious pursuits, in all the interests, and in every reasonable
pleasure offered by the colony.
Take it for all in all, it was a manly, wholesome, many-sided life. It
kept Washington young and strong, both mentally and physically. When
he was forty he flung the iron bar, at some village sports, to a point
which no competitor could approach. There was no man in all Virginia
who could ride a horse with such a powerful and assured seat.
There was no one who could journey farther on foot, and no man at
Williamsburg who showed at the governor's receptions such a commanding
presence, or who walked with such a strong and elastic step. As with
the body so with the mind. He never rusted. A practical carpenter and
smith, he brought the same quiet intelligence and firm will to the
forging of iron or the felling and sawing of trees that he had
displayed in fighting France. The life of a country gentleman did not
dull or stupefy him, or lead him to gross indulgences. He remained
well-made and athletic, strong and enduring, keen in perception and in
sense, and warm in his feelings and affections. Many men would have
become heavy and useless in these years of quiet country life, but
Washington simply ripened, and, like all slowly maturing men, grew
stronger, abler, and wiser in the happy years of rest and waiting
which intervened between youth and middle age.
Meantime, while the current of daily life flowed on thus gently at
Mount Vernon, the great stream of public events poured by outside. It
ran very calmly at first, after the war, and then with a quickening
murmur, which increased to an ominous roar when the passage of the
Stamp Act became known in America. Washington was always a constant
attendant at the assembly, in which by sheer force of character, and
despite his lack of the talking and debating faculty, he carried more
weight than any other member. He was present on May 29, 1765, when
Patrick Henry introduced his famous resolutions and menaced the king's
government in words which rang through the continent. The resolutions
were adopted, and Washington went home, with many anxious thoughts,
to discuss the political outlook with his friend and neighbor George
Mason, one of the keenest and ablest men in Virginia. The utter
folly of the policy embodied in the Stamp Act struck Washington very
forcibly. With that foresight for which he was so remarkable, he
perceived what scarcely any one else even dreamt of, that persistence
in this course must surely lead to a violent separation from the
mother-country, and it is interesting to note in this, the first
instance when he was called upon to consider a political question of
great magnitude, his clearness of vision and grasp of mind. In what he
wrote there is no trace of the ambitious schemer, no threatening nor
blustering, no undue despondency nor excited hopes. But there is a
calm understanding of all the conditions, an entire freedom from
self-deception, and the power of seeing facts exactly as they were,
which were all characteristic of his intellectual strength, and to
which we shall need to recur again and again.
The repeal of the Stamp Act was received by Washington with sober but
sincere pleasure. He had anticipated "direful" results and "unhappy
consequences" from its enforcement, and he freely said that those who
were instrumental in its repeal had his cordial thanks. He was no
agitator, and had not come forward in this affair, so he now retired
again to Mount Vernon, to his farming and hunting, where he remained,
watching very closely the progress of events. He had marked the
dangerous reservation of the principle in the very act of repeal; he
observed at Boston the gathering strength of what the wise ministers
of George III. called sedition; he noted the arrival of British troops
in the rebellious Puritan town; and he saw plainly enough, looming in
the background, the final appeal to arms. He wrote to Mason (April 5,
1769), that "at a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will
be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American
freedom, something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the
liberty which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of
doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question.
That no man should scruple or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense
of so valuable a blessing is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I would beg
leave to add, should be the last resource, the _dernier ressort_." He
then urged the adoption of the only middle course, non-importation,
but he had not much hope in this expedient, although an honest desire
is evident that it may prove effectual.
When the assembly met in May, they received the new governor, Lord
Botetourt, with much cordiality, and then fell to passing spirited
and sharp-spoken resolutions declaring their own rights and defending
Massachusetts. The result was a dissolution. Thereupon the burgesses
repaired to the Raleigh tavern, where they adopted a set of
non-importation resolutions and formed an association. The resolutions
were offered by Washington, and were the result of his quiet country
talks with Mason. When the moment for action arrived, Washington came
naturally to the front, and then returned quietly to Mount Vernon,
once more to go about his business and watch the threatening political
horizon. Virginia did not live up to this first non-importation
agreement, and formed another a year later. But Washington was not in
the habit of presenting resolutions merely for effect, and there
was nothing of the actor in his composition. His resolutions meant
business, and he lived up to them rigidly himself. Neither tea nor
any of the proscribed articles were allowed in his house. Most of
the leaders did not realize the seriousness of the situation, but
Washington, looking forward with clear and sober gaze, was in grim
earnest, and was fully conscious that when he offered his resolutions
the colony was trying the last peaceful remedy, and that the next step
would be war.
Still he went calmly about his many affairs as usual, and gratified
the old passion for the frontier by a journey to Pittsburgh for the
sake of lands and soldiers' claims, and thence down the Ohio and into
the wilderness with his old friends the trappers and pioneers. He
visited the Indian villages as in the days of the French mission, and
noted in the savages an ominous restlessness, which seemed, like the
flight of birds, to express the dumb instinct of an approaching storm.
The clouds broke away somewhat under the kindly management of Lord
Botetourt, and then gathered again more thickly on the accession of
his successor, Lord Dunmore. With both these gentlemen Washington was
on the most friendly terms. He visited them often, and was consulted
by them, as it behooved them to consult the strongest man within the
limits of their government. Still he waited and watched, and scanned
carefully the news from the North. Before long he heard that
tea-chests were floating in Boston harbor, and then from across the
water came intelligence of the passage of the Port Bill and other
measures destined to crush to earth the little rebel town.
