George Washington

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS

ATHEN^UM PORTRAIT, BY GILBERT STUART

GEORGE WASHINGTON

BY

WOODROW WILSON

ILLUSTRATED

BY HOWARD PYLE, HARRY FENN
AND OTHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1898

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORMA

DAV13

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER &

All Tights reserved.

TO

E. A W.

WITHOUT WHOSE SYMPATHY AND COUNSEL

LITERARY WORK WOULD LACK

INSPIRATION

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. IN WASHINGTON'S DAY .... 3

II. A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 45

III. COLONEL WASHINGTON ...... ..... 69

IV. MOUNT VERNON DAYS 99

V. THE HEAT OF POLITICS 117

VI. PILOTING A REVOLUTION 153

VII. GENERAL WASHINGTON 179

VIII. THE STRESS OF VICTORY . .' 213

IX. FIRST IN PEACE 233

X. THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. . . . 265

INDEX . . 315

ILLUSTKATIONS

ATHEN.EUM PORTRAIT, BY GILBERT STUART Frontispiece

TAILPIECE Page ix

HEADPIECE " 3

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION WHARF Facing p. 6

"EVEN SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY SAW HE MUST YIELD" " 14

GEORGE WASHINGTON " 18

TIDE- WATER, VIRGINIA, 1738 (MAP) " 22

WILLIAM BYRD " 26

"THEY READ ONLY UPON OCCASION, WHEN THE WEATH
ER DARKENED" " 30

JAMES BLAIR " 34

ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD " 38

VIEW OP THE POTOMAC FROM THE SITE OF THE HOUSE

WHERE WASHINGTON WAS BORN . " 40

FACSIMILE OF THE ENTRY OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTH . . . Page 41

THOMAS, SIXTH LORD FAIRFAX Facing p. 48

MOUNT VKRNON AT THE PRESENT DAY " 52

THE POTOMAC FROM MOUNT VERNON " 56

LAWRENCE WASHINGTON " 58

FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN NORTH AMERICA, 1755 (MAP) " 60

WASHINGTON'S RETREAT FROM GREAT MEADOWS ... " 76

GENERAL EDWARD BRADDOCK " 82

BRADDOCK'S FIGHT IN THE ROAD- " 86

THE BURIAL OF BRADDOCK " 90

WASHINGTON AND MARY PHILIPSE " 92

TAILPIECE Page 95

LEAVING MOUNT VERNON FOR THE CONGRESS OF THE

COLONIES Facing p. 100

"THE WHITE HOUSE," ON THE PAMUNKEY " 104

THE OLD CAPITOL AT WILLIAMSBCRG . " 106

viii ILLUSTRATIONS

GREENWAY COURT, VIRGINIA, LORD FAIRFAX'S FOREST

SEAT Facing p. 108

GUNSTON HALL. THE HOME OF GEORGE MASON. . . . . ' " 110
WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, WILLIAMSBURG, AT THE

PRESENT DAY " H2

TAZEWELL HALL, THE HOME OF THE RANDOLPHS. . )
WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, FROM AN OLD PRINT . f

PEYTON RANDOLPH . . " 132

GEORGE MASON " 136

IN THE OLD RALEIGH TAVERN " 146

TAILPIECE ... . Page 149

WASHINGTON, FROM A PORTRAIT BY REMBRANDT PEALE Facing p. 158

CARPENTER'S HALL, PHILADELPHIA . " 166

MRS. WASHINGTON'S ARRIVAL AT HEADQUARTERS, CAM
BRIDGE " 184

FORT HUNTINGTON, VALLEY FORGE ....... " 196

WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE . . " 198

WASHINGTON AND STEUBEN AT VALLEY FORGE ... '' 200

THE ESCAPE OF ARNOLD " 208

TAILPIECE Page 209

THE BUST BY ECKSTEIN Facing p. 218

JOHN PARKE CUSTIS, JR . " 222

FRAUNCE'S TAVERN, NEW YORK . . . . • . . . . . %i 226

TAILPIECE . ' . "•'. ...'•.'. . . .."" /• ..... Page 229

LOWER BRANDON, NORTH FRONT . . . ' . . . . . Facing p. 234
KENMORE, THE HOME OF MRS. BETTY WASHINGTON LEWIS,

FREDERICKSBURG " 236

WASHINGTON IN THE GARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON. . . " 238
WASHINGTON BRINGING HIS MOTHER INTO THE BALL
ROOM, FREDERICKSBURG " 240

SAMPLE PIECES OF THE FAMOUS CINCINNATI DINNER-
SET .

246

REMAINS OF A TEA-SET BELONGING TO MRS. WASH- '

INGTON ; . . .

THE MARY WASHINGTON HOUSE, FREDERICKSBURG . . " 250

MONTPELIER, THE HOME OF MADISON. ... . . / " 256

MUSTERED OUT — A REST ON THE WAY HOME .... " 260

TAILPIECE Page 262

THOMSON, THE CLERK OF CONGRESS, ANNOUNCING TO
WASHINGTON, AT MOUNT VERNON, HIS ELECTION TO

THE PRESIDENCY . . . . . . S . . . . . Facing p. 266

ILLUSTRATIONS

IX

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, AT THE BATTERY, NEW YORK, 1790 Facing p. 268
THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL MANSION, NEW YORK . . )

WASHINGTON MANSION, PHILADELPHIA )

WASHINGTON, AFTER A PAINTING BY SAVAGE .... " 276

AVASUINGTON LAMPS " 280

CONGRESS HALL, 1790-1800 " 282

ELEANOR PARKE CUSTIS " 286

WASHINGTON AND NELLY CUSTIS " 300

DEATH OF WASHINGTON " 304

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON . . " 306

HANOVER COURT-HOUSE )

THE OLD TOMB, MOUNT VERNON )

TAILPIECE Page 314

WASHINGTON'S DAY

CHAPTER I

EOKGE WASHINGTON was bred a
gentleman and a man of honor
in the free school of Virginian
society, with the generation that
first learned what it meant to
maintain English communities in
America in safety and a self-respect
ing independence. He was born in
a season of quiet peace, when the
plot of colonial history was thickening noiselessly and
almost without observation. He came to his first man
hood upon the first stir of revolutionary events ; caught
in their movement, he served a rough apprenticeship

•-

4 GEORGE WASHINGTON

in arms at the thick of the French and Indian war;
the ^Revolution found him a leader and veteran iri
affairs at forty -four; every turn of fortune confirmed
him in his executive habit of foresight and mastery ;
death spared him, stalwart and commanding, until,
his rising career rounded and complete, no man doubt
ed him the first character of his age. "Virginia gave
us this imperial man," and with him a companion
race of statesmen and masters in affairs. It was her
natural gift, the times and her character being what
they were; and Washington's life showed the whole
process of breeding by which she conceived so great a
generosity in manliness and public spirit.

The English colonies in America lay very tranquil in
1732, the year in which Washington was born. It fell
in a season betweentimes, when affairs lingered, as if
awaiting a change. The difficulties and anxieties of
first settlement were long ago past and done with in all
the principal colonies. They had been hardening to
their " wilderness work," some of them, these hundred
years and more. England could now reckon quite six
hundred thousand subjects upon the long Atlantic sea
board of the great continent which had lain remote and
undiscovered through so many busy ages, until daring
sailors hit upon it at last amidst the stir of the ad
venturous fifteenth century ; and there was no longer
any thought that her colonists would draw back or
falter in what they had undertaken. They had grown
sedate even and self-poised, with somewhat of the air
of old communities, as they extended their settlements
upon the coasts and rivers and elaborated their means
of self - government amidst the still forests, and each
had already a bearing and character of its own. 'Twas

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 5

easy to distinguish the New-Englander from the man
of the southern colonies; and the busy middle prov
inces that stretched, back from the great bay at New-
York and from the waters of the spreading Delaware
had also a breed of their own, like neither the men of
the south nor the men of the northeast. Each region
had bred for itself its characteristic communities, hold
ing their own distinctive standards, knowing their own
special purposes, living their own lives with a certain
separateness and independence.

Virginia, the oldest of the colonies, was least to be
distinguished by any private character of her own from
the rural communities of England herself. Her popula
tion had come to her almost without selection through
out every stage of quick change and troubled fortune
that England had seen during the fateful days since
James Stuart became king; and Englishmen in Vir
ginia were in no way radically distinguishable from
Englishmen in England, except that they were provin
cials and frontiersmen. They had their own tasks and
ways of life, indeed, living, as they did, within the old
forests of a virgin continent, upon the confines of the
world. But their tastes and temperament, spite of
change and seclusion, they had in common with Eng
lishmen at home. They gave leave to their opinions,
too, with a like downright confidence and hardihood of
belief, never doubting they knew how practical affairs
should go. They had even kept the English character
as they had received it, against the touch of time and
social revolution, until Virginians seemed like elder
Englishmen. England changed, but Virginia did not.
There landed estates spread themselves with an ample
acreage along the margins of the streams that every-

v

6 GEORGE WASHINGTON

where threaded the virgin woodland ; and the planter
drew about him a body of dependants who knew no
other master; to whom came, in their seclusion, none
of that quick air of change that had so stirred in Eng
land throughout all her century of revolution. Some
were his slaves, bound to him in perpetual subjection.
Others were his tenants, and looked upon him as a sort
of patron. In Maryland, where similar broad estates
lay upon every shore, the law dubbed a great property
here and there a "manor," and suffered it to boast its
separate court baron and private jurisdiction. Vir
ginian gentlemen enjoyed independence and authority
without need of formal title.

There was but one centre of social life in Virginia:
at Williamsburg, the village capital, where the Govern
or had his " palace," where stood the colonial college,
where there were taverns and the town houses of sun
dry planters of the vicinage, and where there was much
gay company and not a little formal ceremonial in the
season. For the rest, the Old Dominion made shift to
do without towns. There was no great mart to which
all the trade of the colony was drawn. Ships came and
went upon each broad river as upon a highway, taking
and discharging freight at the private wharves of the
several plantations. For every planter was his own
merchant, shipping his tobacco to England, and import
ing thence in return his clothes, his tools, his house
hold fittings, his knowledge of the London fashions and
of the game of politics at home. His mechanics he
found among his own slaves and dependants. Their
"quarters" and the offices of his simple establishment
showed almost like a village of themselves where they
stood in irregular groups about his own square, broad-

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION WHARF

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 7

gabled house, with its airy hall and homelike living-
rooms. He might have good plate upon his sideboard
and on his table, palatable old wine in his cellar, and
on the walls about him portraits of the stately men
and dames from whom he took his blood and breeding.
But there was little luxury in his life. Plain comfort
and a homely abundance sufficed him. He was a gen
tleman, owned all he saw around him, exercised author
ity, and enjoyed consideration throughout the colony ;
but he was no prince. He lived always in the style of
a provincial and a gentleman commoner, as his neigh
bors and friends did.

Slaves, dependants, and planters, however, did not by
any means make up the tale of Virginia's population. She
had been peopled out of the common stock of Englishmen,
and contained her own variety. Most of the good land
that lay upon the lower courses of the James, the York,
the Rappahannock, and the Potomac rivers, and upon
the bay on either hand, had been absorbed into the es
tates of the wealthier planters, who began to conceive
themselves a sort of aristocracy; but not a few plain
men owned their own smaller tracts within the broad
stretches of country that lay back from the rivers or
above their navigable depth. Upon the western front
of the colony lived sturdy frontiersmen; and no man
was so poor that he might not hope by thrift to hold
his own with the best in the country. Few could own
slaves in any number, for the negroes counted less than
a third in a reckoning of the whole population. There
were hired servants besides, and servants bound for a
term of years by indenture ; even criminals who could
be had of the colony for private service ; but most men
must needs work their own plots of ground and devise

8 GEORGE WASHINGTON

a domestic economy without servants. A wholesome
democratic spirit pervaded the colony, which made even
the greater planters hesitate to give themselves airs.
A few families that had thriven best and longest, and
had built up great properties for themselves, did indeed
lay claim, as royal governors found to their great dis
pleasure, to a right to be heard before all others in the
management of the government. But they could of
course show no title but that of pride and long prac
tice. 'Twas only their social weight in the parish ves
tries, in the Council, and in the House of Burgesses that
gave them ascendency.

It was the same in church as in state. Virginia
prided herself upon having maintained the Establish
ment without schism or sour dissent ; but she had main
tained it in a way all her own, with a democratic con
stitution and practice hardly to be found in the canons.
Nominally the Governor had the right of presentation
to all livings ; but the vestries took care he should sel
dom exercise it, and, after they had had their own way
for a century, claimed he had lost it by prescription.
They chose and dismissed and ruled their ministers as
they would. And the chief planters were nowhere
greater figures than in the vestries of their own par
ishes, where so many neighborhood interests were passed
upon — the care of the poor, the survey of estates, the
correction of disorders, the tithe rates, and the main
tenance of the church and minister. Sometimes the
church building was itself the gift of the chief land
owner of the parish ; and the planters were always the
chief rate-payers. Their leadership was natural and un
challenged. They enjoyed in their own neighborhood
a sort of feudal pre-eminence, and the men about them

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 9

easily returned in thought and estimation to that elder
order of English life in which the chief proprietor of
the counts-side claimed as of course the homage of his
neighbors. There were parishes, not a few, indeed, in
which there was no such great planter to command
consideration by a sort of social primacy. It was, after
all, only here and there, and in the older parts of
the colony, that affairs awaited the wish of privileged
individuals. But it was the ascendency of the greater
planters which most struck the imagination, and which
gave to Virginia something of the same air and tone
and turn of opinion that existed in England, with its
veritable aristocracy, its lordly country gentlemen, its
ancient distinctions of class and manners.

Those who took counsel in England concerning colo
nial affairs had constant occasion to mark the sharp
contrast between the easy-going Virginians, who were
no harder to govern than Englishmen everywhere, and
the men of the northeastern colonies, with their dry
reserve and their steadfast resolution not to be gov
erned at all. These seemed unlike Englishmen else
where ; a whit stiffer, shrewder, more self-contained
and circumspect. They were, in fact, a peculiar people.
Into New England had come a selected class, picked
out of the general mass of Englishmen at home by test
of creed. " God sifted the whole nation," one of their
own preachers had told them, at election-time, in the
far year 1668, "that he might send choice grain out
into this wilderness." But the variety of the old life
in England had been lost in the sifting. The Puritan,
for all he was so strong and great a figure in his day,
was but one man among a score in the quick and vari
ous English life. His single standard and manner of

10 GEORGE WASHINGTON

living, out of the many that strove for mastery in the
old seats where the race was bred, had been transferred
to New England ; and he had had separate and undis
puted ascendency there to build new commonwealths
as he would. The Puritan Commonwealth in England
had been the government of a minority. Cromwell had
done his work of chastening with a might and fervor
which he found, not in the nation, but in himself and in
the stout men-at-arms and hardy reformers who stood
with him while he purified England and brought upon
all her foes a day of reckoning. The people had stood
cowed and uneasy while he lived, and had broken into
wild excess of joy at their release when he died. But
in New England an entire community consented to the
Puritan code and mastery with a hearty acquiescence.
It was for this liberty they had come over sea.

And the thoughtful, strong-willed men who were their
leaders had built, as they wished, a polity that should
last. Time wrought its deep changes in New England,
as elsewhere, but the stamp set upon these Puritan set
tlements by the generation that founded them was not
effaced. Trade made its characteristic mark upon them.
Their merchants had presently their own fleets and
markets. Their hardy people took more and more to
the sea, lived the rough life of the ocean ways with a
relish, beat in their small craft up and down the whole
coast of the continent, drove bargains everywhere, and
everywhere added a touch to their reputation as doughty
sea-dogs and shrewd traders. The population that after
a while came to New England did not stay to be sifted
before attempting the voyage out of the Old World,
and the quaint sedateness of the settlements began to
be broken by a novel variety. New men beset the old

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 11

order ; a rough democracy began to make itself felt ;
and new elements waxed bold amidst the new condi
tions that time had wrought. The authority of the
crown at last made a place of command for itself, de
spite every stubborn protest and astute evasion. It be
came necessary to be a trifle less observant of sect and
creed, to cultivate, as far as might be, a temper of tol
erance and moderation. But it was a slow change at
best. The old order might be modified, but it could not
so soon be broken. New England, through all her ju
risdictions, remained a body of churches, as well as a
body of towns, submissive to the doctrine and discipline
of her learned clergy, keeping the old traditions dis
tinct, indubitable, alike in her schools and her meeting
houses. Even in Khode Island, where there had from
the first been such diversity of creed and license of in
dividual belief, there was little variety of type among
the people, for all they counted themselves so free to
be what they would. There was here a singular as
sortment, no doubt, of the units of the stock, but it
was of the Puritan stuff, none the less, through all its
variety.

New England, indeed, easily kept her character, for
she lived apart. Her people mustered a full hundred
thousand strong before the seventeenth century was
out ; her towns numbered many score, both upon the
margins of the sea and within the forests ; but she still
lay within a very near frontier, pushed back only a
short journey from the coast. Except where the towns
of Connecticut ran in broken line close to the westward
strait of Long Island Sound, a broad wilderness of un
touched woodland, of thicketed hills and valleys that
no white man yet had seen, stretched between them

12 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and Hudson's river, where New York's settlements lay
upon the edge of a vast domain, reaching all the way
to the great lakes and the western rivers. Not till 1725
did adventurous settlers dare go so far as the Berk
shire Hills. "Our country," exclaimed Colonel Byrd,
of Virginia, who had seen its wild interior, "has now
been inhabited more than a hundred and thirty years,
and still we hardly know anything of the Appalachian
Mountains, which are nowhere above two hundred and
fifty miles from the sea." A full century after the
coming of the Pilgrims, New England, like Virginia,
was still a frontier region, shut close about on every
hand by thick forests beset by prowling bands of sav
ages. She had as yet no intimate contact with the other
colonies whose fortunes she was to share. Her simple
life, quickened by adventure, but lacking the full pulse
of old communities, kept, spite of slow change, to a
single standard of conduct, made her one community
from end to end, her people one people. She stood
apart and compact, still soberly cultivating, as of old, a
life and character all her own. Colonel Byrd noted
how " New England improved much faster than Vir
ginia," and was fain to think that " though these peo
ple may be ridiculed for some Pharisaical particularities
in their worship and behavior, yet they were very use
ful subjects, as being frugal and industrious, giving no
scandal or bad example." Public men in England, who
had to face these " particularities in behavior," would
hardly have agreed that the men of New England were
good subjects, though they must have admitted their
excellent example in thrift, and Virginia's need to im
itate it.

This contrast between the northern and southern set-

IN WASHINGTON'S DAT 13

tlements was as old as their establishment, for Virginia
had from the first been resorted to by those who had
no other purpose than to better their fortunes, while
New England had been founded to be the home of a
creed and discipline ; but it was not until the Common
wealth was set up in England that the difference began
to be marked, and to give promise of becoming per
manent. The English in Virginia, like the bulk of their
countrymen at home, had stood aghast at a king's death
upon the scaffold, and had spoken very hotly, in their
loyalty, of the men who had dared do the impious deed
of treason ; but when the Guinea, frigate, brought the
Commonwealth's commission into the river to demand
their submission, even Sir William Berkeley, the re
doubtable Cavalier Governor, who had meant stub
bornly to keep his province for the second Charles, saw
he must yield ; perceived there was too nice a balance
of parties in the colony to permit an execution of his
plans of resistance ; heard too many plain men in his
Council, and out of it, declare themselves very much of
a mind with the Puritans for the nonce in politics-
very willing to set up a democracy in Virginia which
should call itself a part of the Puritan state in Eng
land. But a great change had been wrought in Vir
ginia while the Commonwealth lasted. When the Com
monwealth's frigate came in at the capes she counted
scarcely fifteen thousand settlers upon her plantations,
but the next twenty years saw her transformed. By
1670 quite twenty -five thousand people were added to
the reckoning; and of the new-comers a great multi
tude had left England as much because they hated the
Puritans as because they desired Virginia. They were
drawn out of that great majority at home to whom

14 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Cromwell had not dared resort to get a new parlia
ment in the stead of the one he had " purged." Many
of them were of the hottest blood of the Cavaliers.

It was in these years Virginia got her character and
received her leading gentry for the time to come — the
years while the Commonwealth stood and royalists de
spaired, and the years immediately following the Kes-
toration, when royalists took heart again and English
men turned with a new ardor to colonization as the
times changed. Among the rest in the great migration
came two brothers, John and Lawrence Washington,
of a stock whose loyalty was as old as the Conquest.
They came of a Norman family, the men of whose
elder branch had for two hundred years helped the
stout Bishops of Durham keep the border against the
Scots ; and in every branch of which men had sprung
up to serve the king, the state, and the church with
steadfastness and honor : dashing soldiers ready for the
field at home or abroad, stout polemical priors, lawyers
who knew the learning of their day and made their
way to high posts in chancery, thrifty burghers, gallant
courtiers, prosperous merchants — public-spirited gentle
men all. It was Colonel Henry Washington, cousin
to the Virginian refugees, who had been with Rupert
when he stormed Bristol, and who, with a handful of
men, had made good an entrance into the town when
all others were beaten back and baffled. It was he
who had held Worcester for his master even after he
knew Charles to be a prisoner in the hands of the par
liamentary forces. " Procure his Majesty's commands
for the disposal of this garrison," was all he would an
swer when Fairfax summoned him to surrender ; " till
then I shall make good the trust reposed in me. The

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 15

worst I know and fear not ; if I had, the profession of
a soldier had not been begun." But it was an ill time
to revive the traditions of the knights of Durham ;
loyalty only brought ruin. The Keverend Lawrence
Washington, uncle to the gallant colonel who was the
King's Governor at Worcester, had been cast out of his
living at Purleigh in 1643 by order of Parliament, upon
the false charge that he was a public tippler, oft drunk,
and loud to rail against the Parliament and its armies ;
but really because, with all his race, he was a royalist,
and his living one of the best in Essex. It was his
sons who left off hoping to see things mend in England
and betook themselves to Virginia. His ruin had come
upon him while they were yet lads. He had been a
brilliant university scholar, fellow and lector of Brase-
nose, and rector of Oxford ; but he could give his sons
neither a university career nor hope of fortune in the
humble parish pitying friends had found for him in an
obscure village of Essex ; and when he was dead they
saw no reason why they should stay longer in Eng
land, where Cromwell was master.

John Washington, the oldest son of the unfortunate
rector, reached Virginia in 1656, having made his way
to the colony as " second man " to Edward Prescott,
merchant and ship-owner, in whose company he had
come ; and his brother Lawrence, after passing to and
fro between England and the colony several times
upon errands of business, presently joined him in per
manent residence upon the " northern neck " of rich
land that lay between the Kappahannock and the Po
tomac rivers. It was a region where every settlement
as yet was new. A few families had fixed themselves
upon it when Maryland drove Captain Clayborne and

16 GEORGE WASHINGTON

his Yirginian partisans forth from Kent Island in the
years 1637 and 1638 ; and they had mustered numbers
enough within a few years to send a representative to
the House of Burgesses at Jamestown. But it was not
till 1648 that the Assembly gave their lands a regular
constitution as the County of Northumberland ; for it
was to this region the Indians had been driven by the
encroachment of the settlements on the James and
York, and for a while the Assembly had covenanted
with the red men to keep it free from settlers. When
once the ban was removed, however, in 1648, coloniza
tion set in apace — from the older counties of Virginia,
from Maryland across the river and England over sea,
from New England even, as if by a common impulse.
In 1651 the Assembly found it necessary to create the
two additional counties of Gloucester and Lancaster,
and in 1653 still another, the County of Westmore
land, for the region's proper government, so quickly
did it fill in; for the tide out of England already be
gan to show its volume. The region was a natural seat
of commerce, and merchants out of the trading ports of
England particularly affected it. Rich land was abun
dant, and the Potomac ran strong and ample there, to
carry the commerce alike of Virginia and Maryland to
the bay, upon whose tributaries and inlets lay all the
older settlements of both colonies. Lawrence Wash
ington, though he still described himself, upon occa
sion, as " of Luton, County Bedford, merchant," found
his chief profit where he made his home, with his
brother John, in the new County of Westmoreland in
Virginia. About them lived young men and old, come,
like themselves, out of England, or drawn from the
older settlements by the attractions of the goodly re-

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 17

gion, looking out, as it did, on either hand to a broad
river and an easy trade. They felt it scarcely an ex
patriation to live there, so constantly did ships come
and go between their wharves and the home ports at
Bristol and London. It soon grew to be nothing sin
gular to see well-to-do men go every year to England
upon some errand of profit or pleasure.

It was with such a region and such stirring neigh
bors that the 'young Washingtons identified themselves
while they were yet youths in their twenties ; and there
they prospered shrewdly with the rest. Prudent men
and men of character readily accumulated estates in
the untouched glades and forests of Westmoreland.
The season of their coming, moreover, sadly as things
seemed to go in 1656, turned out propitious. The Res
toration opened a new era in the settlement of the
country. Englishmen bestirred themselves to take act
ual possession of all the great coast -line they had so
long claimed without occupying. "The Dutch had
enjoyed New Netherland during the distractions of the
reign of Charles I. without any other interruption"
than the seizure of their post upon the Connecticut
by the New-Englanders, and the aggressions alike of
Swedes and English upon the Delaware ; but the min
isters of Charles II., though " for some time perplexed
in what light to view them, whether as subjects or as
aliens, determined at length that New Netherland ought
in justice to be resumed," and the thing was presently
accomplished in true sovereign fashion by force of
arms. To the ducal province of New York, Penn
presently added the thrifty Quaker colony which so
promptly created a busy town and mart of trade at
Philadelphia, and which pushed its rural settlements

18 GEORGE WASHINGTON

back so speedily into the fertile lands that lay towards
the west. Then, while the new colonizing impulse still
ran strong, New Jersey, too, was added, with her limits
at one end upon the Hudson and the great bay at New
York, where she depended upon one rival for a port of
entry, and at the other upon the Delaware, where an
other rival presided over the trade of her southern
highway to the sea. To the southward straggling set
tlements upon Albemarle Sound grew slowly into the
colony of North Carolina ; and still other settlements,
upon the rivers that lay towards Florida, throve so
bravely that Charleston presently boasted itself a sub
stantial town, and South Carolina had risen to be a
considerable colony, prosperous, well ordered, and show
ing a quick life and individuality of her own.

A new migration had come out of England to the
colonies, and Englishmen looked with fresh confidence
to see their countrymen build an empire in America.
And yet perhaps not an empire of pure English blood.
New York was for long scarcely the less a Dutch prov
ince, for all she had changed owners, and saw English
men crowd in to control her trade. There were Swedes
still upon the Delaware ; and Pennsylvania mustered
among her colonists, besides a strange mixture out of
many nations — Germans, French, Dutch, Finns, and
English. Even in Virginia, which so steadily kept its
English character, there were to be found groups of
French Huguenots and Germans who had been given
an ungrudging welcome ; and South Carolina, though
strongly English too, had taken some of her best blood
out of France when Louis so generously gave the world
fifty thousand families of the finest breed of his king
dom by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685).

GEORGE WASHINGTON

(From a portrait painted in 1772 by C. W. Peale, now owned by General George Washington Custis Lee,
of Lexington, Virginia)

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 19

The second quarter of the eighteenth century saw
Scots-Irish enter Virginia and the middle colonies in
hosts that for a time numbered ten thousand by the
year. Pennsylvania alone, in the single year 1729,
could reckon five thousand of these sturdy people who
had come to multiply and strengthen her settlements.

It was to the middle colonies that most foreigners
came, and their coming gave to the towns and farms
of that region a variety of tongues and customs, of
manners and trades and ways of life and worship, to
be found nowhere else. Boston, with all its trade and
seafaring, had no touch of that cosmopolitan character
which New York had taken on quite inevitably in the
course of her varying fortunes, and which Philadelphia
had assumed by choice; and rural Virginia scarcely
felt amidst her scattered plantations the presence of the
few families who lived by standards that were not Eng
lish. The common feature of the new time, with its
novel enterprises and its general immigration, was that
the colonies everywhere, whether young or old, felt a
keen stimulation and a new interest in affairs beyond
their borders. A partial exchange of population be
gan, a noticeable intercolonial migration. Whole con
gregations came out of New England to found towns
in New Jersey, and individuals out of every colony vent
ured more freely than before to exchange one region
for another, in order to coax health or fortune. Pop
ulation was thus not a little compacted, while the colo
nies were drawn by insensible degrees to feel a certain
community of interest and cultivate a certain commu
nity of opinion.

An expanding life, widened fields of enterprise and
adventure, quickened hopes, and the fair prospects of a

20 GEORGE WASHINGTON

growing empire everywhere heartened strong men in
the colonies to steady endeavor when the new century
opened — the scheming, calculating eighteenth century,
so unimpassioned and conventional at first, so tempest
uous at last. The men of the colonies were not so
new as their continent in the ways of civilization. They
were Old World men put upon fresh coasts and a forest
frontier, to make the most of them, create markets,
build a new trade, become masters of vast resources as
yet untouched and incalculable ; and they did their work
for the most part with unmatched spirit and energy,
notwithstanding they were checked and hampered by
the statutes of the realm. The Navigation Acts forbade
the use of any but English ships in trade ; forbade all
trade, besides, which did not run direct to and from the
ports of England. The colonies must not pass England
by even in their trade with one another. What they
could not produce themselves they must bring straight
from England ; what they had to dispose of they must
send straight to England. If they would exchange
among themselves they must make England by the way,
so that English merchants should be their middlemen
and factors ; or else, if they must needs carry direct
from port to port of their own coasts, they must pay
such duties as they would have paid in English ports
had they actually gone the intermediate voyage to Eng
land preferred by the statutes. 'Twas the "usage of
other nations" besides England "to keep their planta
tion trade to themselves " in that day, as the Parliament
itself said and no man could deny, and 'twas the purpose
of such restrictions to maintain "a greater correspond
ence and kindness between " England and her subjects
in America, "keeping them in a firmer dependence,"

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 21

and at the same time " rendering them yet more bene
ficial and advantageous " to English seamen, merchants,
wool-growers, and manufacturers; but it cost the colo
nists pride and convenience and profit to obey.

Some, who felt the harness of such law too smartly,
consoled themselves by inventing means to escape it.
The coast was long; was opened by many an unused
harbor, great and small ; could not everywhere and al
ways be watched by king's officers; was frequented by a
tolerant people, who had no very nice conscience about
withholding taxes from a sovereign whose messages and
commands came quickly over sea only when the wind held
fair for weeks together ; and cargoes could be got both
out and in at small expense of secrecy and no expense at
all in duties. In short, smuggling was easy. 'Twas a
time of frequent wars, moreover, and privateering com
missions were to be had for the asking ; so that French
ships could be brought in with their lading, condemned,
and handsomely sold, without the trouble of paying
French prices or English port dues. Privateering, too,
was cousin-german to something still better ; 'twas but
a sort of formal apprenticeship to piracy ; and the quiet,
unused harbors of the coast showed many a place where
the regular profession might be set up. Veritably pirates
took the sea, hunted down what commerce they would
—English no less than French and Dutch and Spanish
—rendezvoused in lonely sounds, inlets, and rivers where
king's officers never came, and kept very respectable
company when they came at last to dispose of their
plunder at New York or Charleston, being men very
learned in subterfuges and very quick-fingered at brib
ing. And then there was " the Ked Sea trade," whose
merchants sent fleets to Madagascar in the season to ex-

22 GEORGE WASHINGTON

change cargoes with rough men out of the Eastern seas,
of whom they courteously asked no questions. The
larger ports were full of sailors who waited to be en
gaged, not at regular wages, but "on the grand ac
count " ; and it took many weary years of hangman's
labor to bring enough pirates to the gallows to scotch
the ugly business. In 1717 it was reported in the colo
nies that there were quite fifteen hundred pirates on the
coast, full one-half of whom made their headquarters,
very brazenly, at New Providence in the Bahamas ; and
there were merchants and mariners by the score who
had pangs of keen regret to see the breezy trade go
down, as the century drew on a decade or two, because
of the steady vigilance and stern endeavor of Governors
who had been straitly commanded to suppress it.

The Navigation Acts bred an irritation in the colonies
which grew with their growth and strengthened with
their consciousness of strength and capacity. Not be
cause such restrictions were uncommon, but because the
colonies were forward and exacting. There was, indeed,
much to commend the legislation they resented. It at
tracted the capital of English merchants to the American
trade, it went far towards securing English supremacy
on the seas, and it was strictly within the powers of
Parliament, as no man could deny. Parliament had an
undoubted right to regulate imperial interests, of this or
any other kind, even though it regulated them unreason
ably. But colonies that reckoned their English popula
tion by the hundred thousand and lived by trade and
adventure would not long have brooked such a policy of
restraint had they had the leisure to fret over it. They
did not as yet have the leisure. The Erench stood men
acingly at their western gates, through which the great

If

*

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 23

fur trade made its way ; where the long rivers ran which
threaded the central valleys of the continent ; where the
Mississippi stretched itself from north to south like a
great body of dividing waters, flanking all the coast and
its settlements — where alone a true mastery of the con
tinent and its resources could be held. It would be
time enough to reckon with Parliament touching the
carrying trade when they had made good their title to
what they were to trade withal.

The French had been a long time about their work,
for they had done it like subjects, at the bidding of
an ambitious king, rather than like free men striving
as they pleased for themselves. But what they had
done they had done systematically and with a fixed
policy that did not vary, though ministers and even
dynasties might come and go. The English had
crowded to the coasts of the continent as they pleased,
and had mustered their tens of thousands before the
French reckoned more than a few hundreds. But the
French had hit upon the mighty river St. Lawrence,
whose waters came out of the great lakes and the heart
of the continent ; their posts were garrisons ; what men
they had they put forward, at each step of discovery, at
some point of vantage upon lake or river, whence they
were not easily dislodged. Their shrewd fur-traders and
dauntless priests struck everywhere into the heart of
the forests, leading forward both trade and conquest,
until at last, through the country of the Illinois and
out of far Lake Michigan, the streams had been found
which ran down into the west to the flooding Missis
sippi. Colonists were sent to the mouth of the vast
river, posts presently dotted its banks here and there
throughout its length, trade passed up and down its

24 GEORGE WASHINGTON

spreading stream, and the English, their eyes at last
caught by the stealthy movement, looked in a short
space to see French settlements " running all along from
our lakes by the back of Virginia and Carolina to the
Bay of Mexico."

This was a business that touched the colonies to the
quick. New York had her western frontiers upon the
nearer lakes. Thence, time out of mind, had come the
best furs to the markets at Albany, brought from tribe
to tribe out of the farthest regions of the northwest.
New England, with the French at her very doors, had
to look constantly to her northern borders to keep them
against the unquiet savage tribes the French every year
stirred up against her. Virginia felt the French power
.among her savage neighbors too, the moment her peo
ple ventured across the Blue Ridge into the valley
•where many an ancient war-path ran ; and beyond the
Alleghanies she perceived she must stand in the very
presence almost of the French themselves. English fron
tiersmen and traders, though they had no advancing
military posts behind them, were none the less quick to
.go themselves deep into the shadowed wilderness, there
•to ,meet the French face to face in their own haunts.
'The Carolinas were hardly settled before their more ad
venturous spirits went straight into the far valley of the
Tennessee, and made trade for themselves there against
the coming of the French. Out of Virginia, too, and
out of Pennsylvania, as well as out of New York, traders
pressed towards the West, and fixed their lonely huts
here and there along the wild banks of the Ohio. 'Twas
diamond cut diamond when they met their French rivals
in the wigwams of the Indian villages, and their canoes
knew the waterways of the wilderness as well as any

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 25

man's. 'Tvvas they who learned at first hand what the
French were doing. They were like scouts sent out to
view the ground to be fought for.

