WASHINGTON'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS--IMPROVEMENTS COMMENCED--REMUNERATION
FOR SERVICES DECLINED--VISITORS FLOCK TO MOUNT VERNON--TOUR TO THE
OHIO--INDIAN SACHEM AND HIS PROPHECY--WASHINGTON'S INTEREST IN
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS--HIS LETTER TO GOVERNOR HARRISON--ACTION OF
THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE--FORMATION OF COMPANIES--WASHINGTON
DECLINES RECEIVING A DONATION OF STOCK FOR HIS OWN
BENEFIT--DISPOSITION OF IT--DISTINGUISHED VISITORS AT MOUNT
VERNON--WASHINGTON'S CORRESPONDENCE BURDENSOME--MR. LEAR--ARTISTS
AND LITERARY MEN--PINE AND HOUDON AT MOUNT VERNON--AGRICULTURAL
PURSUITS AND IMPROVEMENTS--WASHINGTON'S DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER THE WAR.
Washington took a careful survey of all his affairs, on retiring from
the public service, and perceived that much was to be done to retrieve
losses, and to make his estate an agreeable home, and suitable to his
position in life. The mansion, two stories in height, with only four
rooms on a floor, was too small to accommodate the visitors who he well
knew, might be expected at Mount Vernon, and he had already determined
to commence its enlargement with the opening of the spring, as well as
the adornment of the grounds around it, and the improvement of his
farms. To do this required a large outlay of time and money; and,
notwithstanding Washington had an ample fortune for a private gentleman
of moderate tastes, he perceived the necessity of practising economy.
His private affairs had become somewhat deranged, and his fortune
diminished during the war; and he knew that the current expenses of his
household must thereafter be materially increased.
At this juncture, when economy appeared so necessary, his consistency as
a servant of the public without pecuniary reward, was tested. The
temptation came in the specious form of a proposed testimonial of
public gratitude for his services, and was so delicately presented to
his mind, as almost to leave a doubt of its real purpose. It originated
with the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, who, a few days
before Washington resigned his commission at Annapolis, remarked as
follows in their instructions to the delegates in Congress from that
state:--
"Though his excellency, General Washington, proposes in a short
time to retire, yet his illustrious actions and virtues render his
character so splendid and venerable, that, it is highly probable,
the admiration and esteem of the world may make his life in a very
considerable degree public, as numbers will be desirous of seeing
the great and good man, who has so eminently contributed to the
happiness of a nation. His very services to his country, may,
therefore, subject him to expenses, unless he permits her gratitude
to interpose.
"We are perfectly acquainted with the disinterestedness and
generosity of his soul. He thinks himself amply rewarded for all
his labors and cares, by the love and prosperity of his
fellow-citizens. It is true, no rewards they can bestow can be
equal to his merits. But they ought not to suffer those merits to
be burdensome to him. We are convinced that the people of
Pennsylvania would regret such a consequence.
"We are aware of the delicacy with which this subject must be
treated. But relying upon the good sense of Congress, we wish it
may engage their early attention."
President Mifflin forwarded a copy of these instructions to Washington,
because it was thought advisable not to lay them before Congress without
his knowledge and approbation. True to the consistency of his character,
Washington promptly declined the intended favor. "I can not but feel,"
he said, in reply to Mifflin, "the greatest obligations to the supreme
executive council of Pennsylvania. But as my sentiments on the subject
of their instructions have been long and well known to the public, I
need not repeat them to your excellency on the present occasion." All
proceedings on the subject were accordingly stopped.
With the opening of the spring of 1784, numerous visitors began to make
their way to Mount Vernon. Many of them were officers, and some of them
poor soldiers of the war just closed, who went to pay the homage of
their affections to the general under whom they had so long served with
delight. Others were persons of distinction, from the various states and
from abroad; and others went there out of mere curiosity, to see the
great man of the nation in his retirement. Every one received the
attentions of a generous hospitality from the master; and in these
offices he was nobly seconded by Mrs. Washington, whose cheerful good
sense and excellent management, made her home a delightful spot for all
who entered it.