When the Virginia assembly met again, they proceeded to congratulate
the governor on the arrival of Lady Dunmore, and then suddenly, as
all was flowing smoothly along, there came a letter through the
corresponding committee which Washington had helped to establish,
telling of the measures against Boston. Everything else was thrown
aside at once, a vigorous protest was entered on the journal of the
House, and June 1, when the Port Bill was to go into operation, was
appointed a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The first result
was prompt dissolution of the assembly. The next was another meeting
in the long room of the Raleigh tavern, where the Boston bill
was denounced, non-importation renewed, and the committee of
correspondence instructed to take steps for calling a general
congress. Events were beginning to move at last with perilous
rapidity. Washington dined with Lord Dunmore on the evening of that
day, rode with him, and appeared at her ladyship's ball the next
night, for it was not his way to bite his thumb at men from whom he
differed politically, nor to call the motives of his opponents in
question. But when the 1st of June arrived, he noted in his diary that
he fasted all day and attended the appointed services. He always meant
what he said, being of a simple nature, and when he fasted and prayed
there was something ominously earnest about it, something that his
excellency the governor, who liked the society of this agreeable
man and wise counselor, would have done well to consider and draw
conclusions from, and which he probably did not heed at all. He might
well have reflected, as he undoubtedly failed to do, that when men
of the George Washington type fast and pray on account of political
misdoings, it is well for their opponents to look to it carefully.
Meantime Boston had sent forth appeals to form a league among the
colonies, and thereupon another meeting was held in the Raleigh
tavern, and a letter was dispatched advising the burgesses to consider
this matter of a general league and take the sense of their respective
counties. Virginia and Massachusetts had joined hands now, and they
were sweeping the rest of the continent irresistibly forward with
them. As for Washington, he returned to Mount Vernon and at once set
about taking the sense of his county, as he had agreed. Before doing
so he had some correspondence with his old friend Bryan Fairfax. The
Fairfaxes naturally sided with the mother-country, and Bryan was much
distressed by the course of Virginia, and remonstrated strongly, and
at length by letter, against violent measures. Washington replied
to him: "Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian
brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the
right and practice of taxation on us? Does not the uniform conduct of
Parliament for some years past confirm this? Do not all the debates,
especially those just brought to us in the House of Commons, on the
side of government expressly declare that America must be taxed in
aid of the British funds, and that she has no longer resources within
herself? Is there anything to be expected from petitioning after this?
Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of
Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was
demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at?
Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts) for depriving the
Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into
other colonies, or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible
from the nature of the thing that justice can be obtained, convince us
that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry
its point? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the
severest test?" He was prepared, he continued, for anything except
confiscating British debts, which struck him as dishonorable. These
were plain but pregnant questions, but what we mark in them, and
in all his letters of this time, is the absence of constitutional
discussion, of which America was then full. They are confined to a
direct presentation of the broad political question, which underlay
everything. Washington always went straight to the mark, and he now
saw, through all the dust of legal and constitutional strife, that
the only real issue was whether America was to be allowed to govern
herself in her own way or not. In the acts of the ministry he
perceived a policy which aimed at substantial power, and he believed
that such a policy, if insisted on, could have but one result.
The meeting of Fairfax County was held in due course, and Washington
presided. The usual resolutions for self-government and against
the vindictive Massachusetts measures were adopted. Union and
non-importation were urged; and then the congress, which they
advocated, was recommended to address a petition and remonstrance to
the king, and ask him to reflect that "from our sovereign there can
be but one appeal." Everything was to be tried, everything was to be
done, but the ultimate appeal was never lost sight of where Washington
appeared, and the final sentence of these Fairfax County resolves is
very characteristic of the leader in the meeting. Two days later he
wrote to the worthy and still remonstrating Bryan Fairfax, repeating
and enlarging his former questions, and adding: "Has not General
Gage's conduct since his arrival, in stopping the address of his
council, and publishing a proclamation more becoming a Turkish bashaw
than an English governor, declaring it treason to associate in any
manner by which the commerce of Great Britain is to be affected,--has
not this exhibited an unexampled testimony of the most despotic system
of tyranny that ever was practiced in a free government?... Shall we
after this whine and cry for relief, when we have already tried it in
vain? Or shall we supinely sit and see one province after another fall
a sacrifice to despotism?" The fighting spirit of the man was rising.
There was no rash rushing forward, no ignorant shouting for war, no
blinking of the real issue, but a foresight that nothing could dim,
and a perception of facts which nothing could confuse. On August 1
Washington was at Williamsburg, to represent his county in the
meeting of representatives from all Virginia. The convention passed
resolutions like the Fairfax resolves, and chose delegates to a
general congress. The silent man was now warming into action. He "made
the most eloquent speech that ever was made," and said, "I will raise
a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march them to the
relief of Boston." He was capable, it would seem, of talking to the
purpose with some fire and force, for all he was so quiet and so
retiring. When there was anything to say, he could say it so that it
stirred all who listened, because they felt that there was a mastering
strength behind the words. He faced the terrible issue solemnly and
firmly, but his blood was up, the fighting spirit in him was aroused,
and the convention chose him as one of Virginia's six delegates to
the Continental Congress. He lingered long enough to make a few
preparations at Mount Vernon. He wrote another letter to Fairfax,
interesting to us as showing the keenness with which he read in the
meagre news-reports the character of Gage and of the opposing people
of Massachusetts. Then he started for the North to take the first step
on the long and difficult path that lay before him.