This hazardous meeting of rival nations at the heart
of the continent meant many a deep change in the fort-
- unes of the colonies. European politics straightway en
tered their counsels. Here was an end of their sepa-
rateness and independence of England. Charles and
James and William all showed that they meant to be
veritable sovereigns, and had no thought but that the
colonists in America, like all other Englishmen, should
be their subjects ; and here was their opportunity to be
masters upon an imperial scale and with an imperial ex
cuse. In Europe, England beheld France her most for
midable foe ; she must look to it that Louis and his min
isters take no advantage in America. The colonies, no
less than the Channel itself, were become the frontiers
of an empire — and there must be no trespass upon Eng
lish soil by the French. The colonists must be rallied
to the common work, and, if used, they must be ruled
and consolidated.

As it turned out, the thing was quite impossible.
The colonies had too long been separate ; their charac
ters, their tempers, their interests, were too diverse and
distinct ; they were unused to co-operate, and unwilling ;
they were too slow to learn submission in anything.
The plan of grouping several of them under a single
governor was attempted, but they remained as separate
under that arrangement as under any other. Massachu
setts would interest herself in nothing beyond her own
jurisdiction that did not immediately touch her safety
or advantage ; New York cared little what the French
did, if only the Iroquois could be kept quiet and she

26 GEORGE WASHINGTON

could get her furs in the season, and find a market for
them abroad or among the French themselves ; Virginia
had no eye for any movement upon the frontiers that
did not menace her own fair valleys within the moun
tains with hostile occupation ; the Carolinas were as yet
too young to be serviceable, and New Jersey too remote
from points of danger. Nowhere could either men or
supplies be had for use against the French except by the
vote of a colonial assembly. The law of the empire
might be what it would in the mouths of English
judges at home ; it did not alter the practice of the col
onies. The courts in England might say with what
emphasis they liked that Virginia, u being a conquered
country, their law is what the King pleases " ; it was
none the less necessary for the King's Governor to
keep on terms with the people's representatives. " Our
government is so happily constituted," writes Colonel
Byrd to his friend in the Barbadoes, " that a governor
must first outwit us before he can oppress us. And if
ever he squeeze money out of us, he must first take care
to deserve it." Every colon}7 held stoutly to a like
practice, with a like stubborn temper, which it was mere
folly to ignore. One and all they were even then " too
proud to submit, too strong to be forced, too enlightened
not to see all the consequences which must arise" should
they tamely consent to be ruled by royal command or
parliamentary enactment. Their obedience must be had
on their own terms, or else not had at all. Governors
saw this plainly enough, though the ministers at home
could not. Many a governor had his temper sadly
soured by the contentious obstinacy of the colonial as
sembly he was set to deal with. One or two died of sheer
exasperation. But the situation was not altered a whit.

WILLIAM BYRD

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 27

When there is friction there must, sooner or later, be
adjustment, if affairs are to go forward at all, and this
contest between imperial system and colonial indepen
dence at last brought some things that had been vague
to a very clear definition. 'Twas plain the colonies
would not of themselves combine to meet and oust the
French. They would supply neither men nor money,
moreover. England must send her own armies to Amer
ica, fight France there as she would have fought her in
Europe, and pay the reckoning herself out of her own
treasury, getting from the colonies, the while, only such
wayward and niggardly aid as they chose to give. The
colonies, meanwhile, might gather some of the fruits of
experience; might learn how safe it was to be selfish,
and how unsafe, if they hoped to prosper and be free ;
might perceive where their common interests lay, and
their common power; might in some degree steady
their lives and define their policy against the coming of
more peaceful times. Two wars came and went which
brought France and England to arms against each
other in America, as in Europe, but they passed away
without decisive incident in the New World, and there
followed upon them thirty years of uneventful peace,
during which affairs hung at a nice balance, and the
colonies took counsel, each for itself, how they should
prosper.

Virginia, meanwhile, had got the charter she was to
keep. From the Potomac to the uncertain border of
the Carolinas she had seen her counties fill with the
men who were to decide her destiny. Her people, close
"upon a hundred thousand strong, had fallen into the or
der of life they were to maintain. They were no longer
colonists merely, but citizens of a commonwealth of

28 GEORGE WASHINGTON

which they began to be very proud, not least because
they saw a noble breed of public men spring out of
their own loins to lead them. Though they were scat
tered, they were not divided. There was, after all, no
real isolation for any man in Virginia, for all that he
lived so much apart and was a sort of lord within his
rustic barony. In that sunny land men were constantly
abroad, looking to their tobacco and the labor of all
kinds that must go forward, but would not unless they
looked to it, or else for the sheer pleasure of bestriding
a good horse, being quit of the house, and breathing
free in the genial air. Bridle-paths everywhere threaded
the forests; it was no great matter to ride from house
to house among one's neighbors; there were county-
court days, moreover, to draw the country-side together,
whether there was much business or little to be seen to.
Men did not thrive thereabouts by staying within doors,
but by being much about, knowing their neighbors, ob
serving what ships came and went upon the rivers, and
what prices were got for the cargoes they carried away ;
learning what the news was from Williamsburg and
London, what horses and cattle were to be had, and
what dogs, of what breeds. It was a country in which
news and opinions and friendships passed freely current;
where men knew each other with a rare leisurely in
timacy, and enjoyed their easy, unforced intercourse
with a keen and lasting relish.

It was a country in which men kept their individuali
ty very handsomely withal. If there was no town life,
there were no town manners either, no village conven
tionalities to make all men of one carriage and pattern
and manner of living. Every head of a family was
head also of an establishment, and could live with a self-

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 29

respect and freedom which were subject to no man's
private scrutiny. He had leave, in his independence, to
be himself quite naturally, and did not need to justify
his liberty by excuses. And yet he had responsibilities
too, and a position which steadied and righted him al
most in spite of himself. It required executive capacity
to make his estate pay, and an upright way of life to
maintain his standing. If he was sometimes loud and
hectoring, or over-careless what he said or did, 'twas
commonly because he was young or but half come into
his senses; for his very business, of getting good crops
of tobacco and keeping on dealing terms with his neigh
bors, demanded prudence and a conduct touched with
consideration. He had to build his character very care
fully by the plumb to keep it at an equilibrium, though
he might decorate it, if it were but upright, as freely,
as whimsically even, as he chose, with chance traits and
self-pleasing tastes, with the full consent and tolerance
of the neighborhood. He was his own man, might have
his own opinions if he held them but courteously
enough, might live his own life if he but lived it cleanly
and without offence. T\vas by their living rather than
by their creed or their livelihood that men were assessed
and esteemed.

It was not a life that bred students, though it was a
life that begot thoughtfulness and leadership in affairs.
Those who fell in the way of getting them had not a
few books upon their shelves, because they thought every
gentleman should have such means of knowing what
the world had said and done before his day. But they
read only upon occasion, when the weather darkened,
or long evenings dragged because there were no guests
in the house. Not much systematic education was pos-

30 GEORGE WASHINGTON

sible where the population was so dispersed and sepa
rate. A few country schools undertook what was ab
solutely necessary, and gave instruction in such practi
cal branches as every man must know something of who
was to take part in the management of private and pub
lic business. For the rest, those who chose could get
the languages from private tutors, when they were to
be had, and then go over sea to read at the universities,
or to Williamsburg when at last the colony had its own
college of William and Mary. More youths went from
the Northern Neck to England for their education, no
doubt, than from any other part of Virginia. The
counties there were somewhat closer than the rest to
the sea, bred more merchants and travellers, kept up a
more intimate correspondence both by travel and by
letter with Bristol and London and all the old English
homes. And even those who stayed in Virginia had most
of them the tradition of refinement, spoke the mother
tongue purely and with a proper relish, and maintained
themselves somehow, with perhaps an added touch of
simplicity that was their own, in the practices of a cul
tivated race.

No one in Virginia thought that u becoming a mere
scholar " was " a desirable education for a gentleman."
He ought to " become acquainted with men and things
rather than books." Books must serve only to deepen
and widen the knowledge he should get by observation
and a free intercourse with those about him. When
Virginians wrote, therefore, you might look to find them
using, not studied phrases, but a style that smacked
fresh of all the free elements of good talk — not like
scholars or professed students, but like gentlemen of
leisure and cultivated men of affairs — with a subtle, not

" THEY READ ONLY UPON OCCASION, WHEN THE WEATHER DARKENED

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 31

unpleasing flavor of egotism, and the racy directness of
speech, withal, that men may use who are sure of their
position. Such was the writing of Robert Beverley,
whose History and Present State of Virginia, published
in London in 1705, spoke at first hand and authorita
tively of affairs of which the world had heard hitherto
only by uncertain report. He did not write the manly
book because he had a pricking ambition to be an au
thor, but because he loved Virginia, and wished to give
such an account of her affairs as would justify his pride
in her. He came of an ancient English family, whose
ample means were scarcely more considerable in Virginia
than they had been in Beverley, in Yorkshire. He had
himself been carefully educated in England, and had
learned to feel very much at home there ; but the at
tractions of the old home did not wean him from his
love of the new, where he had been born — that quiet
land where men dealt with one another so frankly,
where Nature was so genial in all her moods, and men
so without pretence. Official occupations gave him oc
casion while yet a very young man to handle familiar
ly the records of the colony, the intimate letters of its
daily life, and he took a proud man's pleasure in ex
tracting from them, and from the traditions of those
wrho still carried much of the simple history in their
own recollections of a stirring life, a frank and genial
story of what had been done and seen in Virginia.
And so his book became " the living testimony of a
proud and generous Virginian" — too proud to conceal
his opinions or withhold censure where it was merited,
too generous not to set down very handsomely whatever
was admirable and of good report in the life of his peo
ple. His own manly character, speaking out every-

32 GEORGE WASHINGTON

where, as it does, in lively phrase and candid meaning,
is itself evidence of the wholesome native air he so
praises in Virginia.

He thought himself justified in loving a country
where " plantations, orchards, and gardens constantly
afford fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods
and fields they have an unknown variety of vegetables
and other rarities of nature to discover and observe.
They have hunting, fishing, and fowling, with which
they entertain themselves in a thousand ways. Here is
the most good nature and hospitality practised in the
world, both towards friends and strangers ; but the
worst of it is this generosity is attended now and then
with a little too much intemperance. The neighborhood
is at much the same distance as in the country in Eng
land, but with this advantage, that all the better sort of
people have been abroad and seen the world, by which
means they are free from that stiffness and formality
which discover more civility than kindness. And be
sides, the goodness of the roads and the fairness of the
weather bring people oftener together."

Of a like quality of genuineness and good breeding is
the writing of Colonel William Byrd, the accomplished
master of Westover, who was of the same generation.
He may well have been the liveliest man in Virginia, so
piquant and irrepressible is the humor that runs through
almost every sentence he ever wrote. It must be he
wrote for pastime. He never took the pains to publish
anything. His manuscripts lay buried a hundred years
or more in the decent sepulture of private possession ere
they were printed, but were even then as quick as when
they were written. Beverley had often a grave smile
for what he recorded, or a quiet sarcasm of tone in the

IN WASHINGTON'S DAT 33

telling of it. " The militia are the only standing forces
in Virginia," he says, very demurely, and " they are
happy in the enjoyment of an everlasting peace." But
Colonel Byrd is very merry, like a man of sense, not
contriving the jest, but only letting it slip, revealing it ;
looks very shrewdly into things, and very wisely, too,
but with an easy eye, a disengaged conscience, keeping
tally of the score like one who attends but is not too
deeply concerned. He was, in fact, very deeply en
gaged in all affairs of importance — no man more deeply
or earnestly ; but when he wrote 'twas not his chief
business to speak of that. He was too much of a gen
tleman and too much of a wit to make grave boast of
what he was doing.

No man born in Virginia had a greater property than
he, a house more luxuriously appointed, or a part to
play more princely ; and no man knew the value of
position and wealth and social consideration more ap
preciatively. His breeding had greatly quickened his
perception of such things. He had had a long training
abroad, had kept very noble company alike in England
and on the Continent, had been called to the bar in the
Middle Temple and chosen a Fellow of the Koyal
Society, and so had won his freedom of the world of
letters and of affairs. Yet he had returned to Virginia,
as all her sons did, with only an added zest to serve and
enjoy her. Many designs for her development throve
because of his interest and encouragement; he sought
her advantage jealously in her Council, as her agent in
England, as owner of great tracts of her fertile lands.
'Twas he who brought to her shores some of her best
settlers, gave her promise of veritable towns at Eich-
mond and Petersburg, fought arbitrary power wherever

34 GEORGE WASHINGTON

it showed itself in her government, and proved himself
in every way " a true and worthy inheritor of the feel
ings and opinions of the old cavaliers of Virginia." But
through all his busy life he carried himself like the
handsome, fortunate man he was, with a touch of gayety,
a gallant spirit of comradeship, a zest for good books,
spirited men, and comely women — heartily, like a man
who, along with honor, sought the right pleasures of
the world.

Nothing daunted the spirits of this manly gentleman,
not even rough work at the depths of the forest, upon
the public business of determining the southern boun
dary-line of the colony, or upon the private business of
seeing to his own distant properties in North Carolina.
It gave him only the better chance to see the world ;
and he was never at a loss for something to do. There
were stray books to be found even in the cabins of the
remotest settlers ; or, if not, there was the piquant liter
ary gossip of those laughing times of Queen Anne, but
just gone by, to rehearse and comment upon. Colonel
Byrd was not at a loss to find interesting ways in which
even a busy man might make shift to enjoy " the Caro
lina felicity of having nothing to do." A rough people
lived upon that frontier in his day, who showed them
selves very anxious to be put upon the southern side of
the line ; for, if taken into Virginia, " they must have
submitted to some sort of order and government;
whereas in North Carolina every one does what seems
best in his own eyes." "They pay no tribute," he
laughs, " either to God or to Ca3sar." It would not be
amiss, he thinks, were the clergy in Virginia, once in
two or three years — not to make the thing burdensome
— to "take a turn among these gentiles." " 'T would

JAMES BLAIR

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 35

look a little apostolical," he argues, with the character
istic twinkle in his eye, " and they might hope to be re
quited for it hereafter, if that be not thought too long
to tarry for their reward." A stray parson was to be
found once and again even at the depths of the forest —
on the Virginian side — though to find his humble quar
ters you must needs thread " a path as narrow as that
which leads to heaven, but much more dirty " ; but a
stray parson was no great evangel. Colonel Byrd was
too sound a gentleman not to be a good churchman ; but
he accounted it no sin to see where the humor lurks
even in church. " Mr. Betty, the parson of the parish,
entertained us with a good, honest sermon," he chroni
cles upon occasion ; " but whether he bought it, or bor
rowed it, would have been uncivil in us to inquire Be
that as it will, he is a decent man, with a double chin
that fits gracefully over his band. . . . When church was
done we refreshed our teacher with a glass of wine, and
then, receiving his blessing, took horse.7' 'Tis likely
Colonel Byrd would have found small amusement in
narrating the regular course of his life, his great errands
and permanent concerns of weighty business. That he
could as well leave to his biographer, should he chance
to have one. For himself, he chose to tell the unusual
things he had seen and heard and taken part in, and to
make merry as well as he might by the way.

The Virginian writers were not all country gentle
men. There were austere and stately scholars, too, like
the Reverend William Stith, who had held modest liv
ings in more than one parish, had served the House of
Burgesses as chaplain, and the college, first as instructor
and then as president, until at length, having won " per
fect leisure and retirement," he set himself in his last

36 GEORGE WASHINGTON

days to straighten into order the confusion of early Vir
ginian history. " Such a work," he reflected, " will be a
noble and elegant entertainment for my vacant hours,
which it is not in my power to employ more to my own
satisfaction, or the use and benefit of my country."
What with his scholarly IOVJB of documents set forth at
length, however, his painstaking recital of details, and
his roundabout, pedantic style, his story of the first sev
enteen years of the colony lingered through a whole
volume; and his friends' laggard subscriptions to that
single prolix volume discouraged him from undertaking
another. There was neither art nor quick movement
enough in such work, much as scholars have prized it
since, to take the taste of a generation that lived its
life on horseback and spiced it with rough sport and
direct speech. They could read with more patience the
plain, business-like sentences of the Reverend Hugh
Jones's Present State of Virginia, and with more zest
the downright, telling words in which the Reverend
James Blair, " commissary " to the Bishop of London,
spoke of their affairs.

James Blair, though born and bred in Scotland, edu
cated at Edinburgh, and engaged as a minister at home
till he was close upon thirty years of age, was as much
a Virginian in his life and deeds as any man born in
the Old Dominion. 'Twas he who had been the chief
founder of the College of William and Mary, and who
had served it as president through every vicissitude of
fortune for fifty years. For fifty years he was a mem
ber, too, of the King's Council in the colony, and for
fifty-eight the chief adviser of the mother Church in
England concerning ecclesiastical affairs in Virginia.
" Probably no other man in the colonial time did so

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 37

much for the intellectual life of Virginia " as did this
"sturdy and faithful" Scotsman. To the colonists,
oftentimes, he seemed overbearing, dictatorial even, and,
for all their " gentlemanly conformity to the Church of
England," they did not mean to suffer any man to be
set over them as bishop in Virginia ; while to the royal
governors he seemed sometimes a headstrong agitator
and demagogue, so stoutly did he stand up for the lib
erties of the people among whom he had cast his lot.
He was in all things a doughty Scot. He made very
straight for the ends he deemed desirable ; dealt frank
ly, honestly, fearlessly with all men alike ; confident of
being in the right even when he was in the wrong ; deal
ing with all as he thought he ought to deal, " whether
they liked it or not"; incapable of discouragement, as he
was also incapable of dishonor ; a stalwart, formidable
master of all work in church and college, piling up
every day to his credit a great debt of gratitude from
the colony, which honored him without quite liking him.
It was very noteworthy that masterful men of many
kinds took an irresistible liking to Virginia, though they
were but sent upon an errand to it. There was Alex
ander Spots wood, for example, who, after he had been
twelve years Lieutenant -Governor in the stead of his
lordship the Earl of Orkney, spent eighteen more good
years, all he had left, upon the forty-odd thousand acres
of land he had acquired in the fair colony, as a country
gentleman, very busy developing the manufacture of
iron, and as busy as there was any need to be as Post
master-General of the colonies. He came of a sturdy
race of gentlemen, had se^n service along with Marlbor-
ough and my uncle Toby " with the army in Flanders,"
had gone much about the world upon many errands

38 GEORGE WASHINGTON

and seen all manner of people, and then had found him
self at last in Virginia when he was past forty. For all
its rough life, he liked the Old Dominion well enough
to adopt it as his home. There wras there, he said,
" less swearing, less profaneness, less drunkenness and
debauchery, less uncharitable feuds and animosities,
and less knavery and villany than in any part of the
world " where his lot had been. Not all of his neigh
bors were gentlemen ; not very many could afford to
send their sons to England to be educated. Men of all
sorts had crowded into Virginia : merchants and gentle
men not a few, but also commoner men a great many —
mariners, artisans, tailors, and men without settled trades
or handicrafts of any kind. Spotswood had found it no
easy matter when he was Governor to deal patiently
with a House of Burgesses to which so many men of
" mean understandings " had been sent, and had allowed
himself to wax very sarcastic when he found how igno
rant some of them were. " I observe," he said, tartly,
"that the grand ruling party in your House has not
furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees
who can spell English or write common - sense, as the
grievances under their own handwriting will manifest."
'Twas not a country, either, where one could travel
much at ease, for one must ford the streams for lack
of bridges, and keep an eye sharply about him as he
travelled the rude forest roads when the wind was high
lest a rotten tree should fall upon him. Nature was so
bountiful, yielded so easy a largess of food, that few men
took pains to be thrifty, and some parts of the colony
were little more advanced in the arts of life than North
Carolina, where, Colonel Byrd said, nothing was dear
"but law, physic, and strong drink." No doubt the

ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 39

average colonist in Virginia, when not sobered by im
portant cares, was apt to be a fellow of coarse fibre,
whose

" addiction was to courses vain ;

His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow ;

His hours flll'd up with riots, banquets, sports ;

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity."

But to many a scapegrace had come "reformation in
a flood, with such a heady current, scouring faults," as
to make a notable man of him. There were at least
the traditions of culture in the colony, and enough men
of education and refinement to leaven the mass. Life
ran generously, even if roughly, upon the scattered
plantations, and strong, thinking, high-bred men had
somehow a mastery and leadership in it all which made
them feel Yirginia their home and field of honor.

Change of time and of affairs, the stir of growing life
in Yirginia as she ceased from being a mere colony and
became a sturdy commonwealth, boasting her own
breed of gentlemen, merchants, scholars, and statesmen,
laid upon the Washingtons, as upon other men, a touch
of transformation. Seventy-six years had gone by since
John Washington came out of Bedfordshire and took up
lands on Bridges' Creek in Westmoreland in Yirginia,
and still his children were to be found in the old seats
he had chosen at the first. They had become thorough
Yirginians with the rest, woven into the close fibre of
the new life. Westmoreland and all the counties that
lay about it on the Northern Neck were strictly of a
piece with the rest of Yirginia, for all they had waited
long to be settled. There the Washingtons had become

40 GEORGE WASHINGTON

country gentlemen of comfortable estate upon the ac
cepted model. John had begotten Lawrence, and Law
rence had begotten Augustine. John had thriftily taken
care to see his offspring put in a way to prosper at the
very first. He had acquired a substantial property of
his own where the land lay very fertile upon the banks
of the Potomac, and he had, besides, by three marriages,
made good a very close connection with several fami
lies that had thriven thereabouts before him. He had
become a notable figure, indeed, among his neighbors
ere he had been many years in the colony — a colonel in
their militia, and their representative in the House of
Burgesses ; and they had not waited for his death to call
the parish in which he lived Washington Parish. His
sons and grandsons, though they slackened a little the
pace he had set them in his energy at the outset, throve
none the less substantially upon the estates he had left
them, abated nothing of the dignity and worth they had
inherited, lived simply, and kept their place of respect
in the parish and state. Wars came and went without
disturbing incident for them, as the French moved upon
the borders by impulse of politics from over sea ; and
then long peace set in, equally without incident, to stay
a whole generation, while good farming went quietly
forward, and politicians at home and in the colonies
planned another move in their game. It was in the
mid-season of this time of poise, preparation, and expect
ancy that George Washington was born, on the 22d of
February, in the year 1732, " about ten in the morning,"
William Gooch, gentlest of Marlborough's captains, be
ing Governor in Virginia. He came into the world at
the plain but spacious homestead on Bridges' Creek,
fourth son, fifth child, of Augustine Washington, and of

IN WASHINGTON'S DAY 41

the third generation from John "Washington, son of the
one-time rector of Purleigh. The homestead stood upon
a green and gentle slope that fell away, at but a little
distance, to the waters of the Potomac, and from it
could be seen the broad reaches of the stream stretching
wide to the Maryland shore beyond, and flooding with
slow, full tide to the great bay below. The spot gave
token of the quiet youth of the boy, of the years of
grateful peace in which he was to learn the first lessons
of life, ere war and the changing fortunes of his coun
try hurried him to the field and to the council.

FAC-SIMILE OF TUB ENTRY OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTH IN HIS MOTHER'S BIBLE

A YIKGINIAN BEEEDING

CHAPTER II

GEOEGE WASHINGTON was cast for his career by a very
scant and homely training. Augustine Washington, his
father, lacked neither the will nor the means to set him
handsomely afoot, with as good a schooling, both in
books and in affairs, as was to be had ; he would have
done all that a liberal and provident man should do to
advance his boy in the world, had he lived to go with
him through his youth. He owned land in four coun
ties, more than five thousand acres all told, and lying
upon both the rivers that refresh the fruitful Northern
Neck ; besides several plots of ground in the promising
village of Fredericks burg, which lay opposite his lands
upon the Kappahannock ; and one-twelfth part of the
stock of the Principio Iron Company, whose mines and
furnaces in Maryland and Virginia yielded a better profit
than any others in the two colonies. He had com
manded a ship in his time, as so many of his neighbors
had in that maritime province, carrying iron from the
mines to England, and no doubt bringing convict labor
ers back upon his voyage home again. He himself
raised the ore from the mines that lay upon his own
land, close to the Potomac, and had it carried the easy
six miles to the river. Matters were very well managed
there, Colonel Byrd said, and no pains were spared to
make the business profitable. Captain Washington had

46 GEORGE WASHINGTON

represented his home parish of Truro, too, in the House
of Burgesses, where his athletic figure, his ruddy skin,
and frank gray eyes must have made him as conspicuous
as his constituents could have wished. He was a man
of the world, every inch, generous, hardy, independent.
He lived long enough, too, to see how stalwart and
capable and of how noble a spirit his young son was to
be, with how manly a bearing he was to carry himself in
the world ; and had loved him and made him his compan
ion accordingly. But the end came for him before he
could see the lad out of boyhood. He died April 12,
1743, when he was but forty-nine years of age, and be
fore George was twelve ; and in his will there was, of
course, for George only a younger son's portion. The
active gentleman had been twice married, and there were
seven children to be provided for. Two sons of the first
marriage survived. The bulk of the estate went, as
Virginian custom dictated, to Lawrence, the eldest son.
To Augustine, the second son, fell most of the rich lands
in Westmoreland. George, the eldest born of the second
marriage, left to the guardianship of his young mother,
shared with the four younger children the residue of the
estate. He was to inherit his father's farm upon the
Rappahannock, to possess, and to cultivate if he would,
when he should come of age ; but for the rest his fort
unes were to make. He must get such serviceable
training as he could for a life of independent endeavor.
The two older brothers had been sent to England to get
their schooling and preparation for life, as their father
before them had been to get his — Lawrence to make
ready to take his father's place when the time should
come ; Augustine, it was at first planned, to fit himself
for the law. George could now look for nothing of the

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 47

kind. He must continue, as he had begun, to get such
elementary and practical instruction as was to be had of
schoolmasters in Virginia, and the young mother's care
must stand him in the stead of a father's pilotage and
oversight.

Fortunately Mary Washington was a wise and provi
dent mother, a woman of too firm a character and too
steadfast a courage to be dismayed by responsibility.
She had seemed only a fair and beautiful girl when
Augustine Washington married her, and there was a
romantic story told of how that gallant Virginian sailor
and gentleman had literally been thrown at her feet out
of a carriage in the London streets by way of introduc
tion — where she, too, was a visiting stranger out of Vir
ginia. But she had shown a singular capacity for busi
ness when the romantic days of courtship were over.
Lawrence Washington, too, though but five-and-twenty
when his father died and left him head of the family,
proved himself such an elder brother as it could but bet
ter and elevate a boy to have. For all he was so young,
he had seen something of the world, and had already
made notable friends. He had not returned home out
of England until he was turned of twenty-one, and he
had been back scarcely a twelvemonth before he was
off again, to seek service in the war against Spain. The
colonies had responded with an unwonted willingness
and spirit in 1740 to the home government's call for
troops to go against the Spaniard in the West Indies ; and
Lawrence Washington had sought and obtained a com
mission as captain in the Virginian regiment which had
volunteered for the duty. He had seen those terrible
days at Cartagena, with Vernon's fleet and Wentworth's
army, when the deadly heat and blighting damps of the

48 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tropics wrought a work of death which drove the Eng
lish forth as no fire from the Spanish cannon could. He
had been one of that devoted force which threw itself
twelve hundred strong upon Fort San Lazaro, and came
away beaten with six hundred only. He had seen the
raw provincials out of the colonies carry themselves as gal
lantly as any veterans through all the fiery trial ; had seen
the storm and the valor, the vacillation and the blunder
ing, and the shame of all the rash affair ; and had come
away the friend and admirer of the gallant Yernon, de
spite his headstrong folly and sad miscarriage. He had
reached home again, late in the year 1742, only to see
his father presently snatched away by a sudden illness,
and to find himself become head of the family in his
stead. All thought of further service away from home
was dismissed. He accepted a commission as major in
the colonial militia, and an appointment as adjutant-
general of the military district in which his lands lay ;
but he meant that for the future his duties should be
civil rather than military in the life he set himself to
live, and turned very quietly to the business and the
social duty of a proprietor among his neighbors in
Fairfax County, upon the broad estates to which he
gave the name Mount Vernon, in compliment to the
brave sailor whose friend he had become in the far, un
happy South.

Marriage was, of course, his first step towards domes
tication, and the woman he chose brought him into new
connections which suited both his tastes and his train
ing. Three months after his father's death he married
Anne Fairfax, daughter to William Fairfax, his neigh
bor. 'Twas William Fairfax's granduncle Thomas,
third Lord Fairfax, who had in that revolutionary year

THOMAS, SIXTH LORD FAIRFAX

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 49

1646 summoned Colonel Henry Washington to give into
his hands the city of Worcester, and who had got so sharp
an answer from the King's stout soldier. But the Fair
faxes had soon enough turned royalists again when they
saw whither the Parliament men would carry them. A
hundred healing years had gone by since those unhappy
days when the nation was arrayed against the King.
Anne Fairfax brought no alien tradition to the house
hold of her young husband. Her father had served the
King, as her lover had — with more hardship than re
ward, as behooved a soldier — in Spain and in the Baha
mas ; and was now, when turned of fifty, agent here in
Virginia to his cousin Thomas, sixth Baron Fairfax, in
the management of his great estates, lying upon the
Northern ISTeck and in the fruitful valleys beyond.
William Fairfax had been but nine years in the colony,
but he was already a Virginian like his neighbors, and,
as collector of his Majesty's customs for the South Po
tomac and President of the King's Council, no small
figure in their affairs — a man who had seen the world
and knew how to bear himself in this part of it.

In 1746 Thomas, Lord Fairfax, himself came to Vir
ginia — a man strayed out of the world of fashion at
fifty-five into the forests of a wild frontier. The better
part of his ancestral estates in Yorkshire had been sold
to satisfy the creditors of his spendthrift father. These
untilled stretches of land in the Old Dominion were now
become the chief part of his patrimony. 'Twas said,
too, that he had suffered a cruel misadventure in love at
the hands of a fair jilt in London, and so had become
the austere, eccentric bachelor he showed himself to be
in the free and quiet colony. A man of taste and cult
ure, he had written with Addison and Steele for the

4

50 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Spectator y a man of the world, he had acquired, for all
his reserve, that easy touch and intimate mastery in
dealing with men which come with the long practice
of such men of fashion as are also men of sense. He
brought with him to Virginia, though past fifty, the
fresh vigor of a young man eager for the free pioneer
life of such a province. He tarried but two years with
his cousin, where the colony had settled to an ordered
way of living. Then he built himself a roomy lodge,
shadowed by spreading piazzas, and fitted with such
simple appointments as sufficed for comfort at the
depths of the forest, close upon seventy miles away,
within the valley of the Shenandoah, where a hardy
frontier people had but begun to gather. The great
manor-house he had meant to build was never begun.
The plain comforts of " Green way Court " satisfied him
more and more easily as the years passed, and the habits
of a simple life grew increasingly pleasant and familiar,
till thirty years and more had slipped away and he was"
dead, at ninety-one — broken-hearted, men said, because
the King's government had fallen upon final defeat and
was done with in America.

It was in the company of these men, and of those
who naturally gathered about them in that hospita
ble country, that George Washington was bred. "A
stranger had no more to do," says Beverley, " but to in
quire upon the road where any gentleman or good
housekeeper lived, and there he might depend upon be
ing received with hospitality " ; and 'twas certain many
besides strangers would seek out the young major at
Mount Yernon whom his neighbors had hastened to
make their representative in the House of Burgesses,
and the old soldier of the soldierly house of Fairfax

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 51

who was President of the King's Council, and so next
to the Governor himself. A boy who was much at
Mount Yernon and at Mr. Fairfax's seat, Belvoir, might
expect to see not a little that was worth seeing of the
life of the colony. George was kept at school until
he was close upon sixteen ; but there was ample vaca
tion-time for visiting. Mrs. Washington did not keep
him at her apron-strings. He even lived, when it was
necessary, with his brother Augustine, at the old home
on Bridges' Creek, in order to be near the best school
that was accessible, while the mother was far away on
the farm that lay upon the Rappahannock. Mrs. Wash
ington saw to it, nevertheless, that she should not lose
sight of him altogether. When he was fourteen it was
proposed that he should be sent to sea, as so many lads
were, no doubt, from that maritime province ; but the
prudent mother preferred he should not leave Virginia,
and the schooling went on as before — the schooling of
books and manly sports. Every lad learned to ride — to
ride colt or horse, regardless of training, gait, or temper
—in that country, where no one went afoot except to
catch his mount in the pasture. Every lad, black or
white, bond or free, knew where to find and how to take
the roving game in the forests. And young Washing
ton, robust boy that he was, not to be daunted while
that strong spirit sat in him which he got from his
father and mother alike, took his apprenticeship on
horseback and in the tangled woods with characteristic
zest and ardor.

He was, above all things else, a capable, executive
boy. He loved mastery, and he relished acquiring the
most effective means of mastery in all practical affairs.
His very exercise- books used at school gave proof of it.

52 GEORGE WASHINGTON

They were filled, not only with the rules, formulae, dia
grams, and exercises of surveying, which he was taking-
special pains to learn, at the advice of his friends, but
also with careful copies of legal and mercantile papers,
bills of exchange, bills of sale, bonds, indentures, land
warrants, leases, deeds, and wills, as if he meant to be a
lawyer's or a merchant's clerk. It would seem that, pas
sionate and full of warm blood as he was, he conned
these things as he studied the use and structure of his
fowling-piece, the bridle he used for his colts, his saddle-
girth, and the best ways of mounting. He copied these
forms of business as he might have copied Beverley's
account of the way fox or 'possum or beaver was to be
taken or the wild turkey trapped. The men he most
admired — his elder brothers, Mr. Fairfax, and the gentle
men planters who were so much at their houses — were
most of them sound men of business, who valued good
surveying as much as they admired good horsemanship
and skill in sport. They were their own merchants, and
looked upon forms of business paper as quite as useful
as ploughs and hogsheads. Careful exercise in such
matters might well enough accompany practice in the
equally formal minuet in Virginia. And so this boy
learned to show in almost everything he did the careful
precision of the perfect marksman.

In the autumn of 1747, when he was not yet quite
sixteen, George quit his formal schooling, and presently
joined his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon, to seek
counsel and companionship. Lawrence had conceived a
strong affection for his manly younger brother. Him
self a man of spirit and honor, he had a high-hearted
man's liking for all that he saw that was indomitable
and well-purposed in the lad, a generous man's tender-

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 53

ness in looking to the development of this thoroughbred
boy; and he took him into his confidence as if he had
been his own son. Not only upon his vacations now, but
almost when he would, and as if he were already him
self a man with the rest, he could live in the comrade
ship that obtained at Belvoir and Mount Yernon. Men
of all sorts, it seemed, took pleasure in his company.
Lads could be the companions of men in Virginia. Her
outdoor life of journeyings, sport, adventure, put them,
as it were, upon equal terms with their elders, where
spirit, audacity, invention, prudence, manliness, resource,
told for success and comradeship. Young men and old
can be companions in arms, in sport, in woodcraft, and
on the trail of the fox. 'Twas not an indoor life of
conference, but an outdoor life of affairs in this rural
colony. One man, indeed, gave at least a touch of an
other quality to the life Washington saw. This was
Lord Fairfax, who had been almost two years in Vir
ginia when the boy quit school, and who was now deter
mined, as soon as might be, to take up his residence at
his forest lodge within the Blue Kidge. George greatly
struck his lordship's fancy, as he did that of all capable
men, as a daring lad in the hunt and a sober lad in
counsel ; and, drawn into such companionship, he learned
a great deal that no one else in Virginia could have
taught him so well — the scrupulous deportment of a
hio-h-bred and honorable man of the world ; the use of

o

books by those who preferred affairs ; the way in which
strength may be rendered gracious, and independence
made generous. A touch of Old World address was to
be learned at Belvoir.

His association with Lord Fairfax, moreover, put him
in the way of making his first earnings as a surveyor.