Of all the visitors who came to Mount Vernon during that first year of
Washington's retirement, none was more cordially welcomed than
Lafayette, who landed in New York early in August, and reached Mount
Vernon on the seventeenth of the same month. He remained there twelve
days, during which time the mansion was crowded with guests who came to
meet the great friend of America; and when he departed for Baltimore,
quite a large cavalcade of gentlemen accompanied him far on his way.
In September, Washington made quite an extensive tour westward, over the
Alleghany mountains, to visit his lands on the Ohio and Great Kanawha
rivers. He was accompanied by Doctor Craik, his old companion-in-arms in
the French and Indian war, and who had accompanied him to the same
region in 1770. They travelled in true soldier style--tent, pack-horses,
and a few supplies, relying for their food chiefly upon their guns and
fishing-tackle.
Owing to accounts of discontents and irritation among the Indian tribes,
Washington did not think it prudent to descend the Ohio, and they
proceeded no farther West than the Monongahela, which river they
ascended, and then went southward through the wilderness, until they
reached the Shenandoah valley, near Staunton. They returned to Mount
Vernon on the fourth of October, having travelled on horseback, in the
course of forty-four days, six hundred and eighty miles.
It was during their first tour, according to the late Mr. Custis, that
Washington was visited by a venerable Indian sachem, who regarded him
with the utmost reverence, as a God-protected hero. He would neither
eat, drink, nor smoke with Washington; and finally, when a fire was
kindled, he arose and addressed him through Nicholson, an interpreter,
in the following terms:--
"I am a chief, and the ruler over many tribes; my influence extends
to the waters of the great lakes, and to the far, blue mountains. I
have travelled a long and weary path, that I might see the young
warrior of the great battle. It was on the day, when the white
man's blood, mixed with the streams of our forest, that I first
beheld this chief; I called to my young men, and said, mark yon
tall and daring warrior, he is not of the red-coat tribe--he hath
an Indian's wisdom, and his warriors fight as we do--himself is
alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies. Our
rifles were levelled, rifles which, but for him, knew not how to
miss. It was all in vain, for a power mightier far than we,
shielded him from harm. He can not die in battle. I am old, and
soon shall be gathered to the great council-fire of my fathers, in
the land of shades; but ere I go, there is a something, bids me
speak, in the voice of prophecy. Listen! _The Great Spirit protects
that man, and guides his destinies--he will become the chief of
nations, and a people yet unborn, will hail him as the founder of a
mighty empire!_"
This prophetic speech made a deep impression upon the companions of
Washington; and always afterward, on the field of battle, Doctor Craik
remembered it, and was fully persuaded that his friend would come out of
the storm of conflict unharmed. And so he did. It is a singular fact,
that Washington never received the slightest wound in battle.
Washington took an active interest in all that concerned the development
of the internal resources of the country; and one of the objects of his
tour westward in 1784, was the observation of the courses, and the
character of the streams flowing into the Ohio; the distance of their
navigable parts to those of the rivers east of the mountains, and the
distance of the portage between them. He had conceived the idea that a
communication, by canals, might be formed between the Potomac and James
rivers, and the waters of the Ohio, and thence to the great chain of
northern lakes. This idea had assumed the tangible shape of a
well-matured scheme of internal improvement, and he had attempted to
form a company for the purpose, when the kindling of the War for
Independence put a stop to every enterprise of that kind.
Washington now desired to awaken new interest in the matter, and in a
long and able letter to Benjamin Harrison, then governor of Virginia,
written in October, 1784, he set forth the advantages to be expected by
such a system of inland navigation. This letter was "one of the ablest,
most sagacious, and most important productions of his pen," says Mr.
Sparks, "presenting first a clear statement of the question, and showing
the practicability of facilitating the intercourse of trade between the
East and the West, by improving and extending the water
communications."[7]
Washington then proceeded, by a train of admirable arguments and
illustrations, to explain the commercial and political value of such a
measure, in giving strength to the union of the states, and promoting
the prosperity of the country, by multiplying the resources of trade.
"I need not remark to you, sir," he said, "that the flanks and rear of
the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones
too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all
parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part
of it which lies immediately west of us, with the middle states. For
what ties, let me ask, should we have upon those people? How entirely
unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not
apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their
left, instead of throwing stumbling-blocks in their way, as they now do,
should hold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they get
strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive (from the
emigration of foreigners, who will have no particular predilection
toward us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens), will be
the consequence of their having formed close connections with both or
either of those powers, in a commercial way? It needs not, in my
opinion, the gift of prophecy to foretell.