54 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Fairfax had not come to America merely to get away
from the world of fashion in London and bury himself
in the wilderness. His chief motive was one which did
him much more credit, and bespoke him a man and a
true colonist. It was his purpose, he declared, to open
up, settle, and cultivate the vast tracts of beautiful and
fertile land he had inherited in Virginia, and he proved
his sincerity by immediately setting about the business.
It was necessary as a first step that he should have sur
veys made, in order that he might know how his lands
lay, how bounded and disposed through the glades and
upon the streams of the untrodden forests ; and in young
Washington he had a surveyor ready to his hand. The
lad was but sixteen, indeed ; was largely self-taught in
surveying ; and had had no business yet that made test
of his quality. But surveyors were scarce, and boys
were not tender at sixteen in that robust, out-of-door
colony. Fairfax had an eye for capacity. He knew the
athletic boy to be a fearless woodsman, with that odd,
calm judgment looking forth at his steady gray eyes;
perceived how seriously he took himself in all that he
did, and how thorough he was at succeeding ; and had
no doubt he could run his lines through the thicketed
forests as well as any man. At any rate, he commis
sioned him to undertake the task, and was not disap
pointed in the way he performed it. Within a very few
weeks Washington conclusively showed his capacity.
In March, 1748, with George Fairfax, William Fairfax's
son, for company, he rode forth with his little band of
assistants through the mountains to the wild country
where his work lay, and within the month almost he
was back again, with maps and figures which showed
his lordship very clearly what lands he had upon the

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 55

sparkling Shenandoah and the swollen upper waters of
the Potomac. 'Twas all he wanted before making his
home where his estate lay in the wilderness. Before the
year was out he had established himself at Greenway
Court ; huntsmen and tenants and guests had found
their way thither, and life was fairly begun upon the
rough rural barony.

It had been wild and even perilous work for the young
surveyor, but just out of school, to go in the wet spring
time into that wilderness, when the rivers were swollen
and ugly with the rains and melting snows from off the
mountains, where there was scarcely a lodging to be
had except in the stray, comfortless cabins of the scat
tered settlers, or on the ground about a fire in the open
woods, and where a woodman's wits were needed to
come even tolerably off. But there was a strong relish
in such an experience for Washington, which did not
wear off with the novelty of it. There is an unmistaka
ble note of boyish satisfaction in the tone in which he
speaks of it. " Since you received my letter in October
last," he writes to a young comrade, " I have not sleep'd
above three nights or four in a bed, but, after walking a
good deal all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a
little hay, straw, fodder, or bear-skin, whichever is to be
had, with man, wife, and children, like a parcel of dogs
and cats ; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest
the fire. ... I have never had my clothes off, but lay
and sleep in them, except the few nights I have lay'n
in Frederick Town." For three years he kept steadily-
at the trying business, without loss either of health or
courage, now deep in the forests laboriously laying off
the rich bottom lands and swelling hill -sides of that
wild but goodly country between the mountains, now at

56 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Green way Court with his lordship, intent upon the busy
life there, — following the hounds, consorting with hunts
men and Indians and traders, waiting upon the ladies
who now and again visited the lodge ; when other occu
pations failed, reading up and down in his lordship's copy
of the Spectator, or in the historians who told the great
English story. His first success in surveying brought
him frequent employment in the valley. Settlers were
steadily making their way thither, who must needs have
their holdings clearly bounded and defined. Upon his
lordship's recommendation and his own showing of what
he knew and could do, he obtained appointment at the
hands of the President and Master of William and Mary,
the colony's careful agent in the matter, as official sur
veyor for Culpeper County, " took the usual oaths to his
Majesty's person and government," and so got for his
>work the privilege of authoritative public record.

Competent surveyors were much in demand, and,
when once he had been officially accredited in his pro
fession, Washington had as much to do both upon new
lands and old as even a young man's energy and liking
for an independent income could reasonably demand.
His home he made with his brother at Mount Vernon,
where he was always so welcome ; and he was as often as
possible with his mother at her place upon the Eappa-
hannock, to lend the efficient lady such assistance as she
needed in the business of the estate she held for herself
and her children. At odd intervals he studied tactics,
practised the manual of arms, or took a turn at the
broadsword with the old soldiers who so easily found
excuses for visiting Major Washington at Mount Ver
non. But, except when winter weather forbade him the
fields, he was abroad, far and near, busy with his sur-

-J

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 57

veying, and incidentally making trial of his neighbors
up and down all the country-side round about, as his
errands threw their open doors in his way. His pleas
ant bearing and his quiet satisfaction at being busy, his
manly, efficient ways, his evident self-respect, and his
frank enjoyment of life, the engaging mixture in him of
man and boy, must have become familiar to everybody
worth knowing throughout all the Northern Neck.

But three years put a term to his surveying. In 1751
he was called imperatively off, and had the whole course
of his life changed, by the illness of his brother. Law
rence Washington had never been robust; those long
months spent at the heart of the fiery South with Yer-
non's fever-stricken fleet had touched his sensitive con
stitution to the quick, and at last a fatal consumption
fastened upon him. Neither a trip to England nor the
waters of the warm springs at home brought him re
cuperation, and in the autumn of 1T51 his physician
ordered him to the Bahamas for the winter. George,
whom he so loved and trusted, went with him, to nurse
and cheer him. But even the gentle sea -air of the
islands wrought no cure of the stubborn malady. The
sterling, gifted, lovable gentleman, who had made his
quiet seat at Mount Yernon the home of so much that
was honorable and of good report, came back the next
summer to die in his prime, at thirty-four. George found
himself named executor in his brother's will, and looked
to of a sudden to guard all the interests of the young
widow and her little daughter in the management of a
large estate. That trip to the Bahamas had been his
last outing as a boy. He had enjoyed the novel journey
with a very keen and natural relish while it promised
his brother health. The radiant air of those summer

58 GEORGE WASHINGTON

isles had touched him with a new pleasure, and the cor
dial hospitality of the homesick colonists had added
the satisfaction of a good welcome. He had braved the
small-pox in one household with true Virginian punctilio
rather than refuse an invitation to dinner, had taken the
infection, and had come home at last bearing some per
manent marks of a three weeks' sharp illness upon him.
But he had had entertainment enough to strike the bal
ance handsomely against such inconveniences, had borne
whatever came in his way very cheerily, with that whole
some strength of mind which made older men like him,
and would have come off remembering nothing but the
pleasure of the trip had his noble brother only found
his health again. As it was, Lawrence's death put a
final term to his youth. Five other executors were
named in the will ; but George, as it turned out, was to
be looked to to carry the burden of administration, and
gave full proof of the qualities that had made his brother
trust him with so generous a confidence.

His brother's death, in truth, changed everything for
him. He seemed of a sudden to stand as Lawrence's
representative. Before they set out for the Bahamas
Lawrence had transferred to him his place in the militia,
obtaining for him, though he was but nineteen, a com
mission as major and district adjutant in his stead ; and
after his return, in 1752, Lieutenant-Governor Dinwid-
die, the crown's new representative in Virginia, added
still further to his responsibilities as a soldier by re
ducing the military districts of the colony to four, and
assigning to him one of the four, under a renewed
commission as major and adjutant-general. His broth
er's will not only named him an executor, but also made
him residuary legatee of the estate of Mount Vernon in

LAWRENCE WASHINGTON

(From a portrait, by an unknown artist, in the possession of Lawrence Washington
Alexandria, Virginia)

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 59

case his child should die. He had to look to the disci
pline and accoutrement of the militia of eleven counties,
aid his mother in her business, administer his brother's
estate, and assume on all hands the duties and responsi
bilities of a man of affairs when he was but just turned
of twenty.

The action of the colonial government in compacting
the organization and discipline of the militia by reduc
ing the number of military districts was significant of
a sinister change in the posture of affairs beyond the
borders. The movements of the French in the West had
of late become more ominous than ever ; 'twas possible
the Virginian militia might any day see an end of that
" everlasting peace" which good Mr. Beverley had smiled
to see them complacently enjoy, and that the young
major, who was now Adjutant-General of the Northern
Division, might find duties abroad even more serious and
responsible than his duties at home. Whoever should
be commissioned to meet and deal with the French
upon the western rivers would have to handle truly crit
ical affairs, decisive of the fate of the continent, and it
looked as if Virginia must undertake the fateful busi
ness. The northern borders, indeed, were sadly har
ried by the savage allies of the French ; the brunt of the
fighting hitherto had fallen upon the hardy militiamen
of Massachusetts and Connecticut in the slow contest
for English mastery upon the continent. But there was
really nothing to be decided in that quarter. The French
were not likely to attempt the mad task of driving out
the thickly set English population, already established,
hundreds of thousands strong, upon the eastern coasts.
Their true lines of conquest ran within. Their strength
lay in their command of the great watercourses which

60 GEORGE WASHINGTON

flanked the English colonies both north and west. JT was
a long frontier to hold, that mazy line of lake and river
that ran all the way from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the
wide mouths of the sluggish Mississippi. Throughout
all the posts and settlements that lay upon it from end
to end there were scarcely eighty thousand Frenchmen,
while the English teemed upon the coasts more than a
million strong. But the forces of IS"ew France could
be handled like an army, while the English swarmed
slowly westward, without discipline or direction, the
headstrong subjects of a distant government they would
not obey, the wayward constituents of a score of petty
and jealous assemblies tardy at planning, clumsy at
executing plans. They were still far away, too, from
the mid- waters of the lakes and from the royal stream
of the Mississippi itself, where lonely boats 'floated
slowly down, with their cargoes of grain, meat, tallow,
tobacco, oil, hides, and lead, out of the country of the
Illinois, past the long, thin line of tiny isolated posts, to
the growing village at New Orleans and 'the southern
Gulf. But they were to be feared, none the less. If
their tide once flowed in, the French well knew it could
not be turned back again. It was not far away from
the Ohio now ; and if once settlers out of Pennsylvania
and Virginia gained a foothold in any numbers on that
river, they would control one of the great highways
that led to the main basins of the continent. It was
imperative they should be effectually forestalled, and
that at once.

The Marquis Duquesne, with his quick soldier blood,
at last took the decisive step for France. Pie had hard
ly come to his colony, to serve his royal master as Gov
ernor upon the St. Lawrence, when he determined to

A VIRGINIAN. BREEDING 61

occupy the upper waters of the Ohio, and block the
western passes against the English with a line of military
posts. The matter did not seem urgent to the doubting
ministers at Versailles. " Be on your guard against
new undertakings," said official letters out of France ;
" private interests are generally at the bottom of them."
But Duquesne knew that it was no mere private interest
of fur trader or speculator that was at stake now. The
rivalry between the two nations had gone too far to
make it possible to draw back. Military posts had al
ready been established by the bold energy of the French
at Niagara, the key to the western lakes, and at Crown
Point upon Champlain, where lake and river struck
straight towards the heart of the English trading set
tlements upon the Hudson. The English, accepting the
challenge, had planted themselves at Oswego, upon the
very lake route itself, and had made a port there to
take the furs that came out of the West, and, though
very sluggish in the business, showed purpose of ag
gressive movement everywhere that advantage offered.
English settlers by the hundred were pressing towards
the western mountains in Pennsylvania, and down into
that "Virginian Arcady," the sweet valley of the Shen-
andoah : thrifty Germans, a few ; hardy Scots-Irish, a
great many — the blood most to be feared and checked.
It was said that quite three hundred English traders
passed the mountains every year into the region of the
Ohio. Enterprising gentlemen in Virginia — Lawrence
and Augustine Washington among the rest — had joined
influential partners in London in the formation of an
Ohio Company for the settlement of the western coun
try and the absorption of the western trade ; had sent
out men who knew the region to make interest with

62 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the Indians and fix upon points of vantage for trading-
posts and settlements ; had already set out upon the busi
ness by erecting storehouses at Will's Creek, in the heart
of the Alleghanies, and, farther westward still, upon
Redstone Creek, a branch of the Monongahela itself.

It was high time to act; and Duquesne, having no
colonial assembly to hamper him, acted very promptly.
When spring came, 1753, he sent fifteen hundred men
into Lake Erie, to Presque Isle, where a fort of squared
logs was built, and a road cut through the forests to a
little river whose waters, when at the flood, would carry
boats direct to the Alleghany and the great waterway of
the Ohio itself. An English lieutenant at Oswego had
descried the multitudinous fleet of canoes upon Ontario
carrying this levy to its place of landing in the lake
beyond, and a vagrant Frenchman had told him plainly
what it was. It was an army of six thousand men, he
boasted, going to the Ohio, " to cause all the English to
quit those parts." It was plain to every English Gov
ernor in the colonies who had his eyes open that the
French would not stop with planting a fort upon an ob
scure branch of the Alleghany, but that they would
indeed press forward to take possession of the Ohio,
drive every English trader forth, draw all the native
tribes to their interest by force or favor, and close alike
the western lands and the western trade in very earnest
against all the King's subjects.

Governor Dinwiddie was among the first to see the
danger and the need for action, as, in truth, was very
natural. In office and out, his study had been the co
lonial trade, and he had been merchant and official now
a long time. He was one of the twenty stockholders of
the Ohio Company, and had come to his governorship

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 63

in Virginia with his eye upon the western country. He
had but to look about him to perceive that Virginia
would very likely be obliged to meet the crisis unaided,
if, indeed, he could induce even her to meet it. Gov
ernor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, also saw how critical
ly affairs stood, it is true, and what ought to be done.
His agents had met and acted with the agents of the
Ohio Company already in seeking Indian alliances and
fixing upon points of vantage beyond the Alleghanies.
But the Pennsylvania Assembly could by no argument
or device be induced to vote money or measures in the
business. The placid Quaker traders were as stubborn as
the stolid German farmers. They opposed warlike ac
tion on principle. The Germans opposed it because
they could not for the life of them see the necessity of
parting with their money to send troops upon so remote
an errand. Dinwiddie did not wait or parley. He
acted first, and consulted his legislature afterwards. It
was in his Scots blood to take the business very strenu
ously, and in his trader's blood to take it very anxious
ly. He had kept himself advised from the first of the
movements of the French. Their vanguard had scarce
ly reached Presque Isle ere he despatched letters to Eng
land apprising the government of the danger. Answer
had come very promptly, too, authorizing him to build
forts upon the Ohio, if he could get the money from the
Burgesses ; and meantime, should the French trespass
further, " to require of them peaceably to depart." If
they would not desist for a warning, said his Majesty,
" we do hereby strictly charge and command you to
drive them off by force of arms."

Even to send a warning to the French was no easy
matter when the King's letter came and the chill au~

64 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tumn rains were at hand. The mountain streams, al
ready swollen, presently to be full of ice, would be very
dangerous for men and horses, and the forests were
likely enough to teem with hostile savages, now the
French were there. A proper messenger was found
and despatched, nevertheless — young Major George
Washington, of the Northern District. The errand lay
in his quarter ; his three years of surveying at the heart
of the wilderness had made him an experienced woods
man and hardy traveller, had tested his pluck and made
proof of his character ; he was well known upon the
frontier, and his friends were very influential, and very
cordial in recommending him for this or any other
manly service that called for steadiness, hardihood, and
resource. Dinwiddie had been a correspondent of Law
rence Washington's ever since the presidency of the
Ohio Company had fallen to the young Virginian upon
the death of his neighbor Thomas Lee, writing to him
upon terms of intimacy. He knew the stock of which
George, the younger brother, came, and the interests in
which he might be expected to embark with ardor ; he
could feel that he took small risk in selecting such an
agent. Knowing him, too, thus through his family and
like a friend, he did not hesitate in writing to Governor
Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, to speak of this youth of
twenty-one as " a person of distinction."

Washington performed his errand as Dinwiddie must
have expected he would. He received his commission
and the Governor's letter to the French commandant on
the last day of October, and set out the same day for
the mountains. Jacob Vanbraam, the Dutch soldier of
fortune who had been his fencing-master at Mount Ver-
non, accompanied him as interpreter, and Christopher

A VIRGINIAN BREEDING 65

Gist, the hardy, self-reliant frontier trader, whom the
Ohio Company had employed to make interest for them
among the Indians of the far region upon the western
rivers which he knew so well, was engaged to act as his
guide and counsellor ; and with a few servants and pack-
horses he struck straight into the forests in the middle
of bleak November. It was the llth of December be
fore the jaded party rode, in the cold dusk, into the
drenched and miry clearing where the dreary little fort
stood that held the French commander. Through two
hundred and fifty miles and more of forest they had
dragged themselves over swollen rivers, amidst an almost
ceaseless fall of rain or snow, with not always an Indian
trail, even, or the beaten track of the bison, to open the
forest growth for their flagging horses, and on the
watch always against savage treacherj'. It had become
plain enough before they reached their destination what
answer they should get from the French. Sixty miles
nearer home than these lonely headquarters of the French
commander at Fort Le Boeuf they had come upon an
outpost where the French colors were to be seen flying
from a house from which an English trader had been
driven out, and the French officers there had uttered
brutally frank avowal of their purpose in that wilderness
as they sat at wine with the alert and temperate young
Virginian. " It was their absolute design," they said,
"to take possession of the Ohio, and, by G — , they
would do it. ... They were sensible the English
could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their
motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any un
dertaking of theirs." The commandant at Fort Le
Bceuf received the wayworn ambassador very courte
ously, and even graciously — a thoughtful elderly man,

66 GEORGE WASHINGTON

"Washington noted him, " with much the air of a soldier"
— but would make no profession even that he would
consider the English summons to withdraw ; and the
little party of Englishmen presently turned back amidst
the winter's storms to carry through the frozen wilder
ness a letter which boasted the French lawful masters
of all the continent beyond the Alleghanies. When
Washington reached Williamsburg, in the middle of
January, 1754, untouched by even the fearful fatigues
and anxieties of that daring journey, he had accom
plished nothing but the establishment of his own char
acter in the eyes of the men who were to meet the crisis
now at hand. He had been at infinite pains, at every
stage of the dreary adventure, to win and hold the con
fidence of the Indians who were accounted friends of
the English, and had displayed an older man's patience,
address, and fortitude in meeting all their subtle shifts ;
and he had borne hardships that tried even the doughty
Gist. When the horses gave out, he had left them to
come by easier stages, while he made his way afoot,
with only a single companion, across the weary leagues
that lay upon his homeward way. Gist, his comrade in
the hazard, had been solicitously " unwilling he should
undertake such a travel, who had never been used to
walking before this time," but the imperative young
commander would not be stayed, and the journey was
made, spite of sore feet and frosts and exhausting weari
ness. He at least knew what the French were about,
with what strongholds and forces, and could afford to
await orders what to do next.

COLONEL WASHINGTON

CHAPTER III

DINWIDDIE had not been idle while Washington went
his perilous errand. He had gotten the Burgesses to
gether by the 1st of November, before Washington had
left the back settlements to cross the wilderness, and
would have gotten a liberal grant of money from them
had they not fallen in their debates upon the question
of the new fee charged, since his coming, for every
grant out of the public lands of the colony, and insisted
that it should be done away with. " Subjects," they
said, very stubbornly, " cannot be deprived of the least
part of their property without their consent ;" and such
a fee, they thought, was too like a tax to be endured.
They would withhold the grant, they declared, unless
the fee was abolished, notwithstanding they saw plainly
enough in how critical a case things stood in the West ;
and the testy Governor very indignantly sent them
home again. He ordered a draft of two hundred men
from the militia, nevertheless, with the purpose of as
signing the command to Washington and seeing what
might be done upon the Ohio, without vote of Assembly.
A hard-headed Scotsman past sixty could not be ex
pected to wait upon a body of wrangling and factious
provincials for leave to perform his duty in a crisis, arid,
inasmuch as the object was to save their own lands,
and perhaps their own persons, from the French, could

70 GEORGE WASHINGTON

hardly be blamed for proposing in his anger that they
be taxed for the purpose by act of Parliament. " A
Governor," he exclaimed, "is really to be pitied in the
discharge of his duty to his King and country in having
to do with such obstinate, self-conceited people !" Some
money he advanced out of his own pocket. When
Washington came back from his fruitless mission, Din-
widdie ordered his journal printed and copies sent to
all the colonial Governors. " As it was thought advisa
ble by his Honour the Governor to have the following
account of my proceedings to and from the French on
Ohio committed to print," said the modest young major,
" I think I can do no less than apologize, in some meas
ure, for the numberless imperfections of it." But it was
a very manly recital of noteworthy things, and touched
the imagination and fears of every thoughtful man who
read it quite as near the quick as the urgent and re
peated letters of the troubled Dinwiddie.

Virginia, it turned out, was, after all, more forward
than her neighbors when it came to action. The Penn
sylvania Assembly very coolly declared they doubted
his Majesty's claim to the lands on the Ohio, and the
Assembly in New York followed suit. " It appears,"
they said, in high judicial tone, " that the French have
built a fort at a place called French Creek, at a consid
erable distance from the river Ohio, which may, but
does not by any evidence or information appear to us to
be, an invasion of any of his Majesty's colonies." The
Governors of the other colonies whose safety was most
directly menaced by the movements of the French in
the West were thus even less able to act than Dinwid
die. For the Virginian Burgesses, though they would
not yield the point of the fee upon land grants, did not

COLONEL WASHINGTON 71

mean to leave Major Washington in the lurch, and be
fore an expedition could be got afoot had come together
igain to vote a sum of money. It would be possible
with the sum they appropriated to put three or four
hundred men into the field ; and as spring drew on, raw
volunteers began to gather in some numbers at Alexan-
Iria — a ragged regiment, made up for the most part of
idle and shiftless men, who did not always have shoes, or
sven shirts, of their own to wear ; anxious to get their
3ightpence a day, but not anxious to work or submit
bo discipline. 'Twas astonishing how steady and how
spirited they showed themselves when once they had
shaken their lethargy off and were on the march or face
to face with the enemy. A body of backwoodsmen
:iad been hurried forward in February, ere spring had
>pened, to make a clearing and set to work upon a fort
it the forks of the Ohio ; but it was the 2d of April be-
:ore men enough could be collected at Alexandria to be-
*in the main movement towards the frontier, and by
:hat time it was too late to checkmate the French. The
ittle force sent forward to begin fortifications had set
ibout their task very sluggishly and without skill, and
jheir commander had turned back again with some of
his men to rejoin the forces behind him before the petty
works he should have stayed to finish were well begun.
When, therefore, on the 17th of April, the river sudden
ly filled with canoes bearing an army of more than five
hundred Frenchmen, who put cannon ashore, and sum
moned the forty men who held the place to surrender
or be blown into the water, there was no choice but to
somply. The young ensign who commanded the little
garrison urged a truce till he could communicate with
his superiors, but the French commander would brook

72 GEORGE WASHINGTON

no delay. The boy might either take his men off free
and unhurt, or else fight and face sheer destruction ; and
the nearest succor was a little force of one hundred and
fifty men under Colonel Washington, who had not yet
topped the Alleghanies in their painful work of cutting
a way through the forests for their field -pieces and
wagons.

The Governor's plans had been altered by the Assem
bly's vote of money and the additional levy of men
which it made possible. Colonel Joshua Fry, whom
Dinwiddie deemed " a man of good sense, and one of
our best mathematicians," had been given the command
in chief, and Washington had been named his second in
command, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. " Dear
George," wrote Mr. Corbin, of the Governor's Council,
"I enclose you your commission. God prosper you
with it !" and the brunt of the work in fact fell upon the
younger man. But three hundred volunteers could be
;gotten together ; and, all too late, half of the raw levy
were sent forward under Washington to find or make a
way for wagons and ordnance to the Ohio. The last
days of May were almost at hand before they had
crossed the main ridge of the Alleghanies, so inexperi
enced were they in the rough labor of cutting a road
through the close-set growth and over the sharp slopes
of the mountains, and so ill equipped ; and by that time
it was already too late by a full month and more to
forestall the French, who had only to follow the open
highway of the Alleghany to bring what force they
would to the key of the West at the forks of the Ohio.
As the spring advanced, the French force upon the river
grew from five to fourteen hundred men, and work was
pushed rapidly forward upon fortifications such as the

COLONEL WASHINGTON 73

little band of Englishmen they had ousted had not
thought of attempting — a veritable fort, albeit of a rude
frontier pattern, which its builders called Duquesne, in
honor of their Governor. Washington could hit upon
no watercourse that would afford him quick transport;
'twould have been folly, besides, to take his handful of
ragged provincials into the presence of an intrenched
army. He was fain to go into camp at Great Meadows,
just across the ridge of the mountains, and there await
his Colonel with supplies and an additional handful of
men.

It was " a charming field for an encounter," the young
commander thought, but it was to be hoped the enemy
would not find their way to it in too great numbers.
An " Independent Company " of provincials in the
King's pay joined him out of South Carolina, whence
they had been sent forward by express orders from
England ; and the rest of the Virginia volunteers at last
came up to join their comrades at the Meadows — with
out good Colonel Fry, the doughty mathematician, who
had sickened and died on the way — so that there were
presently more than three hundred men at the camp,
and Washington was now their commander - in - chief .
The officers of the Independent Company from South
Carolina, holding their commissions from the King,
would not, indeed, take their orders from Washington,
with his colonial commission merely ; and, what was
worse, their men would not work; but there was no
doubt they would fight with proper dignity and spirit
for his Majesty, their royal master. The first blood had
already been drawn, on the 28th of May, before rein
forcements had arrived, when Washington had but just
come to camp. Upon the morning of that day Wash-

74 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ington, with forty men, guided by friendly Indians, had
come upon a party of some thirty Frenchmen where
they lurked deep within the thickets of the dripping
forest, and, with thrust of bayonet when the wet guns
failed, had brought them to a surrender within fifteen
minutes of the first surprise. No one in the Virginian
camp doubted that there was war already, or dreamed
of awaiting the action of diplomats and cabinets over
sea. The French had driven an English garrison from
the forks of the Ohio with threats of force, which would
certainly have been executed had there been need.
These men hidden in the thickets at Great Meadows
would have it, when the fight was over, that they had
come as messengers merely to bear a peaceful summons ;
but did it need thirty odd armed men to bear a mes
sage ? Why had they lurked for five days so stealthily
in the forest ; and why had they sent runners back post
haste to Fort Duquesne to obtain support for their
diplomacy ? Washington might regret that young M.
Jumonville, their commander, had lost his life in the
encounter, but he had no doubt he had done right to
order his men to fire when he saw the French spring
for their arms at the first surprise.

Now, at any rate, war was unquestionably begun.
That sudden volley fired in the wet woods at the heart
of the lonely Alleghanies had set the final struggle
ablaze. It was now either French or English in Amer
ica: it could no longer be both. Jumonville with his
thirty Frenchmen was followed ere many weeks were
out by Coulon de Yilliers with seven hundred — some of.
them come all the way from Montreal at news of what
had happened to France's lurking ambassadors in the
far-away mountains of Virginia. On the 3d of July

COLONEL WASHINGTON 75

they closed to an encounter at " Fort Necessity," Wash
ington's rude intrenchments upon the Great Meadows.
There were three hundred and fifty Englishmen with
him able to fight, spite of sickness and short rations ;
and as the enemy began to show themselves at the edges
of the neighboring woods through the damp mists of
that dreary morning, Washington drew his little force
up outside their works upon the open meadow. He
"thought the French would come up to him in open
field," laughed a wily Indian, who gave him counsel
freely, but no aid in the fight ; but Yilliers had no mind
to meet the gallant young Virginian in that manly
fashion. Once, indeed, they rushed to his trenches, but,
finding hot reception there, kept their distance after
wards. Villiers brought them after that only " as near
as possible without uselessly exposing the lives of the
King's subjects," and poured his fire in from the cover
of the woods. For nine hours the unequal fight dragged
on, the French and their Indians hardly showing them
selves outside the shelter of the forest, the English
crouching knee -deep in water in their rude trenches,
while the rain poured incessantly, reducing their breast
works to a mass of slimy mud, and filling all the air
with a chill and pallid mist. Day insensibly darkened
into night in such an air, and it was eight o'clock when
the firing ceased and the French asked a parley. Their
men were tired of the dreary fight,. their Indian allies
threatened to leave them when morning should come,
and they were willing the English should withdraw, if
they would, without further hurt or molestation. The
terms they offered seemed very acceptable to Washing
ton's officers as the interpreter read them out, standing
there in the drenching downpour and the black night.

76 GEORGE WASHINGTON

" It rained so hard we could hardly keep the candle
lighted to read them by," said an officer ; but there was
really no choice what to do. More than fifty men lay
dead or wounded in the flooded camp ; the ammunition
was all but spent ; the French strength had hardly been
touched in the fight, and might at any moment be in
creased. Capitulation was inevitable, and Washington
did not hesitate.

The next morning saw his wretched force making
their way back again along the rude road they had cut
through the forests. They had neither horses nor wagons
to carry their baggage. What they could they burned ;
and then set out, sore stricken in heart and body, their
wounded comrades and their scant store of food slung
upon their backs, and dragged themselves very wearily
all the fifty miles to the settlements at home. Two of
the King's Independent Companies from New York
ought to have joined them long ago, but had gotten no
farther than Alexandria when the fatal day came at the
Great Meadows. North Carolina had despatched three
hundred and fifty of her militiamen, under an experi
enced officer, to aid them, but they also came too late.
It had been expected that Maryland would raise two
hundred and fifty men, and Pennsylvania had at last
voted money, to be spent instead of blood, for she would
levy no men ; but no succor had come from any quarter
when it should. The English were driven in, and all
their plans were worse than undone.

It was a bitter trial for the young Virginian com
mander to have his first campaign end so disastrously—
to be worsted in a petty fight, and driven back hope
lessly outdone. No one he cared for in Virginia blamed
him. His ragged troops had borne themselves like men

WASHINGTON'S RETREAT FROM GREAT MEADOWS

COLONEL WASHINGTON 77

in the fight; his own gallantry no man could doubt.
The House of Burgesses thanked him and voted money
to his men. But it had been a rough apprenticeship, and
Washington felt to the quick the lessons it had taught
him. The discouraging work of recruiting at Alexan
dria, the ragged idlers to be governed there, the fruit
less drilling of listless and insolent men, the two months'
work with axe and spade cutting a way through the
forests, the whole disheartening work of making ready
for the fight, of seeking the enemy, and of choosing a
field of encounter, he had borne as a stalwart young
man can while his digestion holds good. He had at
least himself done everything that was possible, and it
had been no small relief to him to write plain-spoken
letters to the men who were supposed to be helping him
in Williamsburg, telling them exactly how things were
going and who was to blame — letters which showed
both how efficient and how proud he was. He had
even shown a sort of boyish zest in the affair when it
came to actual fighting with Jumonville and his scouts
hidden in the forest. He had pressed to the thick of
that hot and sudden skirmish, and had taken the French
volleys with a lad's relish of the danger. " I heard the
bullets whistle," he wrote his brother, " and believe me
there is something charming in the sound." But after
he had stood a day in the flooded trenches of his wretched
" fort " at Great Meadows, and fought till evening in
the open with an enemy he could not see, he knew that
he had been taught a lesson ; that he was very young
at this terrible business of fighting ; and that something
more must be learned than could be read in the books
at Mount Vernon. He kept a cheerful front in the
dreary retreat, heartening his men bravely by word and

78 GEORGE WASHINGTON

example of steadfastness ; but it was a sore blow to his
pride and his hopes, and he must only have winced
without protest could he have heard how Horace Wai-
pole called him a " brave braggart " for his rodomontade
about the music of deadly missiles.

He had no thought, however, of quitting his duty be
cause his first campaign had miscarried. When he had
made his report at Williamsburg he rejoined his demor
alized regiment at Alexandria, where it lay but an hour's
ride from Mount Yernon, and set about executing his
orders to recruit once more, as if the business were only
just begun. Captain Innes, who had brought three hun
dred and fifty men from North Carolina too late to be
of assistance at the Meadows, and who had had the cha
grin of seeing them take themselves off home again be
cause there was no money forthcoming to pay them what
had been promised, remained at Will's Creek, amidst
the back settlements, to command the King's provincials
from South Carolina who had been with Washington at
the Meadows, and the two Independent Companies from
New York, who had lingered so long on the way; and to
build there a rough fortification, to be named Fort Cum
berland, in honor of the far-away Duke who was com-
mander-in-chief in England. Dinwiddie, having such
hot Scots blood in him as could brook no delays, and
having been bred no soldier or frontiersman, but a mer
chant and man of business, would have had Washing
ton's recruiting despatched at once, like a bill of goods,
and a new force sent hot-foot to the Ohio again to catch
the French while they were at ease over their victory and
slackly upon their guard at Duquesne. When he was
flatly told it was impossible, he turned to other plans,
equally ill considered, though no doubt equally well

COLONEL WASHINGTON 79

meant. By October he had obtained of the Assembly
twenty thousand pounds, and from the government at
home ten thousand more in good specie, such as was
scarce in the colony — for the sharp stir of actual fight
ing had had its effect alike upon King and Burgesses —
and had ordered the formation and equipment of ten
full companies for the frontier. But the new orders
contained a sad civilian blunder. The ten companies
should all be Independent Companies ; there should be
no officer higher than a captain amongst them. This,
the good Scotsman thought, would accommodate all dis
putes about rank and precedence, such as had come near
to making trouble between Washington and Captain
Mackay, of the Independent Company from South Caro
lina, while they waited for the French at Great Meadows.
Washington at once resigned, indignant to be so dealt
with. Not only would he be reduced to a captaincy un
der such an arrangement, but every petty officer would
outrank him who could show the King's commission.
It was no tradition of his class to submit to degradation
of rank thus by indirection and without fault committed,
and his pride and sense of personal dignity, for all he
was so young, were as high-strung as any man's in Vir
ginia. He had shown his quality in such matters already,
six months ago, while he lay in camp in the wilderness on
his way towards the Ohio. The Burgesses had appoint
ed a committee of their own to spend the money they
had voted to put his expedition afoot in the spring, lest
Dinwiddie should think, were they to give him the spend
ing of it, that they had relented in the matter of the fees ;
arid these gentlemen, in their careful parsimony, had cut
the officers of the already straitened little force down to
such pay and food as Washington deemed unworthy a

80 GEORGE WASHINGTON

gentleman's acceptance. He would not resign his com
mission there at the head of his men upon the march, but
he asked to be considered a volunteer without pay, that
he might be quit of the humiliation of being stinted like
a beggar. Now that it was autumn, however, and wars
stood still, he could resign without reproach, and he did
so very promptly, in spite of protests and earnest solici
tations from many quarters. " I am concerned to find
Colonel "Washington's conduct so imprudent," wrote
Thomas Penn. But the high-spirited young officer
deemed it no imprudence to insist upon a just considera
tion of his rank and services, and quietly withdrew to
Mount Yernon, to go thence to his mother at the "ferry
farm" upon the Rappahannock, and see again all the
fields and friends he loved so well.

It was a very brief respite. He had been scarcely five
months out of harness when he found himself again in
camp, his plans and hopes once more turned towards
the far wilderness where the French lay. He had set a
great war ablaze that day he led his forty men into the
thicket and bade them fire upon M. Jumonville and his
scouts lurking there ; and he could not, loving the deep
business as he did, keep himself aloof from it when he
saw how it was to be finished. Horace Walpole might
laugh lightly at the affair, but French and English states
men alike — even Newcastle, England's Prime-Minister,
as busy about nothing as an old woman, and as thorough
ly ignorant of affairs as a young man — knew that some
thing must be done, politics hanging at so doubtful a bal
ance between them, now that Frederick of Prussia had
driven France, Austria, and Russia into league against
him. The French Minister in London and the British
Minister in Paris vowed their governments still loved

COLONEL WASHINGTON 81

and trusted one another, and there was no declaration of
war. But in the spring of 1755 eighteen French ships
of war put to sea from Brest and Rochefort, carrying six
battalions and a new Governor to Canada, and as many
ships got away under press of sail from English ports to
intercept and destroy them. Transports carrying two
English regiments had sailed for Virginia in January,
and by the 20th of February had reached the Chesa
peake. The French ships got safely in at the St. Law
rence despite pursuit, losing but two of their fleet,
which had the ill luck to be found by the English
befogged and bewildered off the coast. The colonies
were to see fighting on a new scale.