"The western states (I speak now from my own observation) stand, as it
were, upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. They
have looked down the Mississippi, until the Spaniards, very
impolitically, I think for themselves, threw difficulties in their way;
and they looked that way for no other reason, than because they could
glide gently down the stream, without considering, perhaps, the
difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform
it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us but by long
land transportations and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto
checked the industry of the present settlers; for, except the demand for
provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little
flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they
have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road, and make easy the way
for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon
us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply
we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to
effect it.
"A combination of circumstances makes the present conjuncture more
favorable for Virginia, than for any other state in the Union, to fix
these matters. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniards on
the one hand, and the private views of some individuals, coinciding with
the general policy of the court of Great Britain on the other, to retain
as long as possible the posts of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego (which,
though done under the letter of the treaty, is certainly an infraction
of the spirit of it, and injurious to the Union), may be improved to the
greatest advantage by this state, if she would open the avenues to the
trade of that country, and embrace the present moment to establish it.
It only wants a beginning. The western inhabitants would do their part
toward its execution. Weak as they are, they would meet us at least
halfway, rather than to be driven into the arms of foreigners, or to
be made dependent upon them; which would eventually either bring on a
separation of them from us, or a war between the United States and one
or the other of those powers, most probably with the Spaniards."
Washington's letter had a powerful effect upon the public mind. Governor
Harrison laid it before the Virginia legislature, and that body received
it with the greatest favor. Thus encouraged in his scheme, Washington
hastened to Richmond to give his personal attention to the matter; and
on the morning after his arrival (November sixteenth) he was waited upon
by a committee of the assembly, with Patrick Henry at their head, who,
in the name of the body whom they represented, testified their reverence
for his character and affection for his person.
The Virginia assembly proceeded to appoint a commission to make the
requisite surveys, and Washington returned to Mount Vernon, accompanied
by Lafayette, whom he had met in Richmond. The marquis remained there a
few days, and then departed for the seaboard, never to visit the United
States again, until he became an old man, and the republic he had
assisted in founding, had grown fifty years older.
Washington's scheme for internal improvements occupied much of his
attention, and he corresponded largely upon the subject. His plan, at
first, contemplated more especially the interests of Virginia and
Maryland, but it expanded in his mind so as to embrace the whole Union.
In a letter written on the fourteenth of December, to Richard Henry Lee,
then recently elected president of Congress, he urged the necessity of
action by that body, and suggested that the western waters should be
explored, the navigation of them fully ascertained, accurately laid
down, and a perfect map made of the country; that in the sale of public
lands, the United States should make a reservation of all mines,
minerals, and salt-springs, for special sale; and that a medium price
should be adopted for the western lands, sufficient to prevent a
monopoly, but not to discourage actual settlers. He wished to
discountenance the land-jobbers and "roaming speculators," who were
disquieting the Indians, and to encourage the useful citizen. He
perceived the necessity of doing something to regulate the matter, for,
he said, "the spirit of emigration is great. The people have got
impatient, and, though you can not stop the road, it is yet in your
power to mark the way. It is easier to prevent than to remedy an evil."
Late in December, Washington was invited to Annapolis by the Virginia
assembly, to assist in arranging matters with the assembly of Maryland,
respecting his scheme for uniting the Potomac and James rivers, with
those of the West. He attended the conference, and chiefly through his
exertions two companies were formed for the purpose, under the auspices
of the respective governments, and he was appointed president of both.
They were called respectively, the _Potomac Company_, and the _James
River Company_. Thus it will be seen, that during the first year after
the close of the Revolution, Washington set in motion that vast scheme
of internal improvements, which has had a powerful and salutary
influence upon the destinies of our country.