The English ministers, with whom just then all things
went either by favor or by accident, had made a sorry
blunder in the choice of a commander. Major-Gen eral
Edward Braddock, whom they had commissioned to take
the two regiments out and act as commander-in-chief in
America, was a brave man, a veteran soldier, bred in a
thorough school of action, a man quick with energy and
indomitable in resolution ; but every quality he had un
fitted him to learn. Self-confident, brutal, headstrong,
" a very Iroquois in disposition," he would take neither
check nor suggestion. But energy, resolution, good
soldiers, and a proper equipment might of themselves
suffice to do much in the crisis that had come, whether
wisdom held the reins or not ; and it gave the Old Do
minion a thrill of quickened hope and purpose to see
Keppel's transports in the Potomac and Braddock's red
coats ashore at Alexandria.

The transports, as they made their way slowly up the
river, passed beneath the very windows of Mount Ver-
non, to put the troops ashore only eight miles beyond.

6

82 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Washington had left off being soldier for Dinwiddie, but
he had resigned only to avoid an intolerable indignity,
not to shun service, and he made no pretence of indiffer
ence when he saw the redcoats come to camp at Alex
andria. Again and again was he early in the saddle to
see the stir and order of the troops, make the acquaint
ance of the officers, and learn, if he might, what it was
that fitted his Majesty's regulars for their stern business.
The self-confident gentlemen who wore his Majesty's
uniform and carried his Majesty's commissions in their
pockets had scant regard, most of them, for the raw folk
of the colony, who had never been in London or seen
the set array of battle. They were not a little impatient
that they must recruit among such a people. The trans
ports had brought but a thousand men — two half-regi
ments of five hundred each, whose colonels had instruc
tions to add two hundred men apiece to their force in
the colony. Six companies of " rangers," too, the colo
nists were to furnish, and one company of light horse,
besides carpenters and teamsters. By all these General
Braddock's officers set small store, deeming it likely they
must depend, not upon the provincials, but upon them
selves for success. They were at small pains to conceal
their hearty contempt for the people they had come to
help.

But with "Washington it was a different matter.
There was that in his proud eyes and gentleman's bear
ing that marked him a man to be made friends with and
respected. A good comrade he proved, without pre
tence or bravado, but an ill man to scorn, as he went
his way among them, lithe and alert, full six feet in his
boots, with that strong gait as of a backwoodsman, and
that haughty carriage as of a man born to have his will.

GENERAL EDWARD BRADDOCK

COLONEL WASHINGTON

83

He won their liking, and even their admiration, as a fel
low of their own pride and purpose. General Braddock,
knowing he desired to make the campaign if he might
do so without sacrifice of self-respect, promptly invited
him to go as a member of his staff, where there could
be no question of rank, asking him, besides, to name any
young gentlemen of his acquaintance he chose for sev
eral vacant ensigncies in the two regiments. The letter
of invitation, written by Captain Orme, aide-de-camp,
was couched in terms of unaffected cordiality. Wash
ington very gladly accepted, in a letter that had just a
touch of the young provincial in it, so elaborate and
over-long was its explanation of its writer's delicate po
sition and self-respecting motives, but with so much
more of the proud gentleman and resolute man that the
smile with which Captain Orme must have read it could
have nothing of disrelish in it. The young aide-de-camp
and all the other members of the General's military
"family" found its author, at any rate, a man after
their own hearts when it came to terms of intimacy
among them.

By mid- April the commander -in -chief had brought
five Governors together at Alexandria, in obedience to
his call for an immediate conference — William Shirley,
of Massachusetts, the stout-hearted old lawyer, every
inch " a gentleman and politician," who had of a sudden
turned soldier to face the French, for all he was past
sixty ; James De Lancey, of New York, astute man of
the people ; the brave and energetic Horatio Sharpe, of
Maryland ; Robert Hunter Morris, fresh from the latest
wrangles with the headstrong Quakers and Germans of
Pennsylvania; and Robert Dinwiddie, the busy mer
chant Governor of the Old Dominion, whose urgent let-

84 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ters to the government at home had brought Braddock
and his regiments to the Potomac. Plans were prompt
ly agreed upon. New York and New England, seeing
war come on apace, were astir no less than Virginia,
and in active correspondence with the ministers in Lon
don. Two regiments had already been raised and taken
into the King's pay ; the militia of all the threatened
colonies were afoot ; in all quarters action was expected
and instant war. Governor Shirley, the council agreed,
should strike at once at Niagara with the King's new
provincial regiments, in the hope to cut the enemy's
connections with their western posts ; Colonel William
Johnson, the cool-headed trader and borderer, who had
lived and thriven so long in the forests where the dread
ed Mohawks had their strength, should lead a levy from
New England, New York, and New Jersey to an attack
upon Crown Point, where for twenty -four years the
French had held Champlain ; and Lieutenant - Colonel
Monckton, of the King's regulars, must take a similar
force against Beausejour in Acadia, while General Brad-
dock struck straight into the western wilderness to take
Duquesne. 'Twere best to be prompt in every part of
the hazardous business, and Braddock turned from the
conference to push his own expedition forward at once.
" After taking Fort Duquesne," he said to Franklin, " I
am to proceed to Niagara ; and after having taken that,
to Frontenac, if the season will allow time ; and I sup
pose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above
three or four days ; and then I can see nothing that can
obstruct my march to Niagara." " To be sure, sir," qui
etly replied the sagacious Franklin ; " if you arrive well
before Duquesne with these fine troops, so well provided
with artillery, the fort . . . can probably make but a

COLONEL WASHINGTON 85

short resistance." But there was the trouble. 'Twould
have been better, no doubt, had a route through Penn
sylvania been chosen, where cultivated farms already
stretched well into the West, with their own roads and
grain and cattle and wagons to serve an army with ; but
the Virginia route had been selected (by intrigue of gen
tlemen interested in the Ohio Company, it was hinted),
and must needs be made the best of. There was there,
at the least, the rough track Washington's men had cut
to the Great Meadows. This must be widened and lev
elled for an army with its cumbrous train of artillery,
and its endless procession of wagons laden with baggage
and provisions. To take two thousand men through
the dense forests with all the military trappings and
supplies of a European army would be to put, it might
be, four miles of its rough trail between van and rear of
the struggling line, and it would be a clumsy enemy, as
fighting went in the woods, who could not cut such a
force into pieces — " like thread," as Franklin said.

The thing was to be attempted, nevertheless, with
stubborn British resolution. It was the 19th of May
before all the forces intended for the march were finally
collected at Fort Cumberland, twenty -two hundred men
in all — fourteen hundred regulars, now the recruits were
in ; nearly five hundred Virginians, horse and foot ; two
Independent Companies from New York ; and a small
force of sailors from the transports to rig tackle for the
ordnance when there was need on the rough way. And
it was the 10th of June when the advance began,
straight into that "realm of forests ancient as the
world" that lay without limit upon all the western
ways. It was a thing of infinite difficulty to get that
lumbering train through the tangled wilderness, and it

86 GEORGE WASHINGTON

kept the temper of the truculent Braddock very hot to
see how it played havoc with every principle and prac
tice of campaigning he had ever heard of. He charged
the colonists with an utter want alike of honor and of
honesty to have kept him so long awaiting the transpor
tation and supplies they had promised, and to have done
so little to end with, and so drew Washington into
"frequent disputes, maintained with warmth on both
sides " ; but the difficulties of the march presently
wrought a certain forest change upon him, and disposed
him to take counsel of his young Virginian aide — the
only man in all his company who could speak out of
knowledge in that wild country. On the 19th, at
Washington's advice, he took twelve hundred men and
pressed forward with a lightened train to a quicker ad
vance, leaving Colonel Dunbar to bring up the rest of
the troops with the baggage. Even this lightened force
halted " to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over
every brook," as Washington chafed to see, and " were
four days in getting twelve miles"; but the pace was
better than before, and brought them at last almost to
their destination.

On the 9th of July, at mid -day, they waded the
shallow Monongahela, but eight miles from Duquesne,
making a brave show as the sun struck upon their
serried ranks, their bright uniforms, their fluttering
banners, and their glittering arms, and went straight
into the rough and shadowed forest path that led to the
French post. Upon a sudden there came a man bound
ing along the path to meet them, wearing the gorget of
a French officer, and the forest behind him swarmed
with a great host of but half-discovered men. Upon
signal given, these spread themselves to the right and

COLONEL WASHINGTON 87

left within the shelter of the forest, and from their cov
ert poured a deadly fire upon Braddock's advancing
lines. With good British pluck the steady regulars
formed their accustomed ranks, crying, " God save the
King !" to give grace to the volleys they sent back into
the forest ; the ordnance was brought up and swung to
its work ; all the force pressed forward to take what
place it could in the fight ; but where was the use ?
Washington besought General Braddock to scatter his
men too, and meet the enemy under cover as they came,
but he would not listen. They must stand in ranks, as
they were bidden, and take the fire of their hidden foes
like men, without breach of discipline. When they
would have broken in spite of him, in their panic at
being slaughtered there in the open glade without sight
of the enemy, Braddock beat them back with his sword,
and bitterly cursed them for cowards. He would have
kept the Virginians, too, back from the covert if he
could, when he saw them seek to close with the attack
ing party in true forest fashion. As it was, they were
as often shot down by the terror-stricken regulars be
hind them as by their right foes in front. They alone
made any head in the fight ; but who could tell in such
a place how the battle fared? No one could count
the enemy where they sprang from covert to covert.
They were, in fact, near a thousand strong at the first
meeting in the way — more than six hundred Indians, a
motley host gathered from far and near at the summons
of the French, sevenscore Canadian rangers, seventy odd
regulars from the fort, and thirty or forty French offi
cers, come out of sheer eagerness to have a hand in the
daring game. Contrecoeur could not spare more French
men from his little garrison, his connections at the lakes

88 GEORGE WASHINGTON

being threatened, and he sorely straitened for men and
stores. He was staking everything, as it was, upon this
encounter on the way. If the English should shake the
savages off, as he deemed they would, he must no doubt
withdraw as he could ere the lines of siege were closed
about him. He never dreamed of such largess of good
fortune as came pouring in upon him. The English
were not only checked, but beaten. They had never
seen business like this. 'Twas a pitiful, shameful
slaughter — men shot like beasts in a pen there where
they cowered close in their scarlet ranks. Their first
blazing volleys had sent the craven Canadians scamper
ing back the way they had come ; Beaujeu, who led the
attack, was killed almost at the first onset ; but the gal
lant youngsters who led the motley array wavered never
an instant, and readily held the Indians to their easy
work. Washington did all ttyat furious energy and reck
less courage could to keep the order of battle his com
mander had so madly chosen, to hold the regulars to
their blind work and hearten the Virginians to stay the
threatened rout, driving his horse everywhere into the
thick of the murderous firing, and crying upon all alike
to keep to it steadily like men. He had but yesterday
rejoined the advance, having for almost two weeks lain
stricken with a fever in Dun bar's camp. He could
hardly sit his cushioned saddle for weakness when the
fight began ; but when the blaze of the battle burst, his
eagerness was suddenly like that of one possessed, and
his immunity from harm like that of one charmed.
Thrice a horse was shot under him, many bullets cut his
clothing, but he went without a wound. A like mad
energy drove Braddock storming up and down the
breaking lines; but he was mortally stricken at last,

COLONEL WASHINGTON 89

and Washington alone remained to exercise such control
as was possible when the inevitable rout came.

It was impossible to hold the ground in such fashion.
The stubborn Braddock himself had ordered a retreat
ere the fatal bullet found him. Sixty-three out of the
eighty-six officers of his force were killed or disabled ;
less than five hundred men out of all the thirteen hun
dred who had but just now passed so gallantly through
the ford remained unhurt ; the deadly slaughter must
have gone on to utter destruction. Retreat was inevita
ble — 'twas blessed good fortune that it was still possi
ble. When once it began it was headlong, reckless,
frenzied. The men ran wildly, blindly, as if hunted by
demons whom no man might hope to resist — haunted
by the frightful cries, maddened by the searching and
secret fire of their foes, now coming hot upon their
heels. Wounded comrades, military stores, baggage,
their very arms, they left upon the ground, abandoned.
Far into the night they ran madly on, in frantic search
for the camp of the rear division, crying, as they ran,
for help; they even passed the camp, in their uncontrol
lable terror of pursuit, and went desperately on towards
the settlements. Washington and the few officers and
provincials who scorned the terror found the utmost
difficulty in bringing off their stricken General, where
he lay wishing to die. Upon the fourth day after the
battle he died, loathing the sight of a redcoat, they said,
and murmuring praises of " the blues," the once despised
Yirginians. They buried his body in the road, that the
army wagons might pass over the place and obliterate
every trace of a grave their savage enemies might re
joice to find and desecrate.

He had lived to reach Dunbar's camp, but not to see

90 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the end of the shameful rout. The terror mastered the
rear-guard too. They destroyed their artillery, burned
their wagons and stores, emptied their powder into the
streams, and themselves broke into a disordered, fever
ish retreat which was a mere flight, their craven com
mander shamefully acquiescing. He would not even
hold or rally them at Fort Cumberland, but went on,
as if upon a hurried errand, all the way to Philadel
phia, leaving the fort, and all the frontier with it,
"to be defended by invalids and a few Virginians."
" I acknowledge," cried Dinwiddie, " I was not brought
up to arms; but I think common -sense would have
prevailed not to leave the frontier exposed after hav
ing opened a road over the mountains to the Ohio,
by which the enemy can the more easily invade us.
The whole conduct of Colonel Dunbar seems to be
monstrous." And so, indeed, it was. But the colonies
at large had little time to think of it. Governor Shir
ley had gone against Niagara only to find the French
ready for him at every point, now that they had read
Braddock's papers, taken at Duquesne, and to come back
again without doing anything. Beausejour had been
taken in Acadia, but it lay apart from the main field of
struggle. Johnson beat the French off at Lake George
when they attacked him, and took Dieskau, their com
mander ; but he contented himself with that, and left
Crown Point untouched. There were other frontiers
besides those of Virginia and Pennsylvania to be looked
to and guarded. For three long years did the fortunes
of the English settlements go steadily from danger to
desperation, as the French and their savage allies ad
vanced from victory to victory. In 1756 Oswego was
taken ; in 1757, Fort William Henry. Commander sue-

„-«

Washington Gage Gates

THE BURIAL OP BRADDOCK

COLONEL WASHINGTON 91

ceeded commander among the English, only to add blun
der to blunder, failure to failure. And all the while it
fell to Washington, Virginia's chief stay in her desperate
trouble, to stand steadfastly to the hopeless work of
keeping three hundred and fifty miles of frontier with
a few hundred men against prowling bands of sav
ages, masters of the craft of swift and secret attack,
"dexterous at skulking," in a country "mountainous
and full of swamps and hollow ways covered with
woods."

For twenty years now settlers had been coming
steadily into this wilderness that lay up and down upon
the nearer slopes of the great mountains — Germans,
Scots-Irish, a hardy breed. Their settlements lay scat
tered far and near among the foot-hills and valleys.
Their men were valiant and stout-hearted, quick with
the rifle, hard as flint when they were once afoot to re
venge themselves for murdered wives and children and
comrades. But how could they, scattered as they were,
meet these covert sallies in the dead of night — a sudden
rush of men with torches, the keen knife, the quick rifle?
The country filled with fugitives, for whom Washing
ton's militiamen could find neither food nor shelter.
" The supplicating tears of the women, and moving pe
titions of the men," cried the young commander, " melt
me into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if
I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing
sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would
contribute to the people's ease. ... I would be a will
ing offering to savage fury, and die by inches to save a
people." It was a comfort to know, at the least, that
he was trusted and believed in. The Burgesses had
thanked him under the very stroke of Braddock's defeat,

92 GEORGE WASHINGTON

in terms which could not be doubted sincere. In the
very thick of his deep troubles, when he would have
guarded the helpless people of the border, but could not,
Colonel Fairfax could send him word from Williams-
burg, " Your good health and fortune are the toast at
every table." " Our Colonel," wrote a young comrade
in arms, " is an example of fortitude in either danger or
hardships, and by his easy, polite behavior has gained
not only the regard but affection of both officers and
soldiers." Bat it took all the steadiness that had been
born or bred in him to endure the strain of the dis
heartening task, from which he could not in honor
break away. His plans, he complained, were " to-day
approved, to-morrow condemned." He was bidden do
what was impossible. It would require fewer men to
go against Duquesne again and remove the cause of
danger than to prevent the effects while the cause re
mained. Many of his officers were careless and ineffi
cient, many of his men mutinous. " Your Honor will,
I hope, excuse my hanging instead of shooting them,"
he wrote to the Governor ; " it conveyed much more
terror to others, and it was for example' sake that we
did it." It was a test as of fire for a young colonel in
his twenties.

But a single light lies upon the picture. Early in
1756, ere the summer's terror had come upon the bor
der, and while he could be spared, he took horse and
made his way to Boston to see Governor Shirley, now
acting as commander-in-chief in the colonies, and from
him at first hand obtain settlement of that teasing ques
tion of rank that had already driven the young officer
once from the service. He went very bravely dight in
proper uniform of buff and blue, a white -and -scarlet

WASHINGTON AND MARY PHILIPSE

COLONEL WASHINGTON 93

cloak upon his shoulders, the sword at his side knotted
with red and gold, his horse's fittings engraved with the
Washington arras, and trimmed in the best style of the
London saddlers. With him rode two aides in their
uniforms, and two servants in their white -and -scarlet
livery. Curious folk who looked upon the celebrated
young officer upon the road saw him fare upon his way
with all the pride of a Virginian gentleman, a hand
some man, and an admirable horseman — a very gallant
figure, no one could deny. Everywhere he was feted
as he went ; everywhere he showed himself the earnest,
high-strung, achieving youth he was. In New York he
fell into a new ambush, from which he did not come off
without a wound. His friend Beverly Kobinson must
needs have Miss Mary Philipse at his house there, a
beauty and an heiress, and Washington came away
from her with a sharp rigor at his heart. But he could
not leave that desolate frontier at home unprotected to
stay for a siege upon a lady's heart ; he had recovered
from such wounds before, had before that left pleasure
for duty; and in proper season was back at his post,
with papers from Shirley which left no doubt who
should command in Virginia.

At last, in 1758, the end came, when William Pitt
thrust smaller men aside and became Prime-Minister in
England. Amherst took Louisbourg, Wolfe came to
Quebec, and General Forbes, that stout and steady sol
dier, was sent to Virginia to go again against Duquesne.
The advance was slow to exasperation in the view of
every ardent man like Washington, and cautious almost
to timidity ; but the very delay redounded to its success
at last. 'Twas November before Duquesne was reached.
The Indians gathered there, seeing winter come on, had

94 GEORGE WASHINGTON

not waited to meet them ; and the French by that time
knew themselves in danger of being cut off by the Eng
lish operations in the North. When Forbes' s forces,
therefore, at last entered those fatal woods again, where
Braddock's slaughtered men had lain to rot, the French
had withdrawn; nothing remained but to enter the
smoking ruins of their abandoned fort, hoist the King's
flag, and re-name the post Fort Pitt ; and Washington
turned homeward again to seek the rest he so much
needed. It had been almost a bloodless campaign, but
such danger as it had brought Washington had shared
to the utmost. The French had not taken themselves
off without at least one trial of the English strength.
While yet Forbes lay within the mountains a large de
tachment had come from Duquesne to test and recon
noitre his force. Colonel Mercer, of the Virginian line,
had been ordered forward with a party to meet them.
He stayed so long, and the noise of the firing came
back with so doubtful a meaning to the anxious ears at
the camp, that Washington hastened with volunteers to
his relief. In the dusk the two bodies of Englishmen
met, mistook each other for enemies, exchanged a dead
ly fire, and were checked only because Washington,
rushing between their lines, even while their pieces
blazed, cried his hot commands to stop, and struck up
the smoking muzzles with his sword. 'Twas through
no prudence of his he was not shot.

For a long time his friends had felt a deep uneasiness
about his health. They had very earnestly besought
him not to attempt a new campaign. " You will in all
probability bring on a relapse," George Mason had
warned him, " and render yourself incapable of serving
the public at a time when there may be the utmost oc-

COLONEL WASHINGTON

95

casion. There is nothing more certain than that a gen
tleman of your station owes the care of his health and
his life not only to himself and his friends, but to his
country." But he had deemed the nearest duty the
most imperative ; and it was only after that duty was
disposed of that he had turned from the field to seek
home and new pleasures along with new duties. The
winter brought news from Quebec of the fall of the
French power in America, which made rest and home
and pleasure the more grateful and full of zest.

MOUNT YEENON DAYS

CHAPTER IV

ON a May day in 1758, as he spurred upon the way to
Williamsburg, under orders from the frontier, Washing
ton rode straight upon an adventure he had not looked
for. He was within a few hours' ride of the little capi
tal ; old plantations lay close upon the way ; neighborly
homes began to multiply ; and so striking a horseman,
riding uniformed and attended, could not thereabouts
go far unrecognized. He was waylaid and haled to din-
ner, despite excuses and protests of public business call
ing for despatch. There was a charming woman to be
seen at the house, his friend told him, if a good dinner
was not argument enough — and his business could not
spoil for an hour's stay in agreeable company. And so,
of a sudden, under constraint of Virginian hospitality,
he was hurried into the presence of the gracious young
matron who was at once, and as if of right, to make his
heart safe against further quest or adventure. Martha
Custis was but six-and-twenty. To the charm of youth
and beauty were added that touch of quiet sweetness
and that winning grace of self-possession which come to
a woman wived in her girlhood, and widowed before
age or care has checked the first full tide of life. At
seventeen she had married Daniel Parke Custis, a man
more than twenty years her senior ; but eight years of
quiet love and duty as wife and mother had only made

100 GEORGE WASHINGTON

her youth the more gracious in that rural land of leisure
and good neighborhood ; and a year's widowhood had
been but a suitable preparation for perceiving the charm
of this stately young soldier who now came riding her
way upon the public business. His age was her own ;
all the land knew him and loved him for gallantry and
brave capacity; he carried himself like a prince— and
he forgot his errand to linger in her company. Dinner
was soon over, and his horses at the door; there was
the drilled and dutiful Bishop, trained servant that he
was, leading his restless and impatient charge back and
forth within sight of the windows and of the terrace
where his young Colonel tarried, absorbed and forget
ful ; man and beast alike had been in the service of the
unhappy Braddock,and might seem to walk there lively
memorials of duty done and undertaken. But dusk
came; the horses were put up; and the next morning
was well advanced before the abstracted 3Toung officer
got at last to his saddle, and spurred on belated to
Williamsburg. His business concerned the preparations
then afoot for General Forbes's advance upon Duquesne.
" I came here at this critical juncture," said Washington
to the President of the Council, " by the express order
of Sir John St. Clair, to represent in the fullest man
ner the posture of our affairs at Winchester" — lack
of clothes, arms, and equipage, lack of money, lack of
wise regulations touching rank and discipline. General
Forbes had been in Philadelphia a month already,
awaiting the formation of his army in Virginia; Sir
John St. Clair, his quartermaster-general, had come into
the province to see that proper plans were made and
executed ; it was necessary that matters should be
pressed forward very diligently and at once ; and Wash-

•

Patrick Henry Washington Pendleton
LEAVING MOUNT VERNON FOR THE CONGRESS OF THE COLONIES

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 101

ington, when once at the seat of government, was not
slack to urge and superintend official action. But, the
troublesome business once in proper course, he turned
back to seek Mrs. Custis again, this time at her own
home, ere he went the long distance of the frontier.
The onset was made with a soldier's promptness and
audacity. He returned to his post, after a delay too
slight to deserve any reasonable man's remark, and yet
with a pledge given and taken which made him look
forward to the end of the campaign with a new longing
as to the winning of a real home and an unwonted hap
piness.

This was not his first adventure in love, but it was his
last, and gave him a quiet joy which stood him in stead
a whole lifetime. No young Virginian could live twenty-
six years amidst fair women in that hale and sociable
colony without being touched again and again by the
quick passion ; and this man had the blood of a lover
beyond his fellows. Despite the shyness of a raw lad
who lived much in the open, he had relished the com
pany of lively women from the first, meeting their gay
sallies sometimes with a look from his frank blue eyes
that revealed more than he knew. Love had first found
him out in earnest six years ago, when he was but just
turned of twenty ; and it had taken all the long while
since to forget his repulse at the hands of a fair young
beauty in that day of passion. Mary Phillipse had but
taken his fancy for a moment, because he could not pass
such a woman by and deem himself still a true Yirgin-
ian. It was more serious that he had been much in the
company, these last years, of a fair neighbor of the
vivacious house of Gary, whose wit and beauty had
haunted him in the very thick of campaigns upon the

102 GEORGE WASHINGTON

frontier, and who still mastered his heart now and
again, with a sort of imperious charm, in the midst of
this very happy season when he knew Martha Custis
his veritable heart's mistress for the future. It may
well have made him glad of misadventures in the past
to know his heart safe now.

The campaign dragged painfully, far into the drear au
tumn. December had come before the captured post on
the Ohio could be left to the keeping of Colonel Mercer
and a little garrison of provincials. But when at last
he was free again there was no reason why Washington
should wait longer to be happy, and he was married to
Martha Custis on the 6th of January, 1759. The sun
shone very bright that day, and there was the fine glit
ter of gold, the brave show of resplendent uniforms, in
the little church where the marriage was solemnized.
Officers of his Majesty's service crowded there, in their
gold lace and scarlet coats, to see their comrade wedded ;
the new Governor, Francis Fauquier, himself came, clad
as befitted his rank; and the bridegroom took the sun
not less gallantly than the rest, as he rode, in blue and
silver and scarlet, beside the coach and six that bore his
bride homeward amidst the thronging friends of the
country - side. The young soldier's love of a gallant
array and a becoming ceremony was satisfied to the
full, and he must have rejoiced to be so brave a horse
man on such a day. For three months of deep content
he lived with his bride at her own residence, the White
House, by York River side, where their troth had been
plighted, forgetting the fatigues of the frontier, and
learning gratefully the new life of quiet love and home
ly duty.

These peaceful, healing months gone by, he turned

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 103

once more to public business. Six months before his
marriage he had been chosen a member of the House cf
Burgesses for Frederick County — the county which had
been his scene of adventure in the old days of surveying
in the wilderness, and in which ever since Braddock's
fatal rout he had maintained his headquarters striving
to keep the border against the savages. Small wonder
that he led the poll taken there in Winchester, where
through so many seasons men had seen him bear him
self like a capable man and a gallant, indomitable sol
dier. 'Twas no unwelcome duty, either, to take his
young wife to Williamsburg in " the season," when all
Virginia was in town in the persons of the Burgesses
and the country gentry come to enjoy the festivities
and join in the business then sure to be afoot. The
young soldier was unused to assemblies, however, and
suffered a keen embarrassment to find himself for a
space too conspicuous amidst the novel parliamentary
scene. He had hardly taken his seat when the gracious
and stately Robinson, Speaker of the House and Treas
urer of the colony these twenty years, rose, at the bid
ding of the Burgesses, to thank him for the services of
which all were speaking. This sudden praise, spoken
with generous warmth there in a public place, was more
than Washington knew how to meet. He got to his
feet when Mr. Speaker was done, but he could not utter
a syllable. He stood there, instead, hot with blushes,
stammering, all a-tremble from head to foot. " Sit
down, Mr. Washington," cried the Speaker; "your
modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the
power of any language that I possess."

Again and again, as the years passed, Washington re
turned at each session to Williamsburg to take his place

104 GEORGE WASHINGTON

in the Assembly ; and with custom came familiarity and
the ease and firmness he at first had lacked upon the
floor. His life broadened about him ; all the uses of
peace contributed to give him facility and knowledge
and a wide comradeship in affairs. Along with quiet
days as a citizen, a neighbor, and a country gentleman,
came maturity and the wise lessons of a various experi
ence. No man in Virginia lived more or with a greater
zest henceforth than Colonel Washington. His mar
riage brought him great increase of wealth, as well as
increase of responsibility. Mr. Custis had left many
thousand acres of land, and forty-five thousand pounds
sterling in money, a substantial fortune to the young
wife and the two little children who survived him ; and
Washington had become, by special decree of the Gov
ernor and Council in General Court, trustee and mana
ger of the whole. It needed capacity and knowledge
and patience of no mean order to get good farming out
of slaves, and profitable prices out of London merchants ;
to find prompt and trustworthy ship-masters by whom to
send out cargoes, and induce correspondents over sea to
ship the perishable goods sent in return by the right ves
sels, bound to the nearest river ; and the bigger your es
tate the more difficult its proper conduct and economy,
the more disastrous in scale the eifects of mismanage
ment. No doubt the addition of Mrs. Custis's handsome
property to his own broad and fertile acres at Mount
Yernon made Colonel Washington one of the wealthiest
men in Virginia. But Virginian wealth was not to be
counted till crops were harvested and got to market. The
current price of tobacco might leave you with or with
out a balance to your credit in London, your only clear
ing-house, as it chanced. Your principal purchases, too,

.,!&

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 105

must be made over sea and through factors. Both what
you sold and what you bought must take the hazards of
the sea voyage, the whims of sea captains, the chances of
a foreign market. To be farmer and merchant at once,
manage your own negroes and your own overseers, and
conduct an international correspondence ; to keep the run
of price! current, duties, port dues, and commissions, and
know the fluctuating rates of exchange; to understand
and meet all changes, whether in merchants or in mar
kets, three thousand miles away, required an amount of
information, an alertness, a steady attention to detail, a
sagacity in farming and a shrewdness in trade, such as
made a great property a burden to idle or inefficient
men. But Washington took pains to succeed. He had
a great zest for business. The practical genius which
had shone in him almost prematurely as a boy now
grew heartily in him as a man of fortune. Messrs.
Robert Gary & Company, his factors in London, must
soon have learned to recognize his letters, in the mere
handling, by their bulk. No detail escaped him when
once he had gotten into the swing of the work.
They must be as punctilious as he \vas, they found, in
seeing to every part of the trade and accounting with
which he intrusted them, or else look to lose his lucra
tive patronage. He was not many years in learning
how to make the best tobacco in Virginia, and to get it
recognized as such in England. Barrels of flour marked
" George Washington, Mount Vernon," were ere long
suffered to pass the inspectors at the ports of the Brit
ish West Indies without scrutiny. It was worth while
to serve so efficient a man to his satisfaction ; worth
while or not, he would not be served otherwise.

He had emerged, as it were, after a tense and troubled

106 GEORGE WASHINGTON

youth, upon a peaceful tract of time, where his powers
could stretch and form themselves without strain or
hurry. He had robust health, to which he gave leave
in unstinted work, athletic strength, and an insatiable
relish for being much afoot and in the open, which he
satisfied with early rounds of superintendence in the
fields where the men were at their tasks, with many a
tireless ride after the hounds, or steadfast wait at the
haunts of the deer ; a planning will that craved some
practical achievement every day, which he indulged by
finding tasks of betterment about the estate and keep
ing his men at them with unflagging discipline ; a huge
capacity for being useful and for understanding bow to
be so, which he suffered his neighbors, his parish, his
county, the colony itself, to employ when there was
need. To a young man, bred these ten vears in the for
ests and in the struggle of warfare upon a far frontier,
it had been intolerable to live tamely, without executive
tasks big and various enough to keep his energy from
rust. The clerical side of business he had learned very
thoroughly in camp, as well as the exceeding stir and
strain of individual effort — the incessant letter writing
necessary to keep promised performance afoot, the reck
oning of men and of stores, the nice calculations of time
and ways and means ; the scrutiny of individual men,
too, which is so critical a part of management, and the
slow organization of effort : he had been in a fine school
for these things all his youth, and would have thought
shame to himself not to have learned temperance, sagac
ity, thrift, and patience wherewith to use his energy.
His happy marriage did him the service to keep him
from restlessness. His love took his allegiance, and
held him to his home as to a post of honor and reward.

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 107

He had never before had leave to be tender with chil
dren, or show with what a devotion he could preside
over a household all his own. His home got strong
hold upon him. His estates gave him scope of com
mand and a life of action. 'Twas no wonder he kept
his factors busy, and shipped goods authenticated by the
brand.

The soldierly young planter gave those who knew
him best, as well as those who met him but to pass, the
impression of a singular restraint and self-command,
which lent a peculiar dignity and charm to his speech
and carriage. They deemed him deeply passionate, and
yet could never remember to have seen him in a pas
sion. The impression was often a wholesome check
upon strangers, and even upon friends and neighbors,
who would have sought to impose upon him. No doubt
he had given way to bursts of passion often enough in
camp and upon the march, when inefficiency, disobedi
ence, or cowardice angered him hotly and of a sudden.
There were stories to be heard of men who had reason
to remember how terrible he could be in his wrath.
But he had learned, in the very heat and discipline
of such scenes, how he must curb and guard himself
against surprise, and it was no doubt trials of command
made in his youth that had given him the fine self-poise
men noted in him now. He had been bred in a strict
school of manners at Belvoir and Greenway Court, and
here at his own Mount Yernon in the old days, and the
place must have seemed to him full of the traditions of
whatsoever was just and honest and lovely and of good
report as he looked back to the time of his gentle
brother. It was still dangerous to cross or thwart
him, indeed. Poachers might look to be caught and

108 GEORGE WASHINGTON

soundly thrashed by the master himself if he chanced
their way. Negligent overseers might expect sharp
penalties, and unfaithful contractors a strict accounting,
if necessary work went wrong by their fault. He was
exacting almost to the point of harshness in every mat
ter of just right or authority. But he was open and
wholesome as the day, and reasonable to the point of
pity in every affair of humanity, through it all. Now
it was " my rascally overseer, Hard wick," in his diary,
when certain mares were sent home " scarce able to
highlone, much less to assist in the business of the
plantations "; but not a month later it was " my worthy
overseer, Hardwick, lying in Winchester of a broken
leg." It was not in his way to add anything to the
penalties of nature.

A quiet simplicity of life and a genuine love of real
sport rid him of morbid humors. All up and down the
English world, while the eighteenth century lasted, gen
tlemen were commonly to be found drunk after dinner
— outside New England, where the efficient Puritan
Church had fastened so singular a discipline in manners
upon a whole society — and Virginian gentlemen had a
reputation for deep drinking which they had been at
some pains to deserve. A rural society craves excite
ment, and can get it very simply by such practices.
There is always leisure to sleep afterwards, even
though your dinner come in the middle of the day ; and
there is good reason you should be thirsty if you have
been since daybreak in the saddle. To ride hard and to
drink hard seemed to go together in Virginia as inevita
bly as the rhymes in a song; and 'twas famous hard
riding after the fox over the rough fields and through
the dense thickets. If Washington drank only small

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 109

beer or cider and a couple of glasses of Madeira at din
ner, it was no doubt because he had found his quick
blood tonic enough, and had set himself a hard regimen
as a soldier. He did not scruple to supply drink enough
for the thirstiest gathering when he presented himself
to the voters of the country-side as a candidate for the
House of Burgesses. " A hogshead and a barrel of
punch, thirty -five gallons of wine, forty -three gallons
of strong cider, and dinner for his friends," was what
he cheerfully paid for at his first election, and the poll
footed but a few hundred votes all told. Mount Vernon
saw as much company and as constant merriment and
good cheer as any house in Virginia ; and the master
was no martinet to his guests, even though they came
upon professional errands. " Doctor Laurie came here,
I may add drunk," says l}is quiet diary, without com
ment, though the doctor had come upon summons to at
tend Mrs. Washington, and was next morning suffered
to use his lancet for her relief. No doubt a good fel
low when sober, and not to be lightly chidden when
drunk, like many a gallant horseman and gentleman
who joined the meet of the country-side at the hospita
ble place to follow the hounds when the hunting was
good. There was fox-hunting winter and summer, in
season and out, but the sport was best in the frosty
days of January and February, when the year was
young and the gentlemen of the country round gathered
at Belvoir or Gunston Hall or Mount Yernon two or
three times a week to warm their blood in the hale
sport, and dine together afterwards — a cordial company
of neighbors, with as many topics of good talk as foxes
to run to cover. The hunt went fastest and most in
cessantly when Lord Fairfax came down from his lodge

110 GEORGE WASHINGTON

in the Valley and joined them for days together in tl
field and at the table.