Again Washington's consistency was put to the test. Grateful for his
past services, and conscious of the advantages to the Virginia
commonwealth, of the great scheme of improvement which he had now set in
motion, they, by unanimous vote, offered to present to him fifty shares
in the Potomac Company, valued at ten thousand dollars, and one hundred
shares in the James River Company, valued at twenty-five thousand
dollars. Aware of his resolution not to receive any pecuniary gift from
the public, the legislature, in the preamble to the resolution, said:--
"It is the desire of the representatives of this commonwealth to
embrace every suitable occasion of testifying their sense of the
unexampled merits of George Washington toward his country; and it
is their wish in particular, that those great works for its
improvement, which, both as springing from the liberty which he has
been so instrumental in establishing, and as encouraged by his
patronage, will be durable monuments of his glory, may be made
monuments also of the gratitude of his country."
This mark of his countrymen's appreciation, was, of course, gratifying
to Washington, but again, true to his convictions and his vows, he
declined to receive the donation for his own benefit; but, as a matter
of expediency, he offered to accept the shares, provided the legislature
would allow him to appropriate them to the use of some object of a
public nature. The assembly cheerfully acceded to his proposition. As
the encouragement of education was a subject in which he felt deeply
interested, he made over the shares of the James River Company to an
institution in Rockbridge county, called _Liberty Hall Academy_, and
those of the Potomac Company he bequeathed in perpetuity for the
endowment of a university in the District of Columbia, under the
auspices of the general government. _Liberty Hall_ afterward became the
flourishing _Washington College_, but the national university has never
been established.
Other examples of Washington's interest in educational institutions, are
on record. He cheerfully accepted the chancellorship of William and Mary
college at Williamsburg; during many years he gave two hundred and fifty
dollars annually for the instruction of poor children in Alexandria; and
by his will he left four thousand dollars, the net income of which was
to be used for the same object. "Other examples," says Sparks, after
enumerating these and other benevolent acts of the great and good man,
"might be cited; and from his cautious habit of concealing from the
world his deeds of charity, it may be presumed many others are unknown,
in which his heart and his hand were open to the relief of indigent
merit."
We have observed that Washington's dreams of repose at Mount Vernon were
not realized. Visitors from the old and the new world constantly
increased, and among them came that champion of liberty, Catharine
Macaulay Graham, whose pen had done noble service in the cause of human
rights. She came with her husband, and professed to have crossed the
Atlantic for the sole purpose of testifying, in person, her respect and
admiration for the character and deeds of Washington. "A visit from a
lady so celebrated in the literary world," he wrote to Knox, "can not
but be very flattering to me."
His correspondence increased so rapidly, that it soon began to be
burdensome. To Richard Henry Lee he wrote in February, 1785, when
transmitting to him a mass of papers which he had received from the
pious Countess of Huntington, explaining her scheme for Christianizing
the American Indians: "Many mistakingly think that I am retired to ease,
and to that kind of tranquillity which would grow tiresome for want of
employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served
the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done
since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to
my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a
thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be
troubled, but which, nevertheless, must receive some answer."
In a letter to General Knox he amplified this topic a little, saying:
"It is not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, or add
aught to my perplexity. It is reference to old matters with which I have
nothing to do; applications which oftentimes can not be complied with;
inquiries which would require the pen of a historian to satisfy; letters
of compliment, as unmeaning, perhaps, as they are troublesome, but which
must be attended to; and the common-place business, which employs my pen
and my time, often disagreeably. Indeed, these, with company, deprive me
of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of
disagreeable consequences."
For more than two years after the war, Washington kept neither clerk nor
secretary. At length the labor became insupportable, and through the
kind offices of General Lincoln, he procured the services of Tobias
Lear, a talented young gentleman of New Hampshire, who had recently left
Harvard college with honor. Mr. Lear took a social position at Mount
Vernon, as one of the family at table and among the guests, and became
greatly beloved by Washington. He remained there several years,
accompanied the general to New York when he went there to take the chair
of chief magistrate of the nation, and continued in his family until
after the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia. He was again a
resident at Mount Vernon, after the death of his wife, and was present
when the master of the mansion died. Mr. Lear relieved Washington of
much of the drudgery of the pen, and also took charge of the instruction
of his adopted children, Master and Miss Custis.