Washington loved horses and dogs with the heartiei
sportsman of them all. He had a great gusto for stali
ing deer with George Mason on the broad foreste
tracts round Gunston Hall, and liked often to take gu
or rod after lesser game when the days fell dull ; bi
best of all he loved a horse's back, and the hard ride f (
hours together after the dogs and a crafty quarry-
horse it put a man to his points to ride, a countr
where the running was only for those who dared. H
own mounts could nowhere be bettered in Virgini;
There was full blood of Araby in his noble Magnolii
and as good hunting blood as was to be found in tt
colony in his Blueskin and Ajax, Valiant and Chin]
ling. His hounds he bred " so flew'd, so sanded," s
matched in speed and habit, that they kept always tur
and pace together in the field. " A cry more tuneabl
was never holla'd to, nor cheered with horn," than theii
when they were let " spend their mouths " till echo p
plied " as if another chase were in the skies." JTvv£
first to the stables for him always in the morning, an
then to the kennels.

It had been hard and anxious work to get his affaii
into prosperous shape again when the war was ove
and those long, hopeless summers on the stricken froi
tier. Stock, buildings, fences — everything had to t
renewed, refitted, repaired. For the first two or thrc
years there were even provisions to buy, so slow was ti
place to support itself once more. Not only all his ow
ready money, but all he got by his marriage too, an
more besides, was swallowed up, and he found himsel
in debt before matters were finally set to rights an

MOUNT VERNON DAYS HI

profitable crops made and marketed. But, the thing
once done, affairs cleared and became easy as if of their
own accord in the business of the estate. The men he
had to deal with presently knew their master: the
young planter had matured his plans and his discipline.
Henceforth his affairs were well in hand, and he could
take his wholesome pleasures both handsomely and with
a free heart. There was little that was debonair about
the disciplined and masterful young soldier. He had
taken Pallas's gift : " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-
control, these three alone lead life to sovereign power.
And because right is right, to follow right were wisdom
in the scorn of consequence." But he took heed of his
life very genially, and was matured by pleasure no less
than by duty done. He loved a game of cards in almost
any company, and paid his stakes upon the rubber like
every other well-conducted man of his century. He did
not find Annapolis, or even Philadelphia, too far away
to be visited for the pleasure of seeing a good horse
race or enjoying a round of balls and evenings at the
theatre, to shake the rustic dulness off of a too constant
stay at home. Mrs. Washington enjoyed such outings,
such little flings into the simple world of provincial
fashion, as much as he did ; and they could not sit wait
ing all the year for the short season at Williamsburg.

A young man at once so handsome, so famous, and so
punctilious in point of dress as Colonel Washington
could not but make a notable figure in any society. " I
want neither lace nor embroidery," was the order he
sent to London. " Plain clothes, with a gold or silver
button (if worn in genteel dress), are all I desire. My
stature is six feet ; otherwise rather slender than corpu
lent." But he was careful the material, the color, and

112 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the fit should be of the best and n >t tasteful, and that
very elegant stuffs should be provided from over sea
for Mrs. Washington and her children, and very sub
stantial for the servants who were to be in attendance
upon the household — a livery of white and scarlet.
'Twas a point of pride with Virginians to know how to
dress, both well and in the fashion ; and the master of
Mount Yernon would have deemed it an impropriety to
be less careful than his neighbors, less well dressed than
his station and fortune warranted. He watched the
tradesmen sharply. " Tis a custom, I have some reason
to believe, with many shopkeepers and tradesmen in
London," he wrote bluntly to the Messrs. Gary, " when
they know goods are bespoken for exportation, to palm
sometimes old, and sometimes very slight and indiffer
ent, goods upon us, taking care at the same time to ad
vance the price," and he wished them informed that
their distant customers would not be so duped.

He longed once and again to be quit of the narrow
life of the colony, and stretch himself for a little upon
the broader English stage at home. " But I am tied by
the leg," he told his friends there, "and must set in
clination aside. My indulging myself in a trip to Eng
land depends upon so many contingencies, which, in all
probability, may never occur, that I dare not even think
of such a gratification." But the disappointment bred
no real discontent. There could be no better air or
company to come to maturity in than were to be had
there in Virginia, if a young man were poised and mas
ter of himself. " We have few things here striking to
European travellers (except our abundant woods)," he
professed, when he wrote to his kinsman Richard Wash
ington in England ; " but little variety, a welcome recep-

MOUNT VERNON DAYS 113

tion among a few friends, and the open and prevalent
hospitality of the country"; but it was a land that bred
men, and men of affairs, in no common fashion.

Especially now, after the quickening of pulses that
had come with the French war, and its sweep of con
tinental, even of international, forces across the colonial
stage, hitherto set only for petty and sectional affairs.
The colonies had grown self-conscious and restless as
the plot thickened and thrust them forward to a role
of consequence in the empire such as they had never
thought to play, and the events which succeeded hurried
them to a quick maturity. It was a season a young
man was sure to ripen in, and there was good company.
The House of Burgesses was very quiet the year Wash
ington first took his place in it and stood abashed to
hear himself praised ; but before Mr. Robinson, its al
ready veteran Speaker, was dead, a notable change had
set in. Within five years, before the country on the St.
Lawrence and the lakes was well out of the hands of
the French, the Parliament in England had entered
upon measures of government which seemed meant of
deliberate purpose to set the colonies agog, and every
body of counsellors in America stood between anger
and amazement to see their people in danger to be so
put upon.

The threat and pressure of the French power upon
the frontiers had made the colonies thoughtful always,
so long as it lasted, of their dependence upon England
for succor and defence should there come a time of
need. Once and again — often enough to keep them
sensible how they must stand or fall, succeed or fail,
with the power at home — their own raw levies had
taken part with the King's troops out of England in

114 GEORGE WASHINGTON

some clumsy stroke or other against a French strong
hold in the North or a Spanish fortress in the South ;
and now at last they had gone with English troops into
the field in a national cause. Provincials and redcoats
had joined for a final grapple with the French, to settle
once and for all who should be owners and masters on
the coveted continent. The issue had been decisive.
By the summer of 1760 Washington could write his
kinsman in England that the French were so thoroughly
drubbed and humbled that there remained little to do
to reduce Canada from end to end to the British power.
But the very thoroughness of the success wrought a
revolution in the relations of the colonies to the mother-
country. It rid them of their sense of dependence.
English regiments had mustered their thousands, no
doubt, upon the battle-fields of the war in order that
the colonies might be free to possess the continent, and
it was hard to see how the thing could have been ac
complished without them. But it had been accom
plished, and would not need to be done again. More
over, it had shown the colonial militia how strong they
were even in the presence of regulars. They had almost
everywhere borne an equal part in the fighting, and,
rank and file, they had felt with a keen resentment the
open contempt for their rude equipment and rustic dis
cipline which too many arrogant officers and insolent
men among the regulars had shown. They knew that
they had proved themselves the equals of any man in
the King's pay in the fighting, and they had come out
of the hot business confident that henceforth, at any
rate, they could dispense with English troops and take
care of themselves. They had lost both their fear of
the French and their awe of the English.

THE HEAT OF POLITICS

CHAPTER V

'TWAS hardly an opportune time for statesmen in
London to make a new and larger place for England's
authority in America, and yet that was what they im
mediately attempted. Save Chatham and Burke and a
few discerning men who had neither place nor power,
there was no longer any one in England who knew,
though it were never so vaguely, the real temper and
character of the colonists. 'Twas matter of common
knowledge and comment, it is true, that the men of
Massachusetts were beyond all reason impatient of com
mand or restraint, affecting an independence which was
hardly to be distinguished from contumacy and insubor
dination ; but what ground was there to suppose that a
like haughty and ungovernable spirit lurked in the loyal
and quiet South, or among the prudent traders and
phlegmatic farmers who were making the middle colo
nies so rich, and so regardful of themselves in every
point of gain or interest ? Statesmen of an elder gener
ation had had a sure instinct what must be the feeling
of Englishmen in America, and had, with " a wise and
salutary neglect," suffered them to take their own way
in every matter of self-government. Though ministry
after ministry had asserted a rigorous and exacting
supremacy for the mother - country in every affair of
commerce, and had determined as they pleased what

118 GEORGE WASHINGTON \

the colonies should be suffered to manufacture, and how
they should be allowed to trade — \vith what merchants,
in what commodities, in what bottoms, within what
limits — they had nevertheless withheld their hands
hitherto from all direct exercise of authority in the
handling of the internal affairs of the several settle
ments, had given them leave always to originate their
own legislation and their own measures of finance, until
self-government had become with them a thing as if of
immemorial privilege. Sir William Keith, sometime
Governor of Pennsylvania, had suggested to Sir Eobert
Walpole that he should raise revenue from the colonies.
" What !" exclaimed that shrewd master of men. " I
have Old England set against me, and do you think I
will have New England likewise?"

But men had come into authority in England now
who lacked this stout sagacity, and every element of
sound discretion. English arms and English money,
they could say, had swept the French power from
America in order that the colonies might no longer suf
fer menace or rivalry. A great debt had been piled up
in the process. Should not the colonies, who had reaped
the chief benefit, bear part of the cost? They had
themselves incurred burdensome debts, no doubt, in the
struggle, and their assemblies would very likely profess
themselves willing to vote what they could should his
Majesty call upon them and press them. But an ade
quate and orderly system of taxation could not be
wrought out by the separate measures of a dozen petty
legislatures ; 'twere best the taxation should be direct
and by Parliament, whose authority, surely, no man
outside turbulent Boston would be mad enough seriously
to question or resist. It would, in any event, be whole-

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 119

some, now the colonies were likely to grow lusty as
kingdoms in their roomy continent, to assert a mother's
power to use and restrain — a power by no means lost
because too long unexercised and neglected. It was with
such wisdom the first step was taken. In March, 1764,
Parliament voted it "just and necessary that a revenue
be raised in America," passed an act meant to secure
duties on wines and sugars, and took measures to in
crease the efficiency of the revenue service in America.

George Grenville was Prime - Minister. lie lacked
neither official capacity nor acquaintance with affairs.
He thought it just the colonists should pay their quota
into the national treasury, seeing they were so served
by the national power ; and he declared that in the
next session of Parliament he should propose certain
direct taxes in addition to the indirect already in force.
He saw no sufficient reason to doubt that the colonies
would acquiesce, if not without protest, at least without
tumult or dangerous resistance. It was a sad blunder.
Virginia resented threat and execution alike in such a
matter as deeply as did litigious Massachusetts. A long
generation ago, in the quiet year 1732, when bluff Sir
Kobert was Prime-Minister, there had been an incident
which Governor Keith, maybe, had forgotten. The
ministry had demanded of Massachusetts that she
should establish a fixed salary for her governors by a
standing grant ; but she had refused, and the ministers
had receded. The affair had not been lost upon the
other colonies. That sturdy onetime royal Governor,
Alexander Spotswood, in Virginia, had noted it very
particularly, and spoken of it very bluntly, diligent ser
vant of the crown as he was, to Colonel William Byrd,
when he came his way on his " progress to the mines."

120 GEORGE WASHINGTON

He declared " that if the Assembly in New England
would stand bluff, he did not see how they could be
forced to raise money against their will , for if they
should direct it to be done by act of Parliament, which
they have threatened to do (though it be against the
right of Englishmen to be taxed but by their representa
tives), yet they would find it no easy matter to put such
an act in execution." No observing man could so much
as travel in Virginia without finding very promptly
what it was that gave point and poignancy to such an
opinion. That quiet gentleman the Rev. Andrew Bur-
naby, Vicar of Greenwich, was in Virginia in 1759, and
saw plainly enough how matters stood. " The public
or political character of the Virginians," he said, " cor
responds with their private one ; they are haughty and
jealous of their liberties, impatient of restraint, and can
scarcely bear the thought of being controlled by any
.superior power. Many of them consider the colonies as
independent states, not connected with Great Britain
.otherwise than by having the same common King and
-being bound to her with natural affection." Not only
so, but " they think it a hardship not to have an un
limited trade to every part of the world." All this, and
more, Grenville might have learned by the simple pains
of inquiry. One had but to open his eyes and look to
see how imperious a race had been bred in the almost
feudal South ; and, for all they had never heard revolu
tionary talk thence, ministers ought to have dreaded
the leisure men had there to think, the provocation to
be proud, the necessity to be masterful and individual,
quite as much as they had ever dreaded the stubborn
temper and the quick capacity for united action they
had once and again seen excited in New England.

TAZEWELL HALL, THE HOME OF THE RANDOLPHS

(After a print in Omitted Chapters of History in th- Life and Papers of Edward Randolph. By
Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons)

WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE

(From an old print)

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 121

It was not necessary to try new laws to see what the
colonies would do if provoked. The difficulty already
encountered in enforcing the laws of trade was object-
lesson enough ; and the trouble in that matter had
grown acute but yesterday. For long, indeed, no one
in the colonies questioned the right of Parliament to
regulate their trade ; but it was notorious that the laws
actually enacted in that matter had gone smoothly off
in America only because they were not seriously en
forced. " The trade hither is engrossed by the Saints
of New England," laughed Colonel Byrd, " who carry
off a great deal of tobacco without troubling themselves
with paying that impertinent duty of a penny a pound."
The Acts of Trade practically forbade direct commerce
with foreign countries or their dependencies, especially
in foreign bottoms; but ships from France, Spain, and
the Canary Isles came and went very freely, notwithstand
ing, in colonial ports ; for royal officials liked to enjoy a
comfortable peace and the esteem of their neighbors,
and very genially winked at such trangressions. Car
goes without number were sent to the Dutch and Span
ish West Indies every year, and as many brought thence,
which were undoubtedly forfeit under the navigation
laws Parliament had been at such pains to elaborate
and enforce ; and privateering as well as smuggling had
for long afforded the doughty seamen of Boston, Salem,
Charleston, and New York a genteel career of profit.
Things had come to such a pass that where business
went briskly the people of the colonial ports demanded
as of right " a full freedom of illegal trade," and broke
sometimes into riot when it was denied them. The
Boston News Letter had been known very courteously
to mourn the death of a worthy collector of his Majes-

!22 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ty's customs because, " with much humanity," he had
been used to take " pleasure in directing masters of vessels
how they ought to avoid the breach of the Acts of
Trade." Sea captains grew accustomed to very confi
dential relations with owners and consignees, and knew
very well, without official counsel, how to take the ad
vice " not to declare at the Custom-house " ; and things
went very easily and cordially with all parties to the
understanding.

In 1761 that understanding was of a sudden rudely
broken and the trouble began, which Grenville had the
folly to add to. The Board of Trade determined to col
lect the duties on sugar, molasses, and rum, so long and
so systematically evaded in the trade between New Eng-
gland and the West Indies, at whatever cost of suit and
scrutiny, and directed their agents in Boston to demand
" writs of assistance " from the courts, giving them leave
to enter what premises they would in search of smug
gled goods. There were instant exasperation and resist
ance. General search - warrants, opening every man's
door to the officers of the law, with or without just and
explicit ground of suspicion against him, no English
subject anywhere would submit to ; and yet these writs
authorized nothing less. Issued under a questionable
extension to America of an exceptional power of the
Court of Exchequer, they violated every precedent of
the common law, no less than every principle of prudent
administration; and the excitement which they pro
voked was at once deep and ominous. Sharp resistance
was made in the courts, and no officer ever ventured to
serve one of the obnoxious writs. Such challenge of
the process was uttered by colonial counsel upon trial of
the right, moreover, that ministers would be without

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 123

excuse should they ignore the warning, so explicit and
so eloquent of revolutionary purpose. It was James
Otis who uttered it. He had but the other day carried
the royal commission in his pocket as Advocate-General
in his Majesty's Court of Admiralty ; but he would not
have scrupled, even as his Majesty's servant, he said, to
oppose the exercise of a power which had already cost
one King his head and another his throne. To oppose
in such a case was to defend the very constitution under
which the King wore his crown. That constitution se
cured to Englishmen everywhere the rights of freemen;
the colonists had, besides, the plain guarantees of their
own charters ; if constitution and charter failed, or were
gainsaid, the principles of natural reason sufficed for de
fence against measures so arrogant and so futile. No
lawyer could justify these extraordinary writs ; no King
with an army at his back could ever force them to exe
cution.

Protest not only, but defiance, rang very clear in these
fearless words ; and ministers must avow themselves
very ignorant should they pretend they did not know
how Mr. Otis had kindled fire from one end of the colo
nies to the other. But Grenville was resolute to take
all risks and push his policy. He did not flinch from
the enforcement of the measures of 1764, and in the ses
sion of 1765 calmly fulfilled his promise of further taxa
tion. He proposed that the colonists should be required
to use revenue stamps upon all their commercial paper,
legal documents, pamphlets, and newspapers ; and that,
at once as a general measure of convenience and a salu
tary exhibition of authority, his Majesty's troops sta
tioned in the plantations should be billeted on the peo
ple. Parliament readily acquiesced. It was thus Gren-

124 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ville purposed " defraying the expenses of defending,
protecting, and securing" the colonies; but he came
near losing them instead. The act was passed in
March ; it was not to go into effect until November ; but
the colonists did not keep him waiting until November
for their protests. It was the voice of a veritable
tempest that presently came over sea to the ear of the
startled minister. And it was not the General Court of
turbulent Massachusetts, but the House of Burgesses of
loyal Virginia that first spoke the general indignation.
Already in the autumn of 1764, upon the mere threat of
what was to come, that House had spoken very urgently
against the measures proposed, in a memorial to King
and Parliament, which, amidst every proper phrase of
loyalty and affection, had plainly declared it the opin
ion of his Majesty's subjects in Virginia that such acts
would be in flat violation of their undoubted rights and
liberties; and the committee by which that memorial
was drawn up had contained almost every man of chief
consequence in the counsels of the colony, the King's
Attorney-General himself not excepted. But it was one
thing to protest against measures to come and quite
another to oppose their execution when enacted into
laws. The one was constitutional agitation ; the other,
flat rebellion — little less. It was very ominous to read
the words of the extraordinary resolutions passed bv
the Burgesses on the 30th of May, 1Y65, after the Stamp
Act had become law, and note the tone of restrained
passion that ran through them. They declared that
from the first the settlers of " his Majesty's colony and
dominion" of Virginia had possessed and enjoyed all
the privileges, franchises, and immunities at any time
enjoyed by the people of Great Britain itself; and that

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 125

this, their freedom, Jiad been explicitly secured to them
by their charters, " to all intents and purposes as if they
had been abiding and born within the realm of Eng
land " ; " that the taxation of the people by themselves
or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them "
was " a distinguishing characteristic of British freedom,
without which the ancient constitution" of the realm
itself could not subsist ; " and that his Majesty's liege
people of this most ancient colony" had " uninter
ruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by
their assemblies in the article of their taxes and internal
police," had never forfeited or relinquished it, and had
seen it " constantly recognized by the Kings and people
of Great Britain."

Spoken as it was in protest against actual legislation
already adopted by Parliament in direct despite of all
such privileges and immunities, this declaration of rights
seemed to lack its conclusion. The constitutional rights
of Virginians had been invaded. What then ? Resolved,
therefore, " that his Majesty's liege people, the inhabi
tants of this colony, are not bound to yield obedience to
any law or ordinance whatever designed to impose any
taxation whatsoever upon them, other than the laws
or ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid," and
"that any person who shall, by speaking or writing,
assert or maintain "the contrary " shall be deemed an
enemy of his Majesty's colony." Such had been the
uncompromising conclusion drawn by the mover of the
resolutions. What other conclusion could any man
draw if he deemed the colonists men, and proud men at
that ? But the Burgesses would not go so far or be so
explicit. They feared to speak treason ; they were con
tent to protest of their rights, and let the issue bring

126 GEORGE WASHINGTON

conclusions to light. It had been hot fighting to get
even that much said. The men hitherto accepted al
ways as leaders in the House had wished to hold it
back from rash and heated action, and there had been
bitter debates before even those significant premises for
a revolutionary conclusion had been forced to adoption.
Old leaders and new, young men and old alike, had will
ingly united in the memorial of 1764 ; but now that the
Stamp Act was law, conservative members shrank from
doing what must look so like a flat defiance of Parlia
ment. Only young men would have had the audacity
to urge such action ; only very extraordinary young
men would have had the capacity to induce the House
to take it. But such young men were at hand, their
leader as veritable a democrat as had ever taken the
floor in that assembly.

Patrick Henry was not of the aristocracy of the col
ony. Good Scots blood ran in his veins, quickened by the
lively strain of an old Welsh stock. His father came of
a race of scholars, and, good churchman though he was,
knew his Livy and his Horace better than his Bible.
His mother came of a vivacious line of easy-going wits
and talkers, which but a touch more of steadiness and
energy might any day have made famous. His father
had served his county of Hanover very capably and ac
ceptably as surveyor, colonel, magistrate, and his uncle
had been beloved as the faithful pastor of quiet parishes.
But they had been no long time in the colony; they
lived back from the tide-water counties where the real
aristocracy had its strength and supremacy ; they were
of that middle class of yeomen-gentlemen who love lib
erty but do not affect rank. " A vigorous aristocracy
favors the growth of personal eminence even in those

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 127

who are not of it, but only near it," and these plain men
of the middle counties were the more excellent and in
dividual in the cultivation of their powers by reason of
the contact. But there was a touch of rusticity, a neg
lect of polish, a rough candor of speech, about them
which set them apart and distinguished them sharply
enough when they came into the presence of the courtly
and formal gentlemen who practised the manners of
London in the river counties. Patrick Henry, at any
rate, must have seemed a very rustic figure to the Bur
gesses when he first came to take his seat amongst them
on a May day in 1765. He was known, indeed, to
many. This was the man, they must have known, who
had won so strange a verdict from a jury two years ago
in the celebrated parsons' case at Hanover court-house,
against the law and the evidence. But his careless
dress and manner, his loose, ungainly figure, his listless,
absent bearing, must have set many a courtly member
staring. For such men as Washington, indeed, there
can have been nothing either strange or unattractive in
the rough exterior and unstudied ways of the new mem
ber. Punctilious though he was himself in every point
of dress and bearing, Washington's life had most of it
been spent with men who looked thus, and yet were
stuff of true courage and rich capacity within. The
manner of a man could count as no test of quality with
him. His experience had covered the whole variety of
Yirginian life. He was an aristocrat by taste, not by
principle. And Patrick Henry had, in fact, come to the
same growth as he in essential quality and principle,
though by another way. Henry's life had been wilful,
capricious, a bit haphazard, Washington's all the while
subject to discipline ; but both men had touched and

128 GEORGE WASHINGTON

seen the whole energy of the commonwealth, knew its
hope, could divine its destiny. There was but one Vir
ginia, and they were her children. It could not take
long to bring them to an understanding and comrade
ship in affairs.

It was characteristic of the new member that he
should step at once and unhesitatingly to a place of lead
ership when debate of the Stamp Act stirred the House,
and that he should instantly sweep the majority into
his following with a charm and dash of eloquence that
came like a revelation upon the quiet assembly. He
was but twenty-nine years old, but he had spent all his
life in learning how the world went, and by what man
ner of speech it was moved and governed. He had
roamed the woods with no thought but for sport, or a
quiet hour with a book or his fancy in the shade of the
trees. He had kept a country store, and let gossip and
talk of affairs of colony and country-side take prece
dence of business. Finally he had turned with a per
manent relish to the law, and had set himself to plead
causes for his neighbors in a way that made judges stare
and juries surrender at discretion. In everything he
had seemed to read the passions of men. Books no less
than men, the chance company of an old author no less
than the constant talk of the neighborly land he lived
in, seemed to fill him with the quick principles of the
people and polity to which he belonged, and to lend
him as inevitably every living phrase in which to ut
ter them. The universal sympathy and insight which
made his pleasantry so engaging to men of every stamp
rendered his power no less than terrible when he turned
to play upon their passions. He was not conscious of
any audacity when he sprang to his feet upon the in-

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 129

stant he saw the House resolved into committee to con
sider the Stamp Act. It was of the ardor of his nature
to speak when conviction moved him strongly, without
thought of propriety or precedence ; and it was like him
to stand there absorbed, reading his resolutions from a
fly-leaf torn from an old law-book.

It seemed no doubt a precious piece of audacity in
the eyes of the prescriptive leaders of the House to hear
this almost unknown man propose his high recital of
Virginia's liberties and his express defiance of Parlia
ment — in tones which rang no less clear and confident
upon the clause which declared "his Majesty's liege
people " of the colony in no way bound to yield obedi
ence, than in the utterance of the accepted matter of
his premises. Debate flamed up at once, hot, even pas
sionate. The astounding, moving eloquence of the
young advocate, his instant hold upon the House, the
directness with which he purposed and executed action
in so grave a matter, stirred the pulses of his opponents
and his followers with an equal power, and roused those
who would have checked him to a vehemence as great
as his own. The old leaders of the House, with whom
he now stood face to face in this critical business, were
the more formidable because of the strong reason of
their position. No one could justly doubt that they
wished to see the Old Dominion keep and vindicate her
liberty, but they deemed it folly to be thus intemperately
beforehand with the issue. Almost to a man they were
sprung of families who had come to Virginia with the
great migration that had brought the Washingtons, in
the evil day when so many were fleeing England to be
quit of the Puritan tyranny — royalists all, and touched
to the quick with the sentiment of loyalty. 'Twas now

9

130 GEORGE WASHINGTON

a long time since Cromwell's day, indeed ; generations
had passed, and a deep passion for Virginia had been
added to that old reverence for the wearer of the crown
in England. But these men prided themselves still upon
their loyalty ; made it a point of honor to show them
selves no agitators, but constitutional statesmen. It
made them grave and deeply anxious to see the privi
leges that were most dear to them thus violated and
denied, but it did not make them hasty to quarrel with
the Parliament of the realm. They had intended oppo
sition, but they feared to throw their cause away by
defiance. 'Twas as little wrise as dignified to flout thus
at the sovereign power before all means had been ex
hausted to win it to forbearance.

It was not the least part of the difficulty to face the
veteran Speaker, John Robinson, so old in affairs, so
stately in his age, so gravely courteous, and yet with
such a threat of good manners against those who should
make breach of the decorous traditions of the place.
But the men chiefly to be feared were on the floor.
There was Richard Bland, "wary, old, experienced,"
with "something of the look," a Virginian wit said,
"of old musty parchments, which he handleth and
studieth much," author of a " treatise against the Quak
ers on water-baptism " ; with none of the gifts of an
orator, but a veritable antiquarian in law and the pre
cedents of public business, a very formidable man in
counsel. Quiet men trusted him, and thought his pru
dence very wise. George Wythe was no less learned,
and no less influential. Men knew him a man of letters,
bringing the knowledge of many wise books to the
practice of affairs, and set great store by his sincerity, as
artless as it was human, and sweetened with good feel-

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 131

ing. It made Randolph and Pendleton and Nicholas,
the elder orators of the House, seem the more redoubt
able that they should have such men as these at their
elbows to prompt and steady them. And yet they would
have been formidable enough of themselves. Edmund
Pendleton had not, indeed, the blood or the breeding
that gave his colleagues prestige. He had won his way
to leadership by his own steady genius for affairs. He
read nothing but law-books, knew nothing but business,
cared for nothing but to make practical test of his
powers. But he took all his life and purpose with such
a zest, made every stroke with so serene a self-posses
sion, was so quick to see and act upon every advantage
in his business of debate, and was withal so transparent,
bore himself with such a grace and charm of manner,
was so obviously right-minded and upright, that it meant
a great deal to the House to hear him intervene in its
discussions with his melodious voice, his cool, distinct,
effective elocution. Robert Carter Nicholas added to
like talents for business and debate a reverent piety, a
title to be loved and trusted without question, which no
man ever thought to gainsay. And Peyton Randolph,
with his " knowledge, temper, experience, judgment, in
tegrity " as of a true Roman spirit, was a sort of prince
among the rest. No man could doubt he wished Vir
ginia to have her liberties. He had gone over sea to
speak for her in Dinwiddie's day, though he was the
King's attorney, and had lost his office for his boldness.
But there were traditions of loyalty and service in his
breeding which no man might rightly ignore. His
father before him had won knighthood and the royal
favor by long and honorable service as his Majesty's
attorney in the colony. Pride and loyalty had gone

132 GEORGE WASHINGTON

hand in hand in the annals of a proud race, and had
won for the Randolphs a prestige which made it impos
sible Sir John's son should very long be kept from the
office he had so honorably inherited. And so Peyton
Randolph was now once again the King's attorney. It
was not as the King's officer, however, but as an ex
perienced Parliamentary tactician, a trained debater, a
sound man of affairs, that he had set himself to check
Henry in his revolutionary courses.

Henry found himself, in truth, passionately set upon.
Even threats were uttered, and abuse such as proud
men find ill to bear. They cried " Treason ! treason !"
upon him when he dared declare the King would do
well to look to the fate of Ca3sar and Charles the First
for profitable examples. But he was not daunted a
whit. " If this be treason, make the most of it," was
his defiance to them. One ally who might have stood
with him, had he known, was absent. Richard Henry
Lee would have brought to his support a name as an
cient and as honorable as any in the colony, and an
eloquence scarcely less than his own. But, as it was,
he was left almost alone, and won his battle with no
other aid than veiy plain men could lend by vote and
homely utterance. The vote was very close, but enough.
Randolph flung out of the House, muttering in his heat
that he " would have given five hundred guineas for a
single vote." Henry, taking the triumph very simply,
as was his wont, and knowing his work for the session
done, quietly made his way homeward that very day,
striding unconcernedly down Duke of Gloucester Street,
chatting with a friend, his legs clad in buckskin as if
for the frontier, his saddle-bags and the reins of his lean
nag slung carelessly over his arm.

PEYTON RANDOLPH

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 133

The Assembly had adopted Henry's declaration of
rights, not his resolution of disobedience, and had soft
ened a little the language he would have used ; but its
action seemed seditious enough to Fauquier, the Gov
ernor, and he promptly dissolved them. It did little
good to send Virginians home, however, if the object
was to check agitation. The whole manner of their
life bred thought and concert of action. Where men
have leave to be individual, live separately and with a
proud self-respect, and yet are much at each other's
tables, often in vestry council together, constantly com
ing and going, talking and planning throughout all the
country - side, accustomed to form their opinions in
league, and yet express each man his own with a dash
and flavor of independence ; where there is the leisure
te reflect, the habit of joint efforts in business, the spirit
to be social, and abundant opportunity to be frank withal,
if you will — you may look to see public views form
themselves very confidently, and as easily without as
semblies as with them. Washington had taken no part
in the stormy scenes of the House, but had sat calmly
apart rather, concerned and thoughtful. He was not
easily caught by the excitement of a sudden agita
tion. He had the soldier's steady habit of self-pos
session in the presence of a crisis, and his own way
of holding things at arm's -length for scrutiny — "like
a bishop at his prayers," a wag said. He had a sol
dier's loyalty, too, and slowness at rebellion. His
thought, no doubt, was with the conservatives, whatever
may have been the light that sprang into his quiet
eye when Henry's voice rang out so like a clarion,
calling Virginia to her standard ; and he went home,
upon the dissolution, to join and aid his neighbors in

134 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the slow discussion which must shape affairs to an
issue.

"The Virginia Resolutions" had run like a flame
through the colonies — not as the Burgesses had adopted
them, but as Henry had drawn them, with their express
threat of disobedience. Nor was that all. October,
1T65, saw delegates from nine colonies come together
in New York, at the call of Massachusetts, to take coun
sel what should be done. Every one knew that Vir
ginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, the only colonies
absent from the " congress," would have sent delegates
too had their Governors not prevented them by the dis
solution of their Assemblies before they could act on the
call. A deep excitement and concern had spread every
where throughout the settlements. Not only did the
impending enforcement of the act engross " the conver
sation of the speculative part of the colonists," as Wash
ington wrote to Francis Dandridge in London ; it prom
ised to engross also the energies of very active, and it
might be very violent, men in many quarters, and it be
gan to grow evident that some part of government itself
would be brought to a standstill by its processes. " Our
courts of judicature," declared Washington, "must inevi
tably be shut up ; for it is impossible (or next of kin to
it), under our present circumstances, that the act of Par
liament can be complied with . . . ; and if a stop be put
to our judicial proceedings, I fancy the merchants of
Great Britain trading to the colonies will not be among
the last to wish for a repeal of it." The congress at
New York drew up nothing less than a bill of rights
and immunities, and sent resolutions over sea which ar
rested the attention of the world. The Virginian As
sembly despatched like papers for itself ; and Richard

THE HEAT OF POLITICS

135

Henry Lee, when he had assisted to draw its memorials,
hastened home to form in his own Cavalier county a
u Westmoreland Association," whose members (four
Washingtons among the rest) bound themselves by a
solemn covenant to " exert every faculty to prevent the
execution of the said Stamp Act in any instance what
soever within this colony." The ministry could not
stand the pressure. They gave way to Lord Kocking-
ham, and the act was repealed.

Meanwhile Washington, his calm temper unshaken,
was slowly coming to a clear vision of affairs in all their
significance. Fox-hunting did not cease. He was much
in the saddle and at table with the Fairfaxes, whom
nothing could shake from their allegiance, and who
looked with sad forebodings upon the temper the colony
was in. It was proper they should speak so if they
deemed it just, and Washington had no intolerance for
what they urged. But George Mason, the neighbor
whom he most trusted, was of a very different mind,
and strengthened and confirmed him in other counsels.
Mason was six years his senior ; a man, too, cast by nat
ure to understand men and events, how they must go
and how be guided. They conferred constantly, at
every turn of their intimate life, in the field or in the
library, mounted or afoot in the forests, and came very
deliberately and soberly to their statesman's view.
Randolph and Pendleton and Wythe and Bland had
themselves turned, after the first hesitation, to act with
ardent men like Lee in framing the memorials to King,
Lords, and Commons which were to go from the Bur
gesses along with the resolutions of the Stamp Act
Congress in New York ; and Washington, who had
never hesitated, but hacT only gone slowly and with his

136 GEORGE WASHINGTON

eyes open, with that self-poise men had found so strik
ing in him from the first, came steadily with the rest to
the at last common purpose of resolute opposition. The
repeal of the act came to all like a great deliverance.

Governor Fauquier had deemed it his duty to dissolve
the Assembly upon the passage of Henry's resolutions,
but he had acted without passion in the matter, and had
kept the respect of the men he dealt with. He was not
a man, indeed, to take public business very seriously,
having been bred a man of fashion and a courtier rather
than a master of affairs. He loved gay company and
the deep excitement of the gaming-table, not the round
of official routine. Affable, generous, elegant, a scholar
and real lover of letters, he vastly preferred the talk of
•vivacious women and accomplished men to the business
of the General Court, and was a man to be liked rather
-ihan consulted. Washington, always admitted to the
intimacy of official circles at Williamsburg, very likelv
relished the gallant Fauquier better than the too officious
Dinwiddie. It was, unhappily, no portent to see a man
still -devoted to dissipation at sixty-two, even though he
were Governor of one of his Majesty's colonies and a
trusted servant of the crown ; and Fauquier's gifts as a
man of wit and of instructed tastes made his companion
ship no less acceptable to Washington than to the other
men of discernment who frequented the ballrooms and
receptions, ate formal dinners, and played quiet games
of cards during the brief season at the little capital. It
did not seriously disturb life there that the Governor
upheld the power of Parliament to tax, while the Bur
gesses strenuously opposed it. Washington, for one,
did not hesitate on that account to be seen often in
friendly talk with the Governor, or to accept frequent

GEORGE MASON

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 137

invitations to the "palace." He was of the temper
which has so distinguished the nobler sort of English
men in politics : he might regard opposition as a public
duty, but he never made it a ground of personal feeling
or private spite. In a sense, indeed, he had long been
regarded as belonging to official circles in the colony,
more intimately than any other man who did not hold
office. He had been put forward by the Fairfaxes in
his youth; men in the Council and at the head of af
fairs had been his sponsors and friends from the first ;
he had been always, like his brother before him, a mem
ber of one of the chief groups in the colony for influence
and a confidential connection with the public business.
It was even understood that he was himself destined
for the Council, when it should be possible to put him
in it without seeming to give too great a preponderance
to the Fairfax interest, already so much regarded in its
make-up.