Washington was also annoyed by the applications of artists and literary
men, the former for him to give them sittings for his portrait, and the
latter for materials for either his biography, or a general history of
the Revolution. He positively refused compliance with the latter
request, but occasionally indulged the former. At the solicitation of
Francis Hopkinson, he sat to Robert Edge Pine, a diminutive Englishman
and excellent artist. Pine was a warm republican, and came to America to
collect portraits of distinguished persons for the purpose of painting a
series of pictures illustrative of the War for Independence.
Soon after Pine left Mount Vernon, Houdon, the eminent French
portrait-sculptor was there, at the request of the legislature of
Virginia, who had ordered a statue of Washington to be executed for the
statehouse at Richmond. For such a purpose, and under such auspices,
Washington was willing to submit to the manipulations of art, even those
so unpleasant as the moulding of the face in plaster, and he wrote to
Houdon, on his arrival in New York: "It will give me pleasure, sir, to
welcome you to the seat of my retirement; and whatever I have, or can
procure, that is necessary to your purpose, or convenient and agreeable
to your wishes, you must freely command, as inclination to oblige you
will be among the last things in which I shall be found deficient,
either on your arrival or during your stay."
Houdon made a plaster-mould from Washington's face, modelled a complete
head and bust in clay, made a cast from that, took the latter to France,
and from it executed the statue now in the capitol at Richmond. He made
careful measurements of Washington's figure, and in Paris, Gouverneur
Morris stood for it.
During nearly all of the year 1785, Washington was engaged much of the
time in the ornamentation of the grounds around the mansion he had
greatly enlarged, and in the improvement of his farms. The relief from
the pen afforded him by Mr. Lear, gave him time for pursuits of this
nature, which he so much loved, and his diary abounds with brief records
of his planting of trees and sowing of seeds. His Mount Vernon estate
was divided into five farms, and several hundred acres of woodland. The
mansion-house farm was his great care and delight, yet he managed the
other four with skill and prudence. On them he had over fifty
draught-horses, a dozen mules, more than three hundred head of black
cattle, three hundred and sixty sheep, and a large number of swine that
ran wild in the woods.
He was fond of improvements of every kind. The king of Spain hearing
that he was anxious to procure the best breed of asses in Europe, for
the propagation of mules on his estate, sent him a magnificent jack and
two jennies. With this jack, and another sent to him by Lafayette, at
about the same time, he raised some noble mules from his coach-mares. In
a few years the Mount Vernon estate became stocked with a very superior
breed, some of them rising to the height of sixteen hands.
From Arthur Young, an English agriculturist, Washington received many
precious seeds, improved implements, and good advice in the laying out
and management of farms. His early life habits were resumed--his early
rising, his frugal breakfast, his ride over his estate, and his exact
method in everything. He loved amusements still, but of a more quiet
kind than those of his younger days. The pleasures of the chase were
relinquished. His kennel was broken up, and his hounds, some of them a
present from Lafayette, were given away.
Washington was a most cheerful, companionable man at home, yet always
dignified. "General Washington is, I believe," said Mr. Lear, after two
years residence in his family, "almost the only man of an exalted
character, who does not lose some part of his respectability by an
intimate acquaintance. I have never found a single thing that could
lessen my respect for him. A complete knowledge of his honesty,
uprightness, and candor in all his private transactions, has sometimes
led me to think him more than a man."
In his family he was peculiarly kind and affectionate. Between himself
and Mrs. Washington the most perfect harmony existed. In all his
intercourse with his wife, he was most considerate. Mrs. Lewis (Nelly
Custis) said she had often seen Mrs. Washington, when she had something
to communicate, or a request to make, at a moment when the general's
mind was entirely abstracted from the present, seize him by the button
to command his attention, when he would look down upon her with a most
benignant smile, and, become at once attentive to her wishes, which were
never slighted.
Thus, in the management of his estate, the entertainment of his guests,
correspondence with his friends at home and abroad, and the
contemplation of years of peaceful life that lay before him,
Washington's hours glided away for a season. Meanwhile the political
horizon of his country began to darken, and omens of a fearful storm
appeared. The people looked to their ancient pilot for help, and at the
hour when he was dreaming most sweetly of domestic quiet, they called
him to take the helm, for the ship of state was in danger. He was soon
at the post of responsibility, upon the turbulent sea of political life.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Life of Washington, page 379.