The first flurry of differing views and conflicting pur
poses among the Virginian leaders had passed off. The
judgment of high-spirited men everywhere sustained
Henry — gave him unmistakable authentication as a
leader ; put all public men in the way of understanding
their constituents. Some were bold and some were
timid, but all were animated by the same hope and pur
pose, and few were yet intemperate. " Sensible of the
importance of unanimity among our constituents," said
Jefferson afterwards, looking back to that time when
he was young and in the first flush of his radical senti
ments, " although we often wished to have gone faster,
we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues
might keep up with us ; and they, on their part, differ
ing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait

138 GEORGE WASHINGTON

somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of
itself have advised." Patrick Henry was received to
the place he had earned ; and although the older leaders
resumed that sway in counsel to which their tried skill
and varied experience in affairs fairly entitled them,
there was no longer any jealous exclusion of new men.
Henry's fame crept through the colonies as the man
who had first spoken the mind not of Virginians only,
but of all just men, with regard to the liberties of Eng
lishmen in America. Before a year was out Eichard
Bland himself, parchment man and conservative that he
was, had written and published a pamphlet entitled " An
Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies," which
said nothing less than that in all that concerned her
internal affairs Virginia was "a distinct, independent
state," though "united with the parent state by the
closest league and amity, and under the same alle
giance." A colony " treated with injury and violence,"
he exclaimed, "is become an alien." When antiquari
ans and lawyers, fresh from poring upon old documents,
spoke thus, there were surely signs of the times.

The government at home kept colonial sentiment very
busy. Even Lord Rockingbam's government, with
Burke to admonish it, coupled its repeal of the stamp
duties with a " declaratory act " which sought to quiet
controversy by giving the lie direct to every argument
urged against its authority in the colonies. " Parliament
has power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever,"
was its round assertion : — u a resolution for England's
right to do what the Treasury pleased with three mill
ions of freemen," cried Chatham. Though Rocking-
ham's government would not act on that right, its suc
cessors would without scruple; and they were soon

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 139

about it, for Kockingham's ministry retained office
scarcely a twelvemonth. Grenville was, indeed, dis
credited ; but Grafton and Townshend were as bad, as
stubborn in temper, as reckless in policy. The year 1767
saw taxes proposed and enacted on glass, paper, painters'
colors, and tea imported into the colonies, with a pur
pose to pay fixed salaries to the crown's officers in the
colonies out of the proceeds ; and the contested ground
was all to go over again. To show their temper, the
new ministers suspended the legislative powers of the
Colonial Assembly in New York for refusing to make
provision for troops quartered upon the colony. To
complete their fiscal arrangements they presently created
a custom-house and board of revenue commissioners for
America. It was an ominous year, and set opinion for
ward not a little in the colonies.

The House of Burgesses broke, at its next session
(1768), into fresh protests and remonstrances, and there
was no one to restrain or rebuke it. Fauquier was dead,
and gone to his reckoning ; the reins of government were
in the hands of gentle John Blair, President of the
Council, a Virginian every inch, and with never a
thought of checking his fellow-colonists in the expres
sion of their just opinions. The autumn brought Lord
Botetourt, the new Governor - General, who came in
showy state, and with genial display of courtly man
ners and good feeling ; but his arrival made little differ
ence. The Burgesses smiled to see him come to open
their session of 1769 with pageant of coach and six,
brave display of royal insignia, and the manner of a
sovereign meeting Parliament ; and turned from him al
most in contempt to denounce once more the course of
the ministers, argue again the rights of America, de-

140 GEORGE WASHINGTON

clare they would draw the colonies together in concert
ed opposition, and call upon the other colonies to concur
with them alike in their principles and in their purpose.
Botetourt came hot foot to dissolve them ; but they
only shifted their place of meeting, gathered again at
the private house of Mr. Anthony Hay, and there re
solved no longer to import the things which Parliament
had taxed in despite of them. George Mason had drawn
the resolutions, at Washington's request, and Washing
ton himself presented them.

Mason's thought had hastened very far along the path
of opposition under the whip of England's policy; and
Washington's quite as far. The government had not
only sent troops to Boston and dissolved every Assem
bly that protested, but had advised the King to press
prosecutions for treason in the colonies, and, should
there be deemed sufficient ground, transport the accused
to England to be tried by special commission. It was
this last measure that had provoked the Burgesses to
their hottest outburst. " At a time when our lordly
masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing
less than the deprivation of American freedom," wrote
Washington to Mason, with a sudden burst of passion,
"it seems highly necessary that something should be
done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty which
we have derived from our ancestors. . . . That no man
should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use a-ms in de
fence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good
and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet
a-ms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last re
source." Addresses to the throne and remonstrances to
Parliament had failed : it remained to try " starving
their trades and manufactures," to see if that at last

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 141

would arrest their attention. ]STo doubt even that would
prove of little avail ; but it was at least peaceable and
worth the trial. The next month, accordingly, he got
unhesitatingly to his feet in the private meeting of the
Burgesses at Mr. Hay's and moved George Mason's
resolutions ; nor did he forget to subscribe his quota to
the fund which was to defray the expenses of the " asso
ciation " there formed.

The next evening he attended the "Queen's Birth-
Night" at the palace with the same naturalness of de
meanor and frankness of dealing towards the Governor
as before. Botetourt was not all show and gallantry,
but was a genuine man at bottom. He had come to
Virginia thinking the colonists a pleasure-loving people
who could be taken by display and cajoled by hospital
ity : he had been told they were such in London. But
he knew his mistake almost as soon as he had made it ;
and was prompt, even while he upheld prerogative, to
do what he could to deal with them in a liberal and
manly spirit. He had acquiesced very heartily at the
outset of his administration in a decision of the Council
that writs of assistance could not legally be issued in
Virginia, — for the process had been tried there too. He
made such representations with regard to the state of
the colony to the ministers at home as were both just
and wise ; was assured in reply that the ministers were
willing to make every necessary concession ; pledged
his word in Virginia that there should be a substantial
change of policy ; and died the sooner (October 15,
1770) because the government would not, after all, re
deem his promises. " Your Governor is becoming very
popular, as we are told here," wrote Arthur Lee to his
brother, from London, " and I have the worst proof of

142 GEORGE WASHINGTON

it in the increased orders for fineries from the ladies."
Virginians did not find it easy to break an immemorial
habit in order to starve the English trades and manu
factures ; and it was more than once necessary to urge
and renew the non-importation agreements alike among
the Burgesses and merchants at Williamsburg and by
means of local associations throughout the colony. But
Washington was punctilious to observe to the letter the
agreements he had himself proposed. Again and again
he bade his mercantile agents in London assist him to
guard against any inadvertent breach of them: not to
send him the articles Parliament had picked out for
taxation in the colonies.

Life still continued to go, it is true, with something
of the old sumptuousness at Mount Yernon. It was in
June, 1768, that Colonel Washington ordered a new
chariot, " made in the newest taste, handsome, genteel,
and light, to be made of the best seasoned wood, and by
a celebrated workman," which was to cost him, fittings
and all, £133. For all he grew uneasy lest the colonies'
disagreement with England should come at last to a
conflict of arms, he pushed his private interests with no
abatement of thoroughness or self-possession, as if there
were no fear but that things would long enough stand
as they were. He had not run surveyor's lines for Lord
Fairfax, or assisted to drive the French from the Ohio,
without seeing what fair lands lay upon the western
rivers awaiting an owner ; and, though there was still
doubt how titles were to be established in that wilder
ness, he took care, through the good offices of an old
comrade in arms, at least to be quietly beforehand with
other claimants in setting up such titles as might be
where the land lay richest and most accessible. "A

THE HEAT OF POLITICS

143

silent management" was what he advised, "snugly car
ried on under the guise of hunting other game," lest
there should be a premature rush thither that would set
rival interests a-clashing. A strange mixture of the
shrewdness of the speculator and the honesty of the
gentleman — claims pushed with privacy, but without
trickery or chicane — ran through his letters to Captain
Crawford, and drew as canny replies from the frontiered
soldier. Business gave way often to sport and pleasure,
too, as of old, when politics fell dull between sessions.
Now it was the hunt; then a gunning party in the
woods ; and again a day or two aboard his schooner,
dropping down the river, and drawing the seine for
sheepsheads upon the bar at Cedar Point. Even poli
tics was mixed with diversion. He must needs give a
ball at Alexandria on the evening of his election to the
House which was to meet Lord Botetourt, no less than
on other like occasions, of whatever kind the business of
the Assembly was likely to be. He did not lose his pas
sion for fine horse-flesh, either, at the thickest of the
plot. In 1770 he was with Governor Eden, of JSTorth
Carolina, at the Jockey Club races in Philadelphia, no
doubt relieved by the news that all but the tea tax had
been repealed. The next year it was the races in An
napolis that claimed him ; and in 1773 Jacky Custis
held him again at Philadelphia on the same errand. It
was wholesome to be thus calmly in pursuit of diversion
in the intervals of trying business. It bespoke a hearty
life and a fine balance in the man.

There was one matter to which Washington felt it his
bounden duty as a soldier and a man of honor to devote
his time and energies, whether politics pressed or not.
A grant of two hundred thousand acres of the western

144 GEORGE WASHINGTON

lands had been promised by the government of the col
ony to those who enlisted for the war against the
French and Indians in 1754 ; but nothing had ever been
done to fulfil the promise, and Washington undertook
to act as agent for his comrades in the business. In the
autumn of 1770, accordingly, he turned away for a
space from the deepening trouble in the east to plunge
once more into the western ways and search out proper
tracts for the grant along the reaches of the Ohio.
'Twas a two-months journey, for he did not stop till
he had gone close upon three hundred miles beyond
Fort Pitt. And when he was home again no one in
the government who could lend a hand in the matter
got any peace from the stirring, thorough man until
the business was put finally into shape. There was a
tidy profit in the grant for himself ; for his own share
was large, and he providently bought, besides, the shares
of others who were unwilling to spend or co-operate in
the matter. But there were months upon months of
weary, unrequited service for his comrades, too, given
with hearty diligence and without grudging. Their
portions were as well placed as his own, they were to
find, when it came to the survey. He came off from
the business very rich in western lands — buying the
Great Meadows, among the rest, for memory's sake —
but richer still in the gratitude and admiration of the
men for whom he had labored.

Meanwhile events darkened ominously. A new ad
ministration had been formed in England under Lord
North, and had begun its government by repealing all
the taxes of 1769 except that on tea. But it was Par
liament's right to tax them that the colonists were
fighting, not the taxes themselves, and one tax was as

THE HEAT OF ^POLITICS 145

hateful as a hundred. The year had been marked in
sinister fashion, moreover, by a broil between townsmen
and troops in the streets of Boston, in which arms had
been used and men slain, and in the heated imaginations
of the colonists the affair had taken on the ugly aspect
of a massacre. The year 1771 went quietly enough for
Virginians. Botetourt was dead, and that good mer
chant of York, William Kelson, President of the Coun
cil, sat in the place of authority throughout the year.
Although the whole country refused the taxed tea, the
attention of the ministers, as it happened, was fixed
chiefly upon Massachusetts, where trade centred at a
growing port and opposition had a local habitation. In
Virginia there was no place to send troops to, unless
the whole country were occupied, and so long as Mr.
Nelson was acting Governor, Colonel Washington could
go without preoccupation to the races, and gentlemen
everywhere follow their own devices in the quiet coun
ties. There was rioting — rebellion, even — in North
Carolina, so uneasily did affairs go there ; but Governor
Tryon was a soldier as well as a despot, and did not
need to trouble his neighbors about that. It was not
until the first months of 1772 that Virginians began to
read plain signs of change in the face of their new Gov
ernor, John Murray, Earl Dunmore — a dark and dis
tant man, who seemed to the Virginians to come like a
satrap to his province, who brought a soldier with him
for secretary and confidential adviser, set up a fixed
etiquette to be observed by all who would approach
him, spoke abruptly and without courtesy, displayed in
all things an arbitrary temper, and took more interest,
it presently appeared, in acquiring tracts of western
land than in conducting the government of the colony.
10

146 GEORGE WASHINGTON

The year of his coming was marked by the secret de
struction of the revenue - schooner Gaspe in Rhode Isl
and, and by many significant flaws of temper here and
there throughout the colonies ; and 1773 saw affairs at
last come to a crisis.

Dunmore had summoned the Burgesses to meet him
upon his first coming, but had liked their proud temper
as little as they liked his, and was careful not to call
them together again till March, 1773, though he had
promised to convene them earlier. There was instant
trouble. In view of the affair of the Gaspe, Parliament
had again resolved upon the trial of malcontents in
England, and the Burgesses were hot at seeing the sen
timents of the colonies so flouted. Conservative men
would still have waited to try events, but their fel
low-members of quicker pulse were diligent to disap
point them. Leadership fell to those who were bold
enough to take it ; and Patrick Henry, Richard Henry
Lee, Dabney Carr, and Thomas Jefferson, radicals all,
drew together, a self-constituted committee of guidance.
Evening after evening they met in a private room at
the Ealeigh, with now and again one or two other like
spirits called into counsel, to consult what should be
done. Richard Henry Lee proposed that the colonies
should be invited to join Virginia in appointing com
mittees of correspondence, through which to devise
steady concert of action, and that Virginia's committee,
to be appointed at once, should be instructed to look
into the character of the new court of trial lately estab
lished in Rhode Island. Dabney Carr was directed to
move the resolutions, and the eloquence of Lee and
Henry won for them an instant and hearty acceptance.
Dunmore promptly dissolved the Assembly, and Wash-

Thomas Jefferson Patrick Henry

R H. Lee F, L. Lee

IN THE OLD RALEIGH TAVEHN

THE HEAT OF POLITICS 147

ington was free to set out for JSTew York to place Jacky
Custis at King's College, lingering on the way in Phila
delphia to see the races, and pick up the talk of the
hour during half a dozen evenings at the rooms of the
Jockey Club, at the balls and assemblies of the gay
town, and at the hospitable tables of his friends.

The opening of the year had found Washington in a
very genial humor, his letters touched with pleasantry
and gossip. "Our celebrated fortune, Miss French,
whom half the world was in pursuit of," he wrote, in
February, to Colonel Bassett, " bestowed her hand on
Wednesday last, being her birthday (you perceive, I
think myself under a necessity of accounting for the
choice), on Mr. Ben Dulany, who is to take her to Mary
land Mentioning of one wedding puts me in mind

of another" — and so through the news of Miss More,
" remarkable for a very frizzled head and good singing,"
and the rest of the neighborhood talk. But the year
turned out a very sad one for him. He had been scarce
ly ten days back from New York when Patsy Custis,
whom he loved as his own daughter, died. It called
forth all the latent Christian faith of the thoughtful,
steadfast man to withstand the shock. And Master
Jack Custis, the girl's wayward brother, gave him little
but anxiety. He would not study, for all Washington
was so solicitous he should have the liberalizing outlook
of books, and be made " fit for more useful purposes
than horse-racer," and though he was but twenty, could
hardly be induced to see the year out at college before
getting married.

It was no doubt very well that public affairs of the
first consequence called Washington's mind imperatively
off from these private anxieties, which could not but be

148 GEORGE WASHINGTON

dwarfed in the presence of transactions which threat
ened to shake the continent. As the year drew on, the
government in England undertook to force cargoes of
the East India Company's tea into the ports. When all
resisted, and Boston, more forward even than the rest,
threw three hundred and forty odd chests of tea into
the harbor, acts passed Parliament giving dangerous in
crease of power to the Governor of Massachusetts, and
directing that Boston port be closed to all commerce on
and after the first day of June ; and it became evident
that vigorous action must be taken in response. The
Burgesses in Virginia (May, 1774) resolved that June 1st
should be set apart as a day of fasting and prayer —
prayer that civil war might be averted and the people
of America united in a common cause. Again Dun-
more dissolved them; but they gathered in the long
room of the Kaleigh tavern, and there resolved to urge
a congress of all the colonies, and to call a convention
for Virginia to meet at that place on the first day of
August to take action for the colony. They showed no
spleen towards the Governor. Washington dined with
him the very day of the dissolution, spent the evening
at the palace, even rode out with him to his farm on
the following morning and breakfasted there ; and the
Burgesses did not fail to give the ball they had planned
in honor of Lady Dunmore and her daughters on the
evening of the day they had held their meeting in the
" Appolo room " at the Raleigh. But there were fast
ing and prayer on the 1st of June ; the convention met
on the first day of August ; very outspoken resolutions
were adopted ; and Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry
Lee, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendle-
ton, George Washington, and Benjamin Harrison were

THE HEAT OF POLITICS

149

directed to attend the congress of the colonies appointed
to meet in Philadelphia on the fifth day of September.
When the time came for the journey, Henry and Pen-
dleton joined Washington at Mount Yernon. It must
have been with many grave thoughts that the three
companions got to horse and turned to ride through the
long August day towards the north.

PILOTING A REVOLUTION

CHAPTER VI

IN the congress of 1774 the leaders of Virginia were
for the first time brought into face-to-face conference
with the men of the other colonies. In 1765 Fauquier
had dissolved the Burgesses with such sharp despatch,
upon the passage of Mr. Henry's resolutions, that they
were all gone home before the call for a congress to act
upon the stamp duties could reach them. But in 1774
they were not to be so cheated. They had themselves
issued the call for a congress this time, and dissolution
could not drive them home. Their leaders could at
least linger at the Raleigh and concert means to have
their way, House or no House. A convention took the
place of the Assembly ; and seven leading members of
the House were sent to Philadelphia, with as full au
thority to speak and act for the colony as if the Bur
gesses themselves had commissioned them. Mr. Har
rison declared in Philadelphia that "he would have
come on foot rather than not come"; and quiet Rich
ard Bland, that " he would have gone if it had been to
Jericho." Colonel Harrison struck his new colleagues
from the North as a bit rough in his free Southern
speech and manner ; and Mr. Bland seemed to them " a
plain, sensible man," such as would be more given to
study than to agitation. If such men, artless and
steady as any downright country gentleman of old

154 GEORGE WASHINGTON

England, held so high a fancy for the business of the
congress, it was easy to conclude what the hastier,
younger men would be likely to plan and do; and
the Massachusetts delegates found themselves greatly
heartened.

John Adams, Thomas Gushing, Samuel Adams, and
Robert Treat Paine were the representatives of Massa
chusetts. It was their people who had most provoked
Parliament to be high-handed and aggressive. The
struggle with the ministry at home had taken shape in
Boston. It had come to actual riot there. All the
continent and all England had seen how stubborn was
the temper, how incorrigible the spirit of resistance, in
that old seat of the Puritan power, always hard set and
proud in its self-willed resolution to be independent ;
and all eyes were turned now upon Gushing and Paine
and this "brace of Adamses," who had come, it was
thought, to hurry the congress into radical courses.
Kindness, applause, hospitality, "studied and expensive
respect," had attended them at every stage of their long
ride from Boston to Philadelphia. The country was
much stirred by the prospect of a general " congress of
committees" at Philadelphia; and the delegates from
Massachusetts were greeted as they passed even more
generously than the rest, because their people had been
the first to suffer in this bad business; because their
chief port at Boston was closed, and red-coated sentries
were on their streets. It behooved the Massachusetts
men, however, not to suffer themselves to be misled.
Many looked upon them askance ; some distrusted them
heartily. Their own hot-headed mob had provoked the
"massacre," of which they made so much. They had
wantonly destroyed private property when they threw

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 155

the tea into their harbor to show the government their
spirit. There had been more than a touch of violence,
more than a little turbulence, and a vast deal of radical
and revolutionary talk in all that they had done ; and
the colonies were full yet of men who had no tolerance
for anything that transgressed, were it never so little,
the moderate limits of constitutional agitation. " There
is an opinion which does in some degree obtain in the
other colonies that the Massachusetts gentlemen, and
especially of the town of Boston, do affect to dictate
and take the lead in continental measures ; that we are
apt, from an inward vanity and self-conceit, to assume
big and haughty airs," said Joseph Hawley, who, for
all he had grown old as a quiet Massachusetts lawyer
among his neighbors, had kept his shrewd eyes abroad.
"It is highly probable," he told John Adams, with a
wholesome bluntness, "that you will meet gentlemen
from several of the other colonies fully equal to your
selves or any of you in their knowledge of Great Brit
ain, the colonies, law, history, government, commerce.
. . . By what we from time to time see in the public
papers, and what our Assembly and committees have
received from the Assemblies and committees of the
more southern colonies, we must be satisfied that they
have men of as much sense and literature as any we
can, or ever could, boast of." It was mere counsel of
prudence that they should play their part in the con
gress with modesty and discretion.

Not Gushing and Paine, but the Adamses, carried the
strength of the Massachusetts delegation ; and it was
Samuel Adams, rather than John, who was just now
the effective master in the great Bay Colony — " master
of puppets," his enemies called him. Hale, bluff, adroit,

156 GEORGE WASHINGTON

plain, a man of the people, he had grown old in the
business of agitation. Fifty-two years he had lived,
planning always for others, never for himself. He had
" never looked forward in his life," he frankly said ;
" never planned, laid a scheme, or framed a design of
laying up anything for himself or others after him " ;
had let all his private business go neglected, and lived
upon the petty salary of a small public office, the indul
gence of fortune, and the good offices of the friends and
neighbors who loved him. He was in Philadelphia now
wearing the plain suit and spending the modest purse
with which his friends and partisans had fitted him out
— the very impersonation of the revolution men were
beginning so to fear. No man had ever daunted him ;
neither could any corrupt him. He was possessed with
the instinct of agitation : led the people, not the leaders ;
cared not for place, but only for power ; showed a mas
tery of means, a self-containment, a capacity for timely
and telling speech, that marked him a statesman, though
he loved the rough ways of a people's government, and
preferred the fierce democracy of the town meeting to
the sober dignity of senates. Like an eagle in his high
building and strength of audacious flight, but in instinct
and habit a bird of the storm. Not over-nice what he
did, not too scrupulous what he devised, he was yet not
selfish, loved the principles he had given his life to, and
spent himself without limit to see them triumph.

John Adams, his cousin, was of a very different mould :
a younger man l>y thirteen years ; no man of the people,
but with a taste rather for the exclusive claims of edu
cation and breeding ; self-regardful ; a thought too cal
culating ; too quick-witted to be patient with dull men,
too self-conscious to be at ease with great ones ; and yet

PILOTING A REVOLUTION

157

public-spirited withal, and generous in action if not in
judgment ; of great powers, if only he could manage
to use them without jealousy. Samuel Adams thought
only of his end, not of himself ; seldom spoke of himself,
indeed ; seemed a sort of subtle engine for the people's
business. John Adams thought of himself always, and
yet mastered himself to play a great part with the no
bility of a man of genius, if not with the grace of a man
of modesty and self -forgetful devotion. For the time he
could even hold back with his wily cousin, resign leader
ship in the congress to Virginia, and act in all things
the wise part of those who follow.

It was a circumstance full of peril that the delegates
of the several colonies should at such a juncture be
strangers to one another, and provincials all, nowhere
bred to continental affairs. Only since the passage of
the Stamp Act had they taken any thought for each
other. There was no assurance that even the best lead
ers of a colony could rise to the statesman's view and
concert measures to insure the peace of an empire.
Eising lawyers like John Adams, brusque planters like
Colonel Harrison, well-to-do merchants like Thomas
Mifflin, might bring all honesty and good intention to
the task and yet miserably fail. A provincial law prac
tice, the easy ascendency of a provincial country gentle
man, the narrow round of provincial trade, might afford
capable men opportunity to become enlightened citizens,
but hardly fitted them to be statesmen. The real first
business of the delegates was to become acquainted, and
to learn how to live in the foreign parts to which most
of them had come. There was a continual round of en
tertainment in the hospitable town, therefore, a univer
sal exchange of courtesies, a rush of visiting and dining,

158 GEORGE WASHINGTON

a flow of excellent wine, a rich abundance of good cheer,
such as for a while made the occasion seem one of fes
tivity rather than of anxious counsel. Many of the dele
gates had come to town a week or more before the date
set for the congress, and had settled to an acquaintance
before it was time to effect an organization ; but the
gentlemen from Maryland and Virginia, more familiar
with the journey, arrived almost upon the day. They
made an instant impression upon their new colleagues.
John Adams promptly declared them " the most spirited
and consistent of any," and deemed Mr. Lee particularly
"a masterly man." Joseph Hawley's prediction was
fulfilled. "The Virginia and indeed all the Southern
delegates appear like men of importance," said Silas
Deane ; " I never met, nor scarcely had an idea of meet
ing, with men of such firmness, sensibility, spirit, and
thorough knowledge of the interests of America." Mr.
Lynch of South Carolina, though he wore " the manu
facture of this country," and was in all things " plain,
sensible, above ceremony," seemed to Mr. Deane to carry
with him " more force in his very appearance than most
powdered folks in their conversation."

The high bearing and capacity of the Southern dele
gates came upon the New England men like a great sur
prise: where they had expected to see rustic squires
they found men of elegance and learning. But there
was, in fact, no good reason to wonder at the natural
leadership of these men. Their life had bred them more
liberally than others. It required a much more various
capacity and knowledge of the world to administer a
great property and live the life of a local magnate in the
South than sufficed to put a man at the front of trade or
of legal practice in Boston or New York or Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON

(From the portrait by Rembrandt Peale in the Vice-President's Room at the Capitol, Washington)

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 159

The Southern colonies, besides, had lived more in sym
pathy with the life of the empire than had their North
ern neighbors. Their life had depended directly upon
that of England hitherto, and had partaken of it with
a constant zest. They had no rival trade; they had
wanted no rival government. The general air of the
wide empire had blown in all ordinary seasons through
their affairs, and they had cultivated none of that shrewd
antagonism towards the home government which had so
sharpened the wits and narrowed the political interests
of the best men in New England. They had read law
because they were men of business, without caring too
much about its niceties or meaning to practise it in liti
gation. They had read their English history without
feeling that they were separate from it. Their passion
for freedom was born not of local feeling so much as of
personal pride and the spirit of those who love old prac
tices and the just exemptions of an ancient constitution.
It was the life they had lived, and the conceptions of
personal dignity and immemorial privilege that had gone
always with it, that gave them so striking an air of mas
tery. It was not simply because the Massachusetts dele
gates kept themselves prudently in the background and
the rest yielded to her pretensions that Virginia was ac
corded primacy in the congress : it was also because her
representatives were men to whom power naturally fell,
and because she had won so honorable a place of leader
ship already in the common affairs of the continent.

Colonel Washington, striking and forceable man
though he was, did not figure as a leader among the
Virginian delegates. Peyton Eandolph was elected
president of the congress ; Richard Henry Lee and Pat
rick Henry stood forth as the Virginian leaders on the

160 - GEORGE WASHINGTON

floor. "If you speak of solid information and sound
judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the
greatest man on that floor," was Henry's confident and
generous verdict ; but Washington was no politician,
and did not stand in exactly the same class with the
rest. He had headed committees and presided over
popular meetings among his own neighbors in Fairfax,
and had been prompt to join them in speaking with
high spirit against the course of the ministry in Eng
land. He had been forward in urging and punctiliously
careful in practising non-importation. He had declared
Gage's conduct in Boston " more becoming a Turkish
bashaw than an English governor." But he was a man
of action rather than of parliaments. " I will raise one
thousand men, enlist them at my own expense, and
march myself at their head for the relief of Boston,"
had been his impetuous utterance in the Virginian con
vention — " the most eloquent speech that ever was
made," Mr. Lynch declared. "I have heard he said,"
reported an admiring Philadelphian — " I have heard he
said he wished to God the liberties of America were to
be determined by a single combat between himself and
George!" But his fellow Virginians understood him
better. They had chosen him for force and sobriety ;
not as an orator, but as the first soldier and one of the
first characters of the commonwealth ; and he had made
the impression they expected. He had not been put upon
their committee of correspondence, or been appointed
with Nicholas and Pendleton and Lee and Henry to
draw resolutions and remonstrances ; but when it came
to choosing those who should represent the Old Do
minion in the congress, but two names stood before
his in the vote. Peyton Eandolph, 104; Eichard Henry

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 161

Lee, 100; George Washington, 98 ; Patrick Henry, 89;
Kichard Bland, 79 ; Benjamin Harrison, 66 ; Edmund
Pendleton, 62 — such had been the preference of the con
vention. The Northern delegates admired his "easy,
soldier-like air and gesture " and his modest and " cool
but determined " style and accent when he spoke ; and
wondered to see him look scarce forty, when they re
called how his name had gone through the colonies
twenty years ago, when he had met the French so gal
lantly at Great Meadows, and with Braddock at the
forks of the Ohio.

The Massachusetts delegates had reason to admire
his manly openness, too, and straightforward candor.
An old comrade in arms whom he esteemed — a Virgin
ian now in regular commission, and stationed with the
troops in Boston — had written him very damaging
things about the " patriot " leaders of the beset town ;
of their " tyrannical oppression over one another," and
" their fixed aim at total independence," and had charged
them roundly with being no better than demagogues
and rebels. "Washington went at once to the men ac
cused, to learn from their own lips their principles and
intentions, taking Kichard Henry Lee and discreet Dr.
Shippen along with him as his sponsors and witnesses.
" Spent the evening at home with Colonel Lee, Colonel
Washington, and Dr. Shippen, who came in to consult
us," was John Adams's entry in his diary for September
28th. No doubt Samuel Adams found the interview a
trying one, and winced a little under the examination of
the calm and steady soldier, going so straight to the
point, for all his Virginian ceremony. There had been
many outward signs of the demagogue in Adams's career.
He had been consciously and deliberately planning and
11

162 GEORGE WASHINGTON

scheming for independence ever since 1768, and had
made public avowal of his purpose no longer ago than
last year. It must have taxed even his adroit powers
to convince these frank Virginians that his purpose was
not rebellion, but liberty ; that he venerated what they
venerated, and wished only what they wished. But the
truth somehow lay open before the evening was gone.
There was frank cordiality in the parting: Washing
ton was convinced of their genuineness and sobriety.
" Though you are led to believe by venal men," he re
plied to Captain Mackenzie, " that the people of Massa
chusetts are rebellious, setting up for independency,
and what not, give me leave, my good friend, to tell you
that you are abused, grossly abused. This I advance
with a degree of confidence and boldness which may
claim your belief, having better opportunities for know
ing the real sentiments of the people you are among,
from the leaders of them, in opposition to the present
measures of the administration, than you have from
those whose business it is not to disclose truths, but to
misrepresent facts in order to justify as much as possi
ble to the world their own conduct."

The Massachusetts men had come to a better under
standing of the game — began to see how cautiously it
must be played, how slowly and how wisely. It was a
critical business, this of drawing all the colonies into a
common congress, as if to create a directing body for
the continent, without constitution or warrant. The
establishment of committees of correspondence had
seemed little short of seditious, for it was notorious the
committees were formed to concert action against the
government at home; but this "congress of commit
tees" was an even more serious matter. Would the

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 163

colonies venture a continental organization to defy Par
liament ? Dangerous differences of opinion were blown
hot between neighbors by such measures. Some of the
best men in America were opposed to the course which
was now evidently to be taken. So long as it was
merely a matter of protest by the colonies severally,
they had no criticism to make — except perhaps that
Mr. Otis and Mr. Henry had held unnecessarily high
language, and had been bold and defiant beyond meas
ure ; but when they saw how the opposition gathered
head, hastened from protest to concerted resistance, put
popular conventions into the place of lawful legislative
assemblies, and advanced at length to a continental or
ganization, they deemed it high time to bestir them
selves, vindicate their loyalty to his Majesty's govern
ment, and avert a revolution. They were not men to
be trifled with. Had they been able to unite upon ac
tive measures, had they advanced from defence to ag
gressive action, they might have rendered themselves
formidable beyond possibility of defeat. Everywhere
men of substance and of influence were to be found by
the score who were opposed to a revolutionary agita
tion, such as this that now seemed to be gathering head.
Even in Massachusetts men who bore the best and the
oldest names of the commonwealth were of this num
ber ; in New York and Pennsylvania, at the very heart
of the continent, they could, it was believed, boast a
majority, as well as to the far southward, in the low
country of South Carolina and Georgia. No one, they
declared, but designing politicians and men without
property, those who had much to gain and nothing to
lose by the upsetting of law and ordered government,
wished to see this contest with the ministry pushed to

164 GEORGE WASHINGTON

extremes. They wished no less than others to see the
colonies keep their lawful and chartered liberties, but
the thing must be accomplished soberly, and without
loss of things equally dear — of honor, and the mainten
ance of an unbroken English Empire.

The nice balance of parties was disclosed in the con
gress itself. The Pennsylvanian delegation was led by
Joseph Galloway, a man in the prime of life, full of
force and learning, who had been Speaker of the pro
vincial House these eight years by the almost unani
mous choice of his colleagues, and who now stood forth
to utter the real voice of his colony in proposing meas
ures of accommodation. He proposed that the home
government be asked to sanction the establishment of a
confederate parliament for America, composed of dele
gates to be chosen every third year by the legislatures
of the several colonies, and acting under a governor-
general to be appointed by the crown. Edward Rut-
ledge, of South Carolina, hot orator for liberty though
he was, declared it an " almost perfect plan," and was
eager to see it adopted ; influential members from
almost every quarter gave it their hearty support,
Mr. John Jay, of New York, among the rest ; and it
was defeated only by the narrow majority of a single
colony's vote. Chatham might very justly commend
the congress of 1774 as conspicuous among deliberative
bodies for its " decency, firmness, and wisdom," its " so
lidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of
conclusion, under such a complication of circumstances,"
for the complication of circumstances was such as even
he did not fully comprehend. For seven weeks of al
most continuous session did it hammer its stiff business
into shape, never wearying of deliberation or debate, till

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 165

it could put forth papers to the world — an address to
the King, memorials to the people of Great Britain and
to the people of British America, their fellow-subjects,
and a solemn declaration of rights — which should mark
it no revolutionary body, but a congress of just and
thoughtful Englishmen, in love, not with license or re
bellion, but with right and wholesome liberty. Their
only act of aggression was the formation of an " Amer
ican Association" pledged against trade with Great
Britain till the legislation of which they complained
should be repealed. Their only intimation of intention
for the future was a resolution to meet again the next
spring, should their prayers not meanwhile be heeded.

Washington turned homeward from the congress
with thoughts and purposes every way deepened and
matured. It had been a mere seven weeks' conference ;
no one had deemed the congress a government, or had
spoken of any object save peace and accommodation ;
but no one could foresee the issue of what had been
done. A spirit had run through those deliberations
which gave thoughtful men, as they pondered it, a new
idea of the colonies. It needed no prophet to discern
beyond all this sober and anxious business a vision
of America united, armed, belligerent for her rights.
There was no telling what form of scornful rejection
awaited that declaration of rights or the grave plead
ing of that urgent memorial to the crown. It behooved
every man to hold himself in readiness for the worst ;
and Washington saw as clearly as any man at how nice
a hazard things stood. He had too frank a judgment
upon affairs to cheat himself with false hopes. " An
innate spirit of freedom first told me that the measures
which administration hath for some time been and now

166 GEORGE WASHINGTON

are most violently pursuing are repugnant to every prin
ciple of natural justice," had been his earnest language
to Bryan Fairfax ere he set out for the congress ;
" whilst much abler heads than my own hath fully con
vinced me that it is not only repugnant to natural right,
but subversive of the laws and constitution of Great
Britain itself, in the establishment of which some of
the best blood of the kingdom hath been spilt. ... I
could wish, I own," he had added, "that this dispute
had been left to posterity to determine " ; but he knew
more clearly than ever before, as he rode homeward
from the congress through the autumn woods, that it
had not been ; that Lee and Henry and Mason were
rightly of the same mind and purpose with the men
from Massachusetts; that conference had only united
and heartened those who stood for liberty in every col
ony ; that there could be no compromise — perhaps no
yielding either — and that every man must now take his
soberest resolution for the times to come.

He turned steadily to his private business for the
winter, nevertheless, as was his wont — pushed forward
the preparation and settlement of his western lands,
and stood guard, as before, over the soldiers' grants
upon the Ohio, against official bad faith and negligence.
" For a year or two past there has been scarce a mo
ment that I could properly call my own," he declared
to a friend who solicited his promise to act as guardian
to his son. " What with my own business, my present
ward's, my mother's, which is wholly in my hands,
Colonel Fairfax's, Colonel Mercer's, and the little assist
ance I have undertaken to give in the management of
my brother Augustine's concerns, together with the
share I take in public affairs, I have been constantly

CARPENTER'S HALL, PHILADELPHIA

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 167

engaged in writing letters, settling accounts, and nego
tiating one piece of business or another ; by which means
I have really been deprived of every kind of enjoyment,
and had almost fully resolved to engage in no fresh mat
ter till I had entirely wound up the old." He promised
to undertake the new charge, nevertheless. It was
stuff of his nature to spend himself thus, and keep his
powers stretched always to a great compass.

With the new year (1775) public affairs loomed big
again, and ominous. The petitions of the congress at
Philadelphia had been received in England almost with
contempt. Chatham, indeed, with that broad and no
ble sagacity which made him so great a statesman, had
proposed that America's demands should be met, to the
utmost length of repeal and withdrawal of menace, and
that she should be accorded to the full the self-govern
ment she demanded in respect of taxation and every
domestic concern. " It is not cancelling a piece of parch
ment," he cried, " that can win back America," the old
fire burning hot within him; "you must respect her
fears and her resentments." The merchants, too, in fear
for their trade, urged very anxiously that there should
be instant and ample concession. But the King's stub
born anger, the Parliament's indifference, the ministry's
incapacity, made it impossible anything wise or gener
ous should be done. Instead of real concession there
was fresh menace. The ministry did, indeed, offer to
exempt from taxation every colony that would promise
that by its own vote it would make proper contribution
to the expenses of public defence and imperial adminis
tration — in the hope thereby to disengage the luke
warm middle colonies from the plot now thickening
against the government. But Massachusetts was at

168 GEORGE WASHINGTON

once proclaimed in rebellion, every port in New Eng
land was declared closed against trade, New England
fishermen were denied access to the Newfoundland fish
eries, and ten thousand fresh troops were ordered to
Boston. Neither the pleas of their friends nor the
threats of their enemies reached the ears of the colo
nists promptly from over sea that portentous spring;
but they were not slow to perceive that they must
look for no concessions; and they did not wait upon
Parliament in their preparation for a doubtful future.
Upon the very day the " congress of committees " at
Philadelphia adjourned, a "provincial congress" in
Massachusetts, formed of its own authority in the stead
of the House of Delegates the Governor had but just
now dissolved, had voted to organize and equip the
militia of the colony and to collect stores and arms.
Virginia had been equally bold, and almost equally
prompt, far away as she seemed from the King's troops
at Boston. By the end of January Charles Lee could
write from Williamsburg : "The whole country is full
-of soldiers, all furnished, all in arms. . . . Never was
such vigor and concord heard of, not a single traitor,
scarcely a silent dissentient."

" Every county is now arming a company of men for
the avowed purpose of protecting their committees,"
Dunmore had reported to the ministry before the year
17Y4 was out, " and to be employed against government
if occasion require. As to the power of government
which your lordship directs should be exerted to coun
teract the dangerous measures pursuing here, I can as
sure your lordship that it is entirely disregarded, if not
wholly overturned. There is not a justice of peace in
Virginia that acts except as a committeeman ; the abol-

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 169

ishing of courts of justice was the first step taken, in
which the men of fortune and pre-eminence joined
equally with the lowest and meanest." Company after
company, as it formed, asked Colonel Washington to
assume command over it, not only in his own county of
Fairfax, but in counties also at a distance — and he ac
cepted the responsibility as often as it was offered to
him. " It is my full intention," he said, simply, " to
devote my life and fortune to the cause we are engaged
in, if needful " ; and he had little doubt any longer what
was to come. He found time, even that stirring year,
to quicken his blood once and again, nevertheless, while
winter held, by a run with the hounds : for he was not
turned politician so sternly even yet as to throw away
his leisure upon anything less wholesome than the hale
sport he loved.

On the 20th of May, 1775, the second Virginian con
vention met, not in Williamsburg, but at Richmond,
and its chief business was the arming of the colony.
Maryland had furnished the ironical formula with which
to justify what was to be done : " Resolved, unanimous
ly, that a well-regulated militia, composed of the gen
tlemen freeholders and other freemen, is the natural
strength and only stable security of a free government ;
and that such militia will relieve our mother -country
from any expense in our protection and defence, will
obviate the pretence of a necessity for taxing us on that
account, and render it unnecessary to keep any standing
army — ever dangerous to liberty — in this province."
Mr. Henry accepted the formula with great relish, in
the convention at Richmond, in his resolution "that the
colony be immediately put into a posture of defence,"
but he broke with it in the speech with which he sup-

170 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ported his measures of preparation. In that there was
no plan or pretence of peace, but, instead, a plain dec
laration of war. Once more did Edmund Pendleton,
Richard Bland, Mr. Nicholas, and Colonel Harrison
spring to their feet to check him, as in the old days of
the Stamp Act. Once more, nevertheless, did he^have
his way, completely, triumphantly. What he had pro
posed was done, and his very opponents served upon
the committee charged with its accomplishment. It
was not doing more than other colonies had done ; it
was only saying more ; it was only dealing more fear
lessly and frankly with fortune. Even slow, conserva
tive men like John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, shielded
themselves behind only an " if." " The first act of vio
lence on the part of administration in America," they
knew, " or the attempt to reinforce General Gage this
winter or next year, will put the whole continent in
arms, from Nova Scotia to Georgia."

What they feared very speedily came to pass. 'Twas
hardly four weeks from the day Mr. Henry proclaimed
a state of war in the convention at Richmond before
the King's regulars were set upon at Lexington and
Concord and driven back in rout to their quarters by
the swarming militia-men of Massachusetts. On the
19th of April they had set out across a peaceful country
to seize the military stores placed at Concord. Before
the day was out they had been fairly thrown back into
Boston, close upon three hundred of their comrades
gone to a last reckoning ; and the next morning dis-,
closed a rapidly growing provincial army drawn in
threatened siege about them. In the darkness of that
very night (April 20th), at the command of Dunmore,
a force of marines was landed from an armed sloop that

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 171

lay in James River, in Virginia, to seize the gunpowder
stored at Williamsburg. The Virginians in their turn
sprang to arms, and Dunmore was forced, ere he could
rid himself of the business, to pay for the powder taken
— pay Captain Patrick Henry, at the head of a body of
militia under arms.

On the 10th of May the second Continental Congress
met at Philadelphia, with business to transact vastly
different from that to which the first " congress of com
mittees" had addressed itself — not protests and re
solves, but quick and efficient action. The very day it
met, a body of daring provincials under Ethan Allen
had walked into the open gates at Ticonderoga and
taken possession of the stout fortress " in the name of
the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress " ; and
two days later a similar exploit secured Crown Point to
the insurgents. Active war had begun ; an army was
set down before Boston — a rude army that had grown
to be sixteen thousand strong within the first week of
its rally ; the country was united in a general resistance,
and looked to the congress to give it organization and
guidance. Colonel Washington had come to the con
gress in his provincial uniform, and found himself a
great deal sought after in its committees. JSTot only
the drawing of state papers which would once more
justify their cause and their resort to arms in the eyes
of the world, but the actual mustering and equipment
of an army, quick fortification, the gathering of muni
tions and supplies, the raising of money and the organ
ization of a commissariat, the restraint of the Indians
upon the frontier, was the business in hand, and Wash
ington's advice was invaluable when such matters were
afoot. He showed no hesitation as to what should be

172 GEORGE WASHINGTON

done. His own mind had long ago been made up ; and the
sessions of the congress were not ended before Virginia
was committed beyond all possibility of drawing back.
The 1st of June saw her last House of Burgesses con
vene; for by the 8th of the month Dunmore was a
fugitive — had seen the anger of a Williamsburg mob
blaze hot against him, and had taken refuge upon a
man-of-war lying in the river. The province was in
revolution, and Washington was ready to go with it.

It meant more than he thought that he had come to
Philadelphia habited like a soldier. It had not been his
purpose to draw all eyes upon him : it was merely his
instinctive expression of his own personal feeling with
regard to the crisis that had come. But it was in its
way a fulfilment of prophecy. When the first Virgin-
ian convention chose delegates to attend the congress
of 1774, "some of the tickets on the ballot assigned
reasons for the choice expressed in them. Randolph
should preside in congress; Lee and Henry should dis
play the different kinds of eloquence for which they
were renowned ; Washington should command the
army, if an army should be raised ; Bland should open
the treasures of ancient colonial learning; Harrison
should utter plain truths ; and Pendleton should be the
penman for business." No wonder the gentlemen from
Virginia, coming with such confidence to the congress,
made the instant impression they did for mastery and
self -poise! " There are some fine fellows come from
Virginia," Joseph Reed had reported, "but they are
very high. We understand they are the capital men of
the colony." Washington alone awaited his cue. Now
he was to get it, without expecting it. The irregular
army swarming before Boston was without standing or

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 173

government. It had run hastily together out of four
colonies ; was subject to no common authority ; hardly
knew what allegiance it bore ; might fall to pieces un
less it were adequately commanded. The congress in
Philadelphia was called upon to recognize and adopt it,
give it leave and authority to act for all the colonies,
give it a commander, and summon the whole country
to recruit it. There was an obvious political necessity
that the thing should be done, and done promptly.
Massachusetts did not wish to stand alone ; New Eng
land wanted the active assistance of the other colonies ;
something must be attempted to secure common action.
The first thing to do was to choose an acceptable and
efficient leader, and to choose him outside New England.
To John Adams the choice seemed simple enough.
There was no soldier in America, outside New England
— nor inside either — to be compared, whether in ex
perience or distinction, with Washington, the gallant,
straightforward, earnest Virginian he had learned so to
esteem and trust there in Philadelphia. He accordingly
moved that congress " adopt the army at Cambridge,"
and declared that he had " but one gentleman in mind "
for its command — "a gentleman from Virginia, who
was among us," he said, " and very well known to all of
us ; a gentleman whose skill and experience as an officer,
whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent
universal character, would command the approbation of
all America, and unite the cordial exertions of all the
colonies better than any other person in the union."
Washington, taken unawares, rose and slipped in con
fusion from the room. Some of his own friends doubt
ed the expediency of putting a Virginian at the head
of a New England army, but the more clear-sighted

174 GEORGE WASHINGTON

among the New-Englanders did not, and the selection
was made, after a little hesitation, unanimously.

Washington accepted his commission with that mix
ture of modesty and pride that made men love and hon
or him. " You may believe me, mj" dear Patsy," were
his simple words to his wife, " when I assure you in
the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this
appointment, 1 have used every endeavor in my power
to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part
with you and the family, but from a consciousness of
its being a trust too great for my capacity. . . . But as
it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon
this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is de
signed to answer some good purpose. ... It was ut
terly out of my power to refuse this appointment, with
out exposing my character to such censures as would
have reflected dishonor upon myself and given pain to
my friends." He spoke in the same tone to the con
gress. " I beg it may be remembered," he said, " by
every gentleman in this room, that I this day declare
with the utmost sincerity I do not think myself equal
to the command I am honored with." His commission
was signed on the 19th of June ; on the 21st he was on
the road to the north — the road he had travelled twenty
years ago to consult with Governor Shirley in Boston
upon questions of rank, and to fall into Mary Philipse's
snare by the way ; the road he had ridden after the
races, but three years ago, to put Jacky Custis at college
in New York. " There is something charming to me
in' the conduct of Washington," exclaimed John Adams;
and it was wholesome for the whole country that such
a man should be put at the head of affairs. Many ig
noble things were being done in the name of liberty,

PILOTING A REVOLUTION 175

and an ugly tyranny had been brought to every man's
door — " the tyranny of his next-door neighbor." There
were men by the score in the colonies who had no taste
or sympathy for the rebellion they now saw afoot-
common men who knew little or nothing of the mother-
country, as well as gentlemen of culture who loved her
traditions and revered her crown ; farmers and village
lawyers, as well as merchants at the ports who saw
their living gone and ruin staring them in the face.
But the local committees and the " Sons of Liberty "
everywhere saw to it that such men should know and
dread and fearfully submit to the views of the majority.
Government was suspended: there was nowhere so
much as a justice of the peace acting under the authority
of the crown. There might have been universal license
had the rabble not seen their leaders so noble, so bent
upon high and honorable purposes. It was an object-
lesson in the character of the revolution to see Wash
ington ride through the colonies to take charge of an
insurgent army. And no man or woman, or child even,
was likely to miss the lesson. That noble figure drew
all eyes to it ; that mien as if the man were a prince ; that
sincere and open countenance, which every man could see
was lighted by a good conscience ; that cordial ease in
salute, as of a man who felt himself brother to his friends.
There was something about Washington that quickened
the pulses of a crowd at the same time that it awed them,
that drew cheers which were a sort of voice of worship.
Children desired sight of him, and men felt lifted after
he had passed. It was good to have such a man ride all
the open way from Philadelphia to Cambridge in sight
of the people to assume command of the people's army.
It gave character to the thoughts of all who saw him.

GENEKAL WASHINGTON

CHAPTER VII

MATTERS had not stood still before Boston to await a
commander sent by congress. "While Washington waited
for his commission and made ready for his journey
there had been fighting done which was to simplify his
task. General William Howe had reached Boston with
reinforcements on the 25th of May, and quite ten thou
sand troops held the city, while a strong fleet of men-
of-war lay watchfully in the harbor. There was no
hurry, it seemed, about attacking the sixteen thousand
raw provincials, whose long lines were drawn loosely
about the town from Charlestown Neck to Jamaica Plain.
But commanding hills looked across the water on either
hand — in Charlestown on the north and in Dorchester
on the southeast — and it would be well, Howe saw, to
secure them, lest they should be occupied by the insur
gents. On the morning of the 17th of June, however,
while leisurely preparations were a-making in Boston
to occupy the hills of Charlestown, it was discovered
that the provincials had been beforehand in the project.
There they were in the clear sun, working diligently at
redoubts of their own upon th e height. Three thousand
men were put across the water to drive them off.
Though they mustered only seventeen hundred behind
their unfinished works, three several assaults and the
loss of a thousand men was the cost of dislodging them.

180 GEORGE WASHINGTON

They withheld their fire till the redcoats were within
fifty — nay, thirty — yards of them, and then poured out
a deadly, blazing fire which no man could face and live.
They were ousted only when they failed of powder and
despaired of reinforcements. Veteran officers who had
led the assault declared the regulars of France were not
more formidable than these militia-men, whom they had
despised as raw peasants. There was no desire to buy
another American position at that price ; and Washing
ton ha,d time enough for the complimentary receptions
and addresses and the elaborate parade of escort and
review that delayed his journey to headquarters.

He reached Cambridge on the 2d of July, and bore
himself with so straightforward and engaging a courte
sy in taking command that the officers he superseded
could not but like him : jealousy was disarmed. ' But
he found neither the preparations nor the spirit of the
army to his liking. His soldierly sense of order was
shocked by the loose discipline, and his instinct of com
mand by the free and easy insolence of that irregular
levy ; and his authority grew stern as he labored to
bring the motley host to order and effective organiza
tion. " The people of this government have obtained a
character," his confidential letters declared, " which they
by no means deserved — their officers, generally speak
ing, are the most indifferent kind of people I ever saw.
I dare say the men would fight very well (if properly
officered), although they are an exceedingly dirty and
nasty people. ... It is among the most difficult tasks
I ever undertook in my life to induce these people to
believe that there is, or can be, danger till the bayonet
is pushed at their breasts. Not that it proceeds from
any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccounta-

GENERAL WASHINGTON 181

ble kind of stupidity in the lower class of these people,
which, believe me, prevails but too generally among the
officers of the Massachusetts part of the army, who are
nearly of the same kidney with the privates." He had
seen like demoralization and slackness in the old days at
Winchester, on the wild frontier, but he had expected
to find a better spirit and discipline in the New England
levies.

His first disgust, however, soon wore off. He was
not slow to see how shrewd and sturdy these uncouth,
intractable ploughboys and farmers could prove them
selves upon occasion. "I have a sincere pleasure in
observing," he wrote to congress, " that there are
materials for a good army, a great number of able-
bodied men, active, zealous in the cause, and of unques
tionable courage." There was time enough and to
spare in which to learn his army's quality. " Our lines
of defence are now completed," he could tell Lund
Washington on the 20th of August, " as near so at least
as can be — we now wish them to come out as soon as
they please ; but they discover no inclination to quit
their own works of defence ; and as it is almost im
possible for us to get at them, we do nothing but watch
each other's motions all day at the distance of about a
mile." He could even turn away from military affairs
to advise that " spinning should go forward with all
possible despatch " on the estate at home, and to say,
" I much approve of your sowing wheat in clean ground,
although you should be late in doing it." Once more
he settled to the old familiar work, this time upon a
great scale, of carrying a difficult enterprise forward by
correspondence. Letters to the Continental Congress
at Philadelphia, letters to the provincial congresses of

182 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the New England colonies, letters to subordinate (some
times insubordinate) officers at distant posts, letters to
intimate friends and influential men everywhere, setting
forth the needs and situation of the army, advising
measures of organization, supply, and defence, pointing
out means that might be used and mistakes that must
be avoided, commanding, dissuading, guiding, forecast
ing, poured steadily forth from those busy headquarters,
where the commander-in-chief was always to be found,
intent, deeply employed, calmly imperative, never tir
ing, never hesitating, never storming, a leader and mas
ter of men and affairs. He was in his prime, and all
the forty-three years of his strenuous life he had been
at school to learn how such a task as this was to be
performed. He had found the army not only without
proper discipline and equipment, but actually without
powder; and the winter had come and was passing
away before even that primary- and perilous need could
be supplied. The men of that extemporized army had
been enlisted but for a few months' service. When
their brief terms of enlistment ran out they inconti
nently took themselves off; and Washington's most
earnest appeals to the continental and provincial con
gresses to provide for longer enlistments and an adequate
system of recruitment did not always suffice to prevent
his force from perilously dwindling away under his very
eyes. It was a merciful providence that disposed the
British to lie quiet in Boston.

Such authority as he had, Washington used to the ut
most, and with a diligence and foresight which showed
all his old policy of Thorough. Under his orders a few
fast vessels were fitted out and armed as privateers at
the nearest safe ports. Marblehead volunteers in the

GENERAL WASHINGTON 183

army were put aboard them for crews, and the enemy's
supplies were captured upon the seas and brought over
land — the much-needed powder and all — into the Amer
ican camp, while men-of-war which might have swept
the coast lay just at hand in the harbor. No opportu
nity was missed either to disturb the British or to get
what the army needed ; and the ministers at home, as
well as the commanders in Boston, grew uneasy and
apprehensive in the presence of so active and watchful
an opponent. He was playing the game boldly, even a
bit desperately at times. More than once, as the slow
months of siege dragged by, he would have hazarded a
surprise and sought to take the city by storm, had not
the counsel of his officers persistently restrained him.

Only in the north was there such fighting as he wished
to see. Montgomery had pushed through the forests and
taken Montreal (November 12th, 1775). At the same
time Washington had sent a force of some twelve hun
dred men, under Benedict Arnold, to see what could be
done against the little garrison at Quebec. The journey
had cost Arnold four hundred men ; but with what he
had left he had climbed straight to the Heights of Abra
ham and summoned the British at their gates. When
they would neither surrender nor fight, he had sat
down to wait for Montgomery ; and when he came, with
barely five hundred men, had stormed the stout de
fences, in a driving snow-storm, in the black darkness
that came just before the morning on the last day of
the year. Had Montgomery not been killed in the as
sault, the surprise would have succeeded ; and Arnold
had no cause to be ashamed of the gallant affair. Fail
ure though it was, it heartened the troops before Boston
to think what might be done under such officers.

184 GEORGE WASHINGTON

The monotony of the long, anxious season was broken
at Cambridge by a touch now and again of such pleas
ures as spoke of home and gracious peace. In midwin
ter Mrs. Washington had driven into camp, come all the
way from Virginia, with proper escort, in her coach and
four, her horses bestridden by black postilions in their
livery of scarlet and white ; and she had seemed to bring
with her to the homely place not only the ceremoni
ous habit, but the genial and hospitable air of Virginia
as well. Many a quiet entertainment at headquarters
coaxed a little ease of mind out of the midst of even
that grim and trying winter's work while she was there.

With the first month of spring Washington deter
mined to cut inaction short and make a decisive stroke.
He had been long enough with the army now to pre
sume upon its confidence and obedience, though he fol
lowed his own counsels. Siege cannon had been dragged
through the unwilling forests all the way from Ticon-
deroga; the supplies and the time had come ; and on the
morning of the 5th of March, 1776, the British stared
to see ramparts and cannon on Dorchester Heights.
" It was like the work of the genii of Aladdin's wonder
ful lamp," declared one of their astonished officers.
Why they had themselves neglected to occupy the hills
of Dorchester, and had waited so patiently till Wash
ington should have time and such guns as he needed,
was a question much pressed at home in England ; and
their stupidity was rewarded now. They had suffered
themselves to be amused all night by a furious cannon
ading out of Roxbury, Somerville, and East Cambridge,
while two thousand men, a battery of heavy ordnance,
and hundreds of wagons and ox-carts with timber, bales
of hay, spades, crowbars, hatchets, hammers, and nails,

GENERAL WASHINGTON 185

had been gotten safely to the Dorchester hills. When
they saw what had happened they thought of the assault
upon Bunker's Hill, and hesitated what to do. A vio
lent storm blew up while they waited, rendering an at
tack across the water impracticable, and when the calmer
morning of the 6th dawned it was too late ;. the Ameri
can position was too strong. Neither the town nor the
harbor could safely be held under fire from Dorchester
Heights. There was nothing for it but to evacuate the
place, and no one gainsaid their departure. By the 17th
they were all embarked, eight thousand troops and nine
hundred loyalist citizens of Boston, and had set sail
towards the north for Halifax. They were obliged to
leave behind them more than two hundred cannon and
a great quantity of military stores of every kind — pow
der, muskets, gun-carriages, small-arms — whatever an
army might need. When Washington established him
self in General Howe's headquarters, in Mrs. Edwards's
comfortable lodging-house at the head of State Street,
he could congratulate himself not only on a surprising
victory brilliantly won, but on the possession, besides,
of more powder and better stores and equipments than
he could have dreamed of in his camp at Cambridge.
He caught up his landlady's little granddaughter one
day, set her on his knee, as he liked to do, and asked
her, smiling, which she liked the better, the redcoats or
the provincials.

" The redcoats," said the child.

" Ah, my dear," said the young general, a blithe light
in his blue eyes, " they look better, but they don't fight.
The ragged fellows are the boys for fighting."

But he did not linger at Boston. He knew that its
capture did not end, but only deepened, the struggle.

186 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Keinforcements would be poured out of England with
the spring, and the next point of attack would unques
tionably be New York, the key to the Hudson. Here
again was a city flanked about on either hand by water,
and commanded by heights — the heights of Brooklyn.
A garrison must be left in Boston, and New York must
be held for the most part by a new levy, as raw, as ill
organized and equipped, as factious, as uncertain in ca
pacity and purpose, as that which had awaited his dis
cipline and guidance before Boston. It was an army
always a-making and to be made. The sea. was open,
moreover. The British could enter the great harbor
when they pleased. The insurgents had no naval force
whatever with which to withstand them on the water.
There were a score of points to be defended which were
yet without defence on the long island where the town
lay, and round about the spreading arms of the sea that
enclosed it ; and there were but eighteen thousand mili
tia-men mustered for the formidable task, in the midst
of an active loyalist population. The thing must be
attempted, nevertheless. The command of the Hudson
would very likely turn out to be the command of the
continent, and the struggle was now to be to the death.
It was too late to draw back. The royal authority
had, in fact, been everywhere openly thrown off, even
in the middle colonies, where allegiance and opinion
hung still at so doubtful a balance. For Washington
the whole situation must have seemed to be summed up
in what had taken place in his own colony at home.
Dunmore, when he fled to the men-of-war in the bay,
had called upon all who were loyal to follow him ; had
even offered freedom to all slaves and servants who
would enlist in the force he should collect for the pur-

GENERAL WASHINGTON 187

pose of "reducing the colony to a proper sense of its
duty." Unable to do more, he had ravaged the coasts
on either hand upon the Bay, and had put men ashore
within the rivers to raid and burn, making Norfolk, with
its loyalist merchants, his headquarters and rendezvous.
Driven thence by the provincial militia, he had utterly
destroyed the town by fire, and was now refuged upon
Gwynn's Island, striking when he could, as before, at
the unprotected hamlets and plantations that looked
everywhere out upon the water. Virginia's only execu
tive, these nine months and more, had been her Com
mittee of Safety, of which Edmund Pendleton was pres
ident.

Washington had hardly begun his work of organiza
tion and defence at New York before North Carolina
(April 12th, 1776) authorized her delegates in the con
gress at Philadelphia to join in a declaration of indepen
dence ; and the next month (May 15th) the congress ad
vised the colonies to give over all show and pretence of
waiting for or desiring peace or accommodation: to form
complete and independent governments of their own,
and so put an end to " the exercise of every kind of au
thority under the crown." The next step was a joint
Declaration of Independence, upon a motion made in
congress by Richard Henry Lee, in eager obedience to
the express bidding of a convention met in the hall of
the Burgesses at Williamsburg to frame a constitution
for Virginia. His motion was adopted by the votes of
every colony except New York. It was a bitter thing
to many a loyal man in the colonies to see such things
done, and peace rendered impossible. Not even those
who counted themselves among the warmest friends of
the colonial cause were agreed that it was wise thus to

188 GEORGE WASHINGTON

throw off one government before another was put in its
place — while there was as yet no better guidance in that
distracted time than might be had from a body of gen
tlemen in Philadelphia who possessed no power but to
advise. But the radicals were in the saddle. Washing
ton himself came down from New York to urge that the
step be taken. He deemed such radicalism wise ; for he
wished to see compromise abandoned, and all minds set
as sternly as his own in the resolve to fight the fight
out to the bitter end. " I have never entertained an
idea of an accommodation," he said, " since I heard of
the measures which were adopted in consequence of the
Bunker's Hill fight "; and his will hardened to the con
test after the fashion that had always been characteris
tic of him when once the heat of action was upon him.
He grew stern, and spoke sometimes with a touch of
harshness, in the presence of his difficulties at New
York; because he knew that they were made for him in
no small part by Americans who were in the British in
terest, and whom he scorned even while scrupulous to
be just in what he did to thwart and master them. " It
requires more serenity of temper, a deeper understand
ing, and more courage than fell to the lot of Mar] bor
ough to ride in this whirlwind," said John Adams ; and
the young commander-in-chief had them all. But his
quiet was often that of a metal at white heat, and he
kindled a great fire with what he touched.

No strength of will, however, could suffice to hold
New York and its open harbor against a powerful ene
my with such troops as Washington could drill and
make between April and July. On the 28th of June
British transports began to gather in the lower bay.
Within a few days they had brought thirty thousand

GENERAL WASHINGTON 189

men, armed and equipped as no other army had ever
been in America. It was impossible to prevent their
landing, and they were allowed to take possession of
Staten Island unopposed. Men-of-war passed untouched
through the Narrows, and made their way at will up the
broad Hudson, unhurt by the batteries upon either shore.
General Howe remembered Dorchester and Charlestown
Heights, and directed his first movement against Wash
ington's intrenched position on the hills of Brooklyn,
where quite half the American army lay. For a little
space he waited, till his brother, Admiral Lord Howe,
should come to act with him in negotiation and com
mand. Lord Howe was authorized to offer pardon for
submission, and very honorably used a month and more
of good fighting time in learning that the colonists had
no desire to be pardoned. " No doubt we all need par
don from Heaven for our manifold sins and transgres
sions," was Governor Trumbull's Connecticut version of
the general feeling, " but the American who needs the
pardon of his Britannic Majesty is yet to be found."
On the 22d of August, accordingly, General Howe put
twenty thousand men ashore at Gravesend Bay. On
the 27th, his arrangements for an overwhelming attack
succeeding at every point, he drove the five thousand
Americans thrown out to oppose him back into their
works upon the heights, with a loss of four hundred
killed and wounded and a thousand taken. Still mind
ful of Bunker's Hill, he would not storm the intrench-
ments, to which Washington himself had brought rein
forcements which swelled his strength upon the heights
to ten thousand. He determined, instead, to draw lines
of siege about them, and at his leisure take army, posi
tion, stores, and all. Washington, seeing at once what

190 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Howe intended, and how possible it was, decided to
withdraw immediately, before a fleet should be in the
river and his retreat cut off. It was a masterly piece of
work. The British commander was as much astounded
to see Brooklyn Heights empty on the morning of Au
gust 30th as he had been to see Dorchester Heights oc
cupied that memorable morning six months before.
Washington had taken ten thousand men across that
broad river, with all their stores and arms, in a single
night, while a small guard kept up a sharp fire from the
breastworks, and no sound of the retreat reached the
dull ears of the British sentries.

But the sharp fighting and bitter defeat of the 27th had
sadly, even shamefully, demoralized Washington's raw
troops, and he knew he must withdraw from New York.
All through September and a part of October he held
what he could of the island, fighting for it almost mile
by mile as he withdrew — now cut to the quick and
aflame with almost uncontrollable anger to see what
cowards his men could be ; again heartened to see them
stand and hold their ground like men, even in the open.
The most that he could do was to check and thwart the
powerful army pressing steadily upon his front and the
free fleet threatening his flanks. He repulsed the ene
my at Harlem Heights (September 16th) ; he kept his
ground before them at White Plains, despite the loss of
an outpost at Chatterton Hill (October 28th) ; he might
possibly have foiled and harassed them the winter
through had not General Greene suffered a garrison of
three thousand of the best-trained men in the army to
be penned up and taken, with a great store of artillery
and small-arms besides, in Fort Washington, on the isl
and (November 16th). After such a blow there was

GENERAL WASHINGTON 191

nothing for it but to abandon the Hudson and retreat
through New Jersey. His generals growing insubordi
nate, Washington could not even collect his divisions and
unite his forces in retreat. His men deserted by the
score; whole companies took their way homeward as
their terms of enlistment expired with the closing of the
year ; barely three thousand men remained with him by
the time he had reached Princeton. Congress, in its
fright, removed to Baltimore ; hundreds of persons hur
ried to take the oath of allegiance upon Howe's offer of
pardon ; and the British commanders deemed the rebel
lion at an end.

They did not understand the man they were fighting.
When he had put the broad Delaware between his
dwindling regiments and the British at his heels, he
stopped, undaunted, to collect force and give his oppo
nents a taste of his quality. Such an exigency only stif
fened his temper, and added a touch of daring to his
spirit. Charles Lee, his second in command, hoping to
make some stroke for himself upon the Hudson, had
withheld full half the army in a safe post upon the river,
in direct disobedience to orders, while the British drove
Washington southward through New Jersey ; but Lee
was now happily in the hands of the enemy, taken at an
unguarded tavern where he lodged, and most of the
troops he had withheld found their way at last to Wash
ington beyond the Delaware. Desperate efforts at re
cruiting were made. Washington strained his authority
to the utmost to keep and equip his force, and excused
himself to congress very nobly. " A character to lose,"
he said, " an estate to forfeit, the inestimable blessing of
liberty at stake, and a life devoted must be my excuse."
What he planned and did won him a character with his

192 GEORGE WASHINGTON

foes. Before the year was out he had collected six
thousand men, and was ready to strike a blow at the
weak, extended line — Hessian mercenaries for the most
part — which Howe had left to hold the Delaware.

On Christmas Day he made his advance, and ordered
a crossing to be made in three divisions, under cover of
the night. Only his own division, twenty-five hundred
strong, effected the passage. 'Twas ten hours' perilous
work to cross the storm-swept river in the pitchy dark
ness, amidst the hazards of floating ice, but not a man
or a gun was lost. There was a nine miles' march
through driving snow and sleet after the landing before
Trenton could be reached, the point of attack, and two
men were frozen to death as they went. General Sulli
van sent word that the guns were wet : " Tell him to
use the bayonet," said Washington, " for the town must
be taken." And it was taken — in the early morning, at
the point of the bayonet, with a loss of but two or three
men. The surprise was complete. Colonel Kahl, the
commander of the place, was mortally wounded at the
first onset, and nine hundred Hessians surrendered at
discretion.

When he had gotten his prisoners safe on the south
side of the river, Washington once more advanced to oc
cupy the town. It was a perilous place to be, no doubt,
with the great unbridged stream behind him ; but the
enemy's line was everywhere broken, now that its cen
tre had been taken ; had been withdrawn from the
river in haste, abandoning its cannon even and its
baggage at Burlington ; and Washington calmly dared
to play the game he had planned. It was not Howe
who came to meet him, but the gallant Cornwallis, no
mean adversary, bringing eight thousand men. Wash-

GENERAL WASHINGTON 193

ington let him come all the way to the Delaware with
out himself stirring, except to put a small tributary
stream between his men and the advancing columns;
and the confident Englishman went to bed that night
exclaiming, " At last we have run down the old fox,
and we'll bag him in the morning." Then, while a
small force kept the camp-fires burning and worked
audibly at the ramparts the cold night through, the
fox was up and away. He put the whole of his force
upon the road to Princeton and New Brunswick, where
he knew Cornwallis's stores must be. As the morning's
light broadened into day (January 3d, 1777) he met the
British detachment at Princeton in the way, and drove
it back in decisive rout, a keen ardor coming into his
blood as he saw the sharp work done. "An old-fash
ioned Virginia fox-hunt, gentlemen," he exclaimed,
shouting the view -halloo. Had his troops been fresh
and properly shod to outstrip Cornwallis at their heels,
he would have pressed on to New Brunswick and taken
the stores there ; but he had done all that could be done
with despatch, and withdrew straight to the heights
of Morristown. Cornwallis could only hasten back to
New York. By the end of the month the Americans
were everywhere afoot ; the British held no posts in
New Jersey but Paulus Hook, Amboy, and New Bruns
wick ; and Washington had issued a proclamation com
manding all who had accepted General Howe's offer of
pardon either to withdraw within the British lines or
to take oath of allegiance to the United States. Men
loved to tell afterwards how Frederick the Great had
said that it was the most brilliant campaign of the cen
tury.

Congress took steps before the winter was over to

13

194 GEORGE WASHINGTON

secure long enlistments, and substitute a veritable army
for the three months' levies with which Washington
had hitherto been struggling to make shift. After the
affair at Trenton, Washington had been obliged to
pledge his own private fortune for their pay to induce
the men whose terms of enlistment were to expire on
New Year's Day — more than half his force — to stay
with him but a few weeks more, till his plan should be
executed. Now he was authorized to raise regiments
enlisted till the war should end, and to exercise almost
dictatorial powers in even7 thing that might affect the
discipline, provisioning, and success of his army. There
was need, for the year witnessed fighting of tremendous
consequence. The British struck for nothing less than
complete possession of the whole State of New York,
throughout the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk.
General Howe, who had above twenty thousand men
in New York city, was to move up the Hudson ; Gen
eral Burgoyne, with eight thousand men, from Canada
down Lake Champlain ; Colonel St. Leger, with a small
but sufficient force, down into the valley of the Mo
hawk, striking from Oswego, on Ontario ; and the col
onies were to be cut in twain, New England hopeless
ly separated from her confederates, by the converging
sweep of three armies, aggregating more than thirty-
three thousand men. But only the coast country, it
turned out, was tenable ground for British troops. Sir
Guy Carleton had attempted Champlain out of Canada
the year before, and had gone back to Quebec without
touching Ticonderoga, so disconcerted had he been by
the price he had had to pay for his passage up the lake
to a small force and an extemporized fleet under Ben
edict Arnold. This time Burgoyne, with his splendid

GENERAL WASHINGTON 195

army, made short work of Ticonderoga (July, 1777),
and drove General Schuyler and his army back to their
posts beyond the Hudson ; but the farther he got from
his base upon the lake into the vast forests of that wide
frontier, the more certainly did he approach disaster.
No succor came. St. Leger was baffled, and sent in
panic back the way he had come. Howe did not ascend
the river. The country swarmed with gathering mili
tia. They would not volunteer for distant campaigns ;
but this invading host, marching by their very homes
into the deep forest, roused and tempted them as they
had been roused at Concord, and they gathered at its
rear and upon its flanks as they had run together to in
vest Boston. A thousand men Burgoyne felt obliged
to leave in garrison at Ticonderoga; a thousand more,
sent to Bennington to seize the stores there, were over
whelmed and taken (August 16th). Quite twenty thou
sand provincials presently beset him, and he had but six
thousand left wherewith to save himself. He crossed
the river, for he still expected Howe ; and there was
stubborn fighting about Saratoga (September 19th, Oc
tober 7th), in which Arnold once more made his name
in battle. But the odds were too great; Burgoyne's sup
plies were cut off, his troops beaten ; there was nothing
for it but capitulation (October 17th). He had been
trapped and taken by a rising of the country.

Howe had not succored him, partly because he lacked
judgment and capacity, partly because Washington had
thwarted him at every turn. From his position at Mor-
ristown, Washington could send reinforcements to the
north or recall them at will, without serious delay ; and
Howe, in his hesitation, gave him abundant time to do
what he would. It was Sir William's purpose to occupy

196 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the early summer, ere Burgoyne should need him, in an
attack on Philadelphia. On the 12th of June, accord
ingly, he threw a force of eighteen thousand men into
New Jersey. But Washington foiled him at each at
tempt to advance by hanging always upon his flank in
such a position that he could neither be safely ignored
nor forced to fight; and the prudent Howe, abandoning
the march, withdrew once more to New York. But he
did not abandon his project against Philadelphia. He
deemed it the "capital" of the insurgent confederacy,
and wished to discredit congress and win men of doubt
ful allegiance to his standard by its capture; and he
reckoned upon some advantage in drawing Washington
after him to the southward, away from Burgoyne's field
of operations in the north. Though July had come,
therefore, and Burgoyne must need him presently, he
put his eighteen thousand men aboard the fleet and
carried them by sea to the Chesapeake. Washington
was sorely puzzled. He had taken it for granted
that Howe would go north, and he had gone south!
" Howe's in a manner abandoning Burgoyne is so un
accountable," he said, " that I cannot help casting my
eyes continually behind me;" and he followed very
cautiously, ready upon the moment to turn back, lest
the movement should prove a feint. But there was no
mistake. Howe entered the Delaware, and, being fright
ened thence by reports of obstructions in the river, went
all the long four hundred miles about the capes of
Chesapeake, and put his army ashore at Elkton for its
advance upon Philadelphia. It was then the 25th of
August. Washington met him (September llth) behind
the fords of the Brandywine, and, unable to check
Cornwallis on his flank, was defeated. But for him

GENERAL WASHINGTON 197

defeat was never rout: his army was still intact and
steady ; and he held his foe yet another fortnight on
the road ere the "capital" could be entered (September
27th). Burgoyne was by that time deep within the net
spread for him at Saratoga. On the morning of the 4th
of October, in a thick mist, Washington threw himself
upon Howe's main force encamped across the village
street of German town, and would have overwhelmed it
in the surprising onset had not two of his own columns
gone astray in the fog, attacked each other, and so lost
the moment's opportunity. General Howe knew very
soon how barren a success he had had. The end of
November came before he had made himself master of
the forts upon the Delaware below the " capital " and
removed the obstructions from the river to give access
to his fleet ; the British power was broken and made an
end of in the north ; and Washington was still at hand
as menacing and dangerous as ever. Dr. Franklin was
told in Paris that General Howe had taken Philadel
phia. " Philadelphia has taken Howe," he laughed.

Philadelphia kept Howe safely through the winter,
and his officers made themselves easy amidst a round of
gayeties in the complacent town, while Washington
went to Valley Forge to face the hardships and the in
trigues of a bitter season. A deep demoralization fell
that winter, like a blight, upon all the business of the
struggling confederacy. The congress, in its exile at
York, had lost its tone and its command in affairs. It
wrould have lost it as completely in Philadelphia, no
doubt, for it was no longer the body it had been. Its
best members were withdrawn to serve their respective
states in the critical business, now everywhere in hand,
of reorganizing their governments ; and it itself was no

198 • GEORGE WASHINGTON

government at all, but simply a committee of advice,
which the states heeded or ignored as they pleased.
Oftentimes but ten or twelve members could be got to
gether to transact its business. It suffered itself to fall
into the hands of intriguers and sectional politicians.
It gave commissions in the army not according to merit,
but upon a plan carefully devised to advance no more
officers from one section than from another — even men
like John Adams approving. Adams denounced claims
of seniority and service as involving " one of the most
putrid corruptions of absolute monarchy," and suggest
ed that the officers who did not relish the idea of seeing
the several states given " a share of the general officers,"
proportioned to the number of troops they had sent to
the army, had better take themselves off, and see how
little they would be missed. Worst of all, an ugly plot
was hatched to displace Washington ; and the various
distempers of different men for a brief season gave it a
chance to succeed. Some were impatient of Washing
ton's " Fabian policy," as they called it, and would have
had him annihilate, instead of merely checking, these
invading hosts. " My toast," cried John Adams, " is a
short and violent war." Others envied Washington his
power and his growing fame, resented their own subor
dination and his supremacy, and intrigued to put Gen
eral Gates in his place. Had not Gates won at Sara
toga, and Washington lost at the Brandywine and at
Germantown? Schuyler had prepared the victory in
the north ; Arnold and Morgan had done the fighting
that secured it ; but Gates had obtained the command
when all was ready, and was willing to receive the re
ward. With a political committee-congress in charge of
affairs, nothing was impossible.

§ 1

GENERAL WASHINGTON 199

Washington and his array were starving the while
at Valley Forge, in desperate straits to get anything
to eat or anything to cover them in that bitter season —
not because there were no supplies, but because congress
had disorganized the commissary department, and the
supplies seldom reached the camp. The country had
not been too heavily stricken by the war. Abundant
crops were everywhere sown and peacefully reaped, and
there were men enough to do the work of seed-time and
harvest. It was only the army that was suffering for
lack of food and lack of men. The naked fact was that
the confederacy was falling apart for lack of a govern
ment. Local selfishness had overmastered national feel
ing, and only a few men like Washington held the
breaking structure together. Washington's steadfast
ness was never shaken ; and Mrs. Washington, stanch
lady that she wa*s, joined him even at Valley Forge.
The intrigue against him he watched in stern silence
till it was ripe and evident, then he crushed it with
sudden exposure, and turned away in contempt, hardly
so much as mentioning it in his letters to his 'friends.
" Their own artless zeal to advance their views has
destroyed them," he said. His soldiers he succored and
supplied as he could, himself sharing their privations,
and earning their love as he served them. " Naked and
starving as they are," he wrote, " we cannot sufficiently
admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the
soldiers." And even out of that grievous winter some
profit was wrung. Handsome sums of French money
had begun of late to come slowly into the confederate
treasury — for France, for the nonce, was quick with
sympathy for America, and glad to lend secret aid
against an old foe. Presently, she promised, she would

200 GEORGE WASHINGTON

recognize the independence of the United States, and
herself grapple once more with England. Meanwhile
French, German, and Polish officers hurried over sea
to serve as volunteers with the raw armies of the con
federacy — adventurers, some of them; others sober
veterans, gentlemen of fortune, men of generous and
noble quality— among the rest the boyish Lafayette
and the distinguished Steuben. Baron von Steuben
had won himself a place on the great Frederick's staff
in the Seven Years' War, and was of that studious race
of soldiers the world was presently to learn to fear. He
joined Washington at Valley Forge, and turned the
desolate camp into a training-school of arms, teaching,
what these troops had never known before, promptness
and precision in the manual of arms, in massed and
ordered movement, in the use of the bayonet, the drill
and mastery of the charge and of the open field. Nei
ther Washington nor any of his officers had known how
to give this training. The commander-in-chief had not
even had a properly organized staff till this schooled
and thorough German supplied it, and he was valued
in the camp as he deserved. " You say to your soldier,
4 Do this,' and he doeth it," he wrote to an old comrade
in Prussia ; " I am obliged to say to mine, ' This is the
reason why you ought to do that,' and then he does
it." But he learned to like and to admire his new com
rades soon enough when he found what spirit and
capacity there was in them for the field of action.

The army came out of its dismal winter quarters
stronger than it had ever been before, alike in spirit
and in discipline ; more devoted to its commander than
ever, and more fit to serve him. At last the change to
a system of long enlistments had transformed it from

WASHINGTON AND STEUBEN AT VALLEY FORGE

GENERAL WASHINGTON 201

a levy of militia into an army steadied by service, un
afraid of the field. The year opened,v besides, with a
new hope and a new confidence. They were no longer
a body of insurgents even to the eye of Europe. News
came to the camp late in the night of the 4th of May
(1778) that France had entered into open alliance with
the United States, and would send fleets and an army
to aid in securing their independence. Such an alliance
changed the whole face of affairs. England would no
longer have the undisputed freedom of the seas, and
the conquest of her colonies in America might turn out
the least part of her task in the presence of European
enemies. She now knew the full significance of Sara
toga and Germantown. Washington's splendid audac-
itv and extraordinarv command of his resources in

«/ t/

throwing himself upon his victorious antagonist at Ger
mantown as the closing move of a long retreat had
touched the imagination and won the confidence of for
eign soldiers and statesmen hardly less than the taking
of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Parliament at last (Febru
ary, 1778) came to its senses : resolved to renounce the
right to tax the colonies, except for the regulation of
trade, and sent commissioners to America to offer such
terms for submission. But it was too late ; neither con
gress nor the states would now hear of anything but
independence.

With a French fleet about to take the sea, it was
necessary that the British commanders in America
should concentrate their forces. Philadelphia, they had
at last found out, was a burden, not a prize. It had
no strategic advantage of position ; was hard to defend,
and harder to provision ; was too far from the sea, and
not far enough from Washington's open lines of opera-

202 GEORGE WASHINGTON

tion. Before the summer's campaign began, Sir Wil
liam Howe resigned his command and bade the town
good-bye, amidst elaborate festivities (May 18th, 1778).
General Clinton, who succeeded him, received orders
from England to undo Howe's work at once, abandon
Philadelphia, and concentrate his forces at New York.
'Twas easier said than done. There were not transports
enough to move his fifteen thousand men by sea ; only
the three thousand loyalists who had put themselves
under his protection could be sent in the ships, with a
portion of his stores ; he must cross the hostile country ;
and his march was scarcely begun (June 18th) before
Washington was at his heels, with a force but little
inferior to his own either in numbers or in discipline.
He might never have reached New York at all had
not Charles Lee been once more second in command in
the American army. He had come out of captivity,
exchanged, and now proved himself the insubordinate
poltroon he was. He had never had any real heart in
the cause. He owned estates in Virginia, but he was
not of the great Yirginian family of the North ern Neck.
He was only a soldier of fortune, strayed out of the
British service on half-pay to seek some profit in the
colonies, and cared for no interest but his own. While
a prisoner he had secretly directed Howe's movement
against Philadelphia, and now he was to consummate
his cowardly treachery. Washington outstripped his
opponent in the movement upon New York, and deter
mined to fall upon him at Mon mouth Court House,
where, on the night of the 27th of June, Clinton's divis
ions lay separate, offering a chance to cut them asun
der. On the morning of the 28th, Lee was ordered
forward with six thousand men to enfold Clinton's left

GENERAL WASHINGTON 203

wing — eight thousand men, the flower of the British
force — by gaining its flank, while Washington held his
main body ready to strike in his aid at the right mo
ment. The movement was perfectly successful, and
the fighting had begun, when, to the amazement and
chagrin alike of officers and men, Lee began to with
draw. Lafayette sent a messenger hot-foot for Wash
ington, who rode up to find his men, not attacking, but
pursued. "What is the meaning of all this?" he thun
dered, his wrath terrible to see. When Lee would have
made some excuse, he hotly cursed him, in his fury, for
a coward, himself rallied the willing troops, and led
them forward again to a victory : won back the field
Lee had abandoned, and drove the enemy to the cover
of a morass. In the night that followed, Clinton hastily
withdrew, leaving even his wounded behind him, and
Washington's chance to crush him was gone.

" Clinton gained no advantage except to reach New
York with the wreck of his army," commented the ob
servant Frederick over sea ; " America is probably lost
for England." But a great opportunity had been treach
erously thrown away, and the war dragged henceforth
with every painful trial of hope deferred. A scant three
weeks after Clinton had reached New York, the Count
d'Estaing was off Sandy Hook, with a French fleet of
twelve ships of the line and six frigates, bringing four
thousand troops. The British fleet within the harbor
was barely half as strong ; but the pilots told the cau
tious Frenchman that his larger ships could not cross
the bar, and he turned away from New York to strike
at Newport, the only other point now held by the Brit
ish in all the country. That place had hardly been in
vested, however, when Lord Howe appeared with a

204 GEORGE WASHINGTON

stronger fleet than the French. D'Estaing was obliged
to draw off to meet him ; a great storm sent both fleets
into port to refit instead of to fight ; and the disgusted
militia-men and continentals, who had come to take the
town with the French, withdrew in high choler to see
the fleet, without which they could do nothing, taken
off to Boston. When the autumn came Clinton felt
free to send thirty- five hundred men to the Southern
coast, and Savannah was taken (December 29th, 1778).
Only in the far West, at the depths of the great wilder
ness beyond the mountains, was anything done that
promised decisive advantage. George Rogers Clark,
that daring Saxon frontiersman, who moved so like a
king through the far forests, swept the whole country
of the Illinois free from British soldiers and British au
thority that winter of 1778-9, annexing it to the states
that meant to be independent ; and a steady stream of
immigration began to pour into the opened country, as
if to prepare a still deeper task of conquest for the Brit
ish at far New York.

But few noted in the East what gallant men were do
ing in the valley of the Mississippi. They saw only
that the British, foiled in New England and the middle
colonies, had changed their plans, and were now minded
to try what could be done in the South. There at last
their campaigns seemed about to yield them something.
Savannah taken, they had little trouble in overrunning
Georgia, and every effort to dislodge them failed ; for
Washington could not withdraw his army from before
Clinton at New York. Spain joined France in offensive
alliance in April, 1779 ; in August a combined French
and Spanish fleet attempted an invasion of England ; all
Europe seemed about to turn upon the stout little king-

GENERAL WASHINGTON 205

dom in its unanimous fear and hatred of her arrogant
supremacy upon the seas. Everywhere there was war
upon the ocean highways— even America sending forth
men of desperate valor, like John Paul Jones, to ravage
and challenge Britain upon her very coasts. But Eng
land's spirit only rose with the danger, and Washington
waited all the weary year through for his French allies.
In 1780 it looked for a little as if the British were in
deed turned victors. In the spring Clinton withdrew
the force that had held Newport to New York, and,
leaving General Knyphausen there with a powerful
force to keep Washington and the city, carried eight
thousand men southward to take Charleston. There
were forces already in the South sufficient to swell his
army to ten thousand ere he invested the fated town ;
and on the 12th of May (1780) it fell into his hands,
with General Lincoln and three thousand prisoners.
Washington had sent such succor as he could, but the
British force was overwhelming, and South Carolina
was lost. South Carolina teemed with loyalists. The
whole country was swept and harried by partisan bands.
The men who should have swelled General Lincoln's
force knew not when their homes might be plundered
and destroyed, if they were to leave them. The planters
of the low country dared not stir for fear of an insur
rection of their slaves. In June, Clinton could take half
his force back to New York, deeming the work done.
General Gates completed the disastrous record. On the
13th of June he was given chief command in the South,
and was told that the country expected another " Bur-
goynade." His force was above three thousand, and he
struck his blow, as he should, at Camden, where Corn-
wallis had but two thousand men, albeit trained and

206 GEORGE WASHINGTON

veteran troops; but the end was total, shameful rout
(August 16th, 1780), and men knew at last the incapacity
of their " hero of Saratoga." " We look on America as
at our feet," said Horace Walpole.

Certainly things looked desperate enough that dark
year. The congress was sinking into a more and more
helpless inefficiency. Definitive articles of confederation
had been submitted to the states nearly three years ago
(November, 1777), but they had not been adopted yet,
and the states had almost ceased to heed the requisitions
of the congress at all. Unable to tax, it paid its bills
and the wages of its troops in paper, which so rapidly
fell in value that by the time the hopeless year 1780 was
out, men in the ranks found a month's pay too little
with which to buy even a single bushel of wheat.
Washington was obliged to levy supplies from the coun
try round him to feed his army ; and in spite of their
stanch loyalty to him, his men grew mutinous, in sheer
disgust with the weak and faithless government they
were expected to serve. Wholesale desertion began, as
many as one hundred men a month going over to the
enemy, to get at least pay and food and clothing. The
country seemed not so much dismayed as worn out and
indifferent ; weary of waiting and hoping ; looking stol
idly to see the end come. Washington was helpless.
Without the co-operation of a naval force, it was impos
sible to do more than hold the British in New York.
France, it was true, was bestirring herself again. On
the 10th of July a French fleet put in at Newport and
landed a force of six thousand men, under Count Eo-
chambeau, a most sensible and capable officer, who was
directed to join Washington and put himself entirely
under his command. But a powerful British fleet pres-

GENERAL WASHINGTON 207

ently made its appearance in the Sound ; the French ad
miral dared not stir; Rochambeau dared not leave him
without succor; and the reinforcements that were to
have followed out of France were blockaded in the har
bor of Brest.

Then, while things stood so, treason was added. Bene
dict Arnold, the man whom "Washington trusted with a
deep affection, and whom the army loved for his gal
lantry, entered into correspondence with the enemy ;
arranged to give West Point and the posts dependent
upon it into their hands ; and, his treason suddenly de
tected, escaped without punishment to the British sloop
of war that waited in the river for the British agent in
the plot. Washington was at hand when the discovery
was made. His aides were breakfasting with Arnold
when the traitor was handed the note which told him
he was found out ; and Arnold had scarcely excused
himself and made good his flight when the commander-
in-chief reached the house. When Washington learned
what had happened, it smote him so that mighty sobs
burst from him, as if his great heart would break ; and
all the night through the guard could hear him pac
ing his room endlessly, in a lonely vigil with his bit
ter thoughts. He did not in his own grief forget the
stricken wife upstairs. " Go to Mrs. Arnold," he said to
one of his officers, " and tell her that, though my duty
required that no means should be neglected to arrest
General Arnold, I have great pleasure in acquainting
her that he is now safe on board a British vessel."
Arnold had deemed himself wronged and insulted by
congress — but what officer that Washington trusted
might not? Who could be confided in if such men
turned traitors ?

208 GEORGE WASHINGTON

But a sudden turning of affairs marked the close of
the year. Cornwallis had penetrated too far into the
Carolinas ; had advanced into North Carolina, and was
beset, as Burgoyne had been, by a rising of the country.
He lost twelve hundred men at King's Mountain (Octo
ber 7th, 1780), as Burgoyne had lost a thousand at Ben-
nington; and everywhere, as he moved, he found him
self checked by the best officers the long war had bred
— Kathanael Greene, who had been Washington's right
hand the war through ; Henry Lee, the daring master
of cavalry, whom Washington loved ; the veteran Steu-
ben ; Morgan, who had won Saratoga with Arnold ;
and partisan leaders a score, whom he had learned to
dread in that wide forested country. He was outgener-
alled ; his forces were taken in detail and beaten, and
he himself was forced at last into Virginia. By mid
summer, 1781, all his interior posts were lost, and he
was cut off from Charleston and Savannah by a country
he dared not cross again. In Virginia, though at first
he raided as he pleased, he was checked more and more
as the season advanced by a growing force under Lafay
ette ; and by the first week in August he had taken
counsel of prudence, and established himself, seven thou
sand strong, at Yorktown, near the sea, his base of sup
plies. Then it was that Washington struck the blow
which ended the war. At last Rochambeau was free to
move; at last a French fleet was at hand to block the
free passage of the sea. The Count de Grasse, with
twenty-eight ships of the line, six frigates, and twenty
thousand men, was in the West Indies, and in August
sent word to Washington that he was about to bring
his whole fleet to the Chesapeake, as Washington had
urged. Either the Chesapeake or New York, had been

THE ESCAPE OF AKNOLD

GENERAL WASHINGTON

209

Washington's prayer to him. Making as if he were but
moving about New York from north to south for some
advantage of position, Washington suddenly took two
thousand Continentals and four thousand Frenchmen,
under Rochambeau, all the long four hundred miles to
York River in Virginia, to find Cornwallis already en
trapped there, as he had planned, between Grasse's fleet
in the bay and Lafayette intrenched across the peninsu
la with eight thousand men, now the French had loaned
him three thousand. A few weeks' siege and the de
cisive work was done, to the admiration of Cornwallis
himself. The British army was taken. The generous
Englishman could not withhold an expression of his ad
miration for the extraordinary skill with which Wash
ington had struck all the way from New York with six
thousand men as easily as if with six hundred. " But,
after all," he added, " your Excellency's achievements in
New Jersey were such that nothing could surpass
them."

THE STEESS OF VICTOKY

CHAPTER VIII

THE victory at Yorktown brought neither peace nor
ease in affairs. The revolution was indeed accomplished
— that every man could see who had the candor to
look facts in the face ; but its accomplishment brought
tasks harder even than the tasks of war. Hostilities
slackened — were almost wholly done with before an
other spring had come. No more troops came over sea.
The ministry in England were discredited and ousted.
Every one knew that the proud mother country must
yield, for all her stout defiance of the world. But a long
year dragged by, nevertheless, before even preliminary
articles of accommodation were signed; and still an
other before definitive peace came, with independence
and the full fruits of victory. Meanwhile there was an
army to be maintained, despite desperate incompetence
on the part of the congress and a hopeless indifference
among the people ; and a government to be kept pre-
sentably afoot, despite lack of money and lack of men.
The Articles of Confederation proposed at the heart
of the war-time (November 15th, 1777) had at last been
adopted (March 1st, 1781), in season to create at least
a government which could sign treaties and conclude
wars, but neither soon enough nor wisely enough to
bring order out of chaos. The states, glad to think the
war over, would do nothing for the army, nothing for

214 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the public credit, nothing even for the maintenance of
order ; and the Articles of Confederation only gave the
congress written warranty for offering advice : they did
not make its shadowy powers real.

It was beyond measure fortunate that at such a crit
ical time as this Washington still kept his command,
still held affairs under the steady pressure of his will.
His successes had at last given him a place of authority
in the thoughts and affections of his countrymen in
some sort commensurate with his capacity and his vision
in affairs. He had risen to a very safe footing of power
among all the people as the war drew towards its close,
filling their imaginations, and reigning among them as
securely as among his troops, who for so long had felt
his will wrought upon them day by day. His very re
serve, and the large dignity and pride of his stately
bearing, made him seem the more like a hero in the
people's eyes. They could understand a man made in
this ample and simple kind, give them but time enough
to see him in his full proportions. It answered to their
thought of him to find him too proud to dissemble, too
masterful to brook unreasonable faults, and yet slow to
grow impatient, though he must wait a whole twelve
month to see a plan mature, or coax a half -score states
to get a purpose made good. And they could not deem
him cold, though they found him self-possessed, keeping
his own counsel; for was not the country full of talk
how passionately he was like to act at a moment of
crisis and in the field? They only feared to lose a lead
er so reckless of himself when danger was sharpest.
" Our army love their general very much," one of his
officers had said, " but they have one thing against him,
which is the little care he takes of himself in any

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 215

action"; for he had seen how Washington pressed at
Trenton and at Princeton to the points that were most
exposed, thinking of his troops, not of himself. The
spirit of fight had run high in him the whole war
through. Even during those dismal weeks of 1776,
when affairs looked darkest, and he had but a handful
of men about him as he all but fled before Howe
through New Jersey, he had spoken, as if in the very
pleasantry of daring, of what he would do should things
come to the worst with him. His thought turned to
those western fastnesses he knew so well, where the
highlands of his own state lay, and he spoke calmly of
a desperate venture thither. " Reed," he exclaimed, to
one of his aides, " my neck does not feel as though it
was made for a halter. We must retire to Augusta
County, in Virginia, and if overpowered, must pass the
Alleghany Mountains." And when the last movement
of the war came, it was still with the same feeling that
he drew his lines about Cornwallis. " We may be
beaten by the English," he said ; " it is the chance of
war ; but there is the army they will never conquer."

" The privates are all generals, but not soldiers," the
gallant Montgomery had cried, in his hot impatience
with the heady militia-men he was bidden command ;
but it was not so in the presence of Washington, when
once these men had taken his measure. They were
then " rivals in praising him," the Abbe Robin de
clared, " fearing him even when he was silent, and re
taining their full confidence in him after defeats and
disgrace." The singular majesty and poise of this revo
lutionary hero struck the French officers as infinitely
more remarkable than his mastery in the field and his
ascendency in council. They had looked to find him

216 GEORGE WASHINGTON

great in action, but they had not thought to see in him
a great gentleman, a man after their own kind in grace
and courtesy and tact, and yet so lifted above the man
ner of courts and drawing-rooms by an incommunicable
quality of grave sincerity which they were at a loss how
to describe. 'No one could tell whether it were a gift of
the mind or of the heart. It was certain only that it
constituted the atmosphere and apotheosis of the man.
The Marquis de Chastellux noted, with a sort of rev
erent awe for this hero not yet turned of fifty, how
perfect a union reigned between his physical and moral
qualities. " One alone," he declared, " will enable you
to judge of all the rest." " It is not my intention to
exaggerate," he said; " I wish only to express my im
pression of a perfect whole, which cannot be the prod
uct of enthusiasm, since the effect of proportion is
rather to diminish the idea of greatness."

Strangers who had noted his appearance in the earlier
years of the war had remarked the spirit and life that
sat in "Washington's eyes : but when the war was over,
and its strain relaxed, they found those eyes grown
pensive, " more attentive than sparkling "; steady still,
and noble in their frankness and good feeling, but
touched a little with care, dimmed with watching. The
Prince de Broglie found him "still as fresh and active
as a young man" in 1782, but thought " he must have
been much handsomer three years ago," for " the gen
tlemen who had remained with him during all that
time said that he seemed to have grown much older."
'T would have been no marvel had he broken under the
burden he had carried, athletic soldier and hardened
campaigner though he was. " This is the seventh year
that he has commanded the army and that he has

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 217

obeyed the congress : more need not be said," the Mar
quis de Chastellux declared, unconsciously uttering a
very bitter gibe against the government, when he
meant only to praise its general.

Such service told the more heavily upon Washington
because he had rendered it in silence. JSTo man among
all the Revolutionary leaders, it is true, had been more
at the desk than he. Letters of command and persua
sion, reports that carried every detail of the army's life
and hopes in their careful phrases, orders of urgency
and of provident arrangement, writings of any and
every sort that might keep the hard war afoot, he had
poured forth incessantly, and as if incapable of fatigue
or discouragement. No one who was under orders, no
man who could lend the service a hand or take a turn at
counsel, was likely to escape seeing the commander-in-
chiefs handwriting often enough to keep him in mind
of his tireless power to foresee and to direct. Washing
ton seemed present in every transaction of the war.
And yet always and to every one he seemed a silent
man. What he said and what he wrote never touched
himself. He spoke seldom of motives, always of what
was to be done and considered; and even his secre
taries, though they handled the multitude of his papers,
were left oftentimes to wonder and speculate about the
man himself — so frank and yet so reserved, so straight
forward and simple and yet so proud and self-contained,
revealing powers, but somehow not revealing himself.
It must have seemed at times to those who followed
him and pondered what they saw that he had caught
from Nature her own manner while he took his breed
ing as a boy and his preparation as a man amidst the
forests of a wild frontier; that his character spoke in

218 GEORGE WASHINGTON

what he did and without self -consciousness; that he
had no moods but those of action.

Nor did men know bim for what he really was until
the war was over. His own officers then found they
had something more to learn of the man they had
fought under for six years — and those six, all of them,
years such as lay bare the characters of men. What
remained to be done during the two trying, anxious
years 1782 and 1783 seemed as if intended for a supreme
and final test of the qualities of the man whose genius
and character had made the Revolution possible. " At
the end of a long civil war," said the Marquis de Chas-
tellux, with a noble pride for his friend, " he had noth
ing with which he could reproach himself"; but it was
these last years which were to crown this perfect praise
with its full meaning. In the absence of any real gov
ernment, "Washington proved almost the only prop of
authority and law. What the crisis was no one knew
quite so thoroughly or so particularly as he. It con
sisted in the ominous fact that the army was the only
organized and central power in the country, and that
it had deep reason for discontent and insubordination.
When once it had served its purpose greatly at York-
town, and the war seemed ended at a stroke, the coun
try turned from it in indifference — left it without money ;
talked of disbanding it without further ceremony, and
with no provision made for arrears of pay ; seemed
almost to challenge it to indignation and mutiny. It
was necessary, for every reason of prudence and good
statesmanship, to keep the army still upon a war footing.
^There were sure signs of peace, no doubt, but no man
could foretell what might be the course of politics ere
England should have compounded her quarrel with

THE BUST BY ECKSTEIN

(Owned by Frederick McGuire, Esq., Washington)

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 219

France and Spain, and ended the wars with which the
Revolution had become inextricably involved. 'Twere
folly to leave the English army at New York unchecked.
Premature confidence that peace had come might bring
some sudden disaster of arms, should the enemy take
the field again. The army must be ready to fight, if
only to make fighting unnecessary. Washington would
have assumed the offensive again, would have crushed
Clinton where he lay in New York ; and the congress
was not slack — as slackness was counted there— in sus
taining his counsels. But the congress had no power
to raise money; had no power to command. The
states alone could make it possible to tax the country
to pay the army : their thirteen governments were the
only civil authority, and they took the needs and the
discontents of the army very lightly, deemed peace se
cure and war expenses unnecessary, and let matters drift
as they would.

They came very near drifting to another revolution
— a revolution such as politicians had left out of their
reckoning, and only Washington could avert. After
Yorktown, Washington spent four months in Philadel
phia, helping the congress forward with the business of
the winter; but as March of the new year (1782) drew
towards its close, he rejoined the army at Newburgh,
to resume his watch upon New York. He had been
scarcely two months at his post when a letter was
placed in his hands which revealed, more fully than any
observations of his own could have revealed it, the pass
to which affairs had come. The letter was from Colonel
Lewis Nicola, an old and respected officer, who stood
nearer than did most of his fellow-officers to the com-
mander-in-chief in intimacy and affection, and who felt

220 GEORGE WASHINGTON

it his privilege to speak plainly. The letter was calm
in temper, grave and moderate in tone, with something
of the gravity and method of a disquisition written
upon abstract questions of government ; did not broach
its meaning like a revolutionary document. But what
it proposed was nothing less, when read between the
lines, than that Washington should suffer himself to be
made king, and that so an end should be put to the
incompetency and ingratitude of a band of weak and
futile republics. Washington met the suggestion with
a rebuke so direct and overwhelming that Colonel Nicola
must himself have wondered how he had ever dared
make such a venture. " Be assured, sir," said the indig
nant commander, " no occurrence in the course of the
war has given me more painful sensations than your in
formation of there being such ideas existing in the army.
... I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my
conduct could have given encouragement to an address
which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that
can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the
knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person
to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. . . . Let
me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country,
concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to
banish these thoughts from your mind, and never com
municate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment
of the like nature." He was cut to the quick that his
own officers should deem him an adventurer, willing to
advance his own power at the expense of the very
principles he had fought for. His thought must have
gone back at a bound to his old comradeship with his
brother Lawrence, with the Fairfaxes, George Mason,
and the Lees, and all that free company of gentlemen

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 221

in the Northern Neck who revered law, loved liberty,
and hated a usurper.

But he could not blink the just complaints and real
grievances of the array ; nor did he wish to. Though
others were angry after a manner he scorned, no man's
grief or indignation was deeper than his that the army
should be left penniless after all it had suffered and
done, and be threatened, besides, with being turned
adrift without reward or hope of provision for the fut
ure. " No man possesses a more sincere wish to see
ample justice done to the army than I do," he had de
clared to Colonel Nicola ; " and as far as my power and
influence, in a constitutional way, extend, they shall be
employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it."
The pledge was fulfilled in almost every letter he wrote,
private or public. He urged the states, as he urged
the congress, in season and out of season, to see justice
done the men who had won the Revolution, and whom
he loved as if they had been of his own blood. But
even his great voice went too long unheeded. "The
spirit of party, private interest, slowness, and national
indolence slacken, suspend, and overthrow the best con
certed measures," the Abbe Eobin had observed, upon
his first coming with Eochambeau; and now meas
ures were not so much as concerted until a final menace
from the army brought the country to its senses. A
troubled summer came and went, and another winter of
anxious doubt and ineffectual counsel. The very ap
proach of peace, as it grew more certain, quickened the
angry fears of the army, lest peace should be made a
pretext, when it came, to disperse them before their de
mands could be driven home upon the demoralized and
reluctant government they were learning to despise.

222 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Another spring and the mischief so long maturing was
ripe ; it looked as if even Washington could not prevent
it. It had been rumored in Philadelphia, while the
winter held, "that the army had secretly determined
not to lay down their arms until due provision and a
satisfactory prospect should be afforded on the subject
of their pay," and that Washington had grown unpop
ular among almost all ranks because of his harshness
against every unlawful means of securing justice. " His
extreme reserve, mixed sometimes with a degree of as
perity of temper, both of which were said to have in
creased of late, had contributed to the decline of his
popularity " — so ran the report — and it grew every
week the more unlikely he could check the treasonable
purposes of his men.

In March, 1783, the mine was sprung ; and then men
learned, by a new sign, what power there was in the
silent man : how he could handle disaffection and dis
arm reproach. An open address was spread broadcast
through the camp, calling upon the army to use its
power to obtain its rights, and inviting a meeting of the
officers to devise a way. " Can you consent to be the
only sufferers by this Devolution? ... If you can, . . go,
. . carry with you the ridicule, and, what is worse, the
pity of the world. Go, starve, and be forgotten. . . .
But if you have sense enough to discover, and spirit
enough to oppose, tyranny, . . awake ; attend to your
situation, and redress yourselves." Such were its kind
ling phrases ; and no man need deceive himself with
thinking they would go unheeded. Washington showed
his tact and mastery by assuming immediate control of
the movement, with a sharp rebuke for such a breach
of manly propriety and soldierly discipline, but with no

JOHN PARKE CUSTIS, JR.

(From a miniature in possession of General G. W. Custis, Lexington.
Virginia)

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 223

thought to stay a righteous protest. He himself sum
moned the officers ; and when they had come together
stepped to the desk before them, with no show of anger
or offended dignity, but very gravely, with a sort of
majesty it moved one strangely to see, and taking a
written paper from his pocket, adjusted his spectacles
to read it. " Gentlemen," he said, very simply, "you
will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not
only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my
country." There were wet eyes upon the instant in the
room ; no man stirred while he read — read words of
admonition, of counsel, and of hope which burned at
the ear; and when he was done, and had withdrawn,
leaving them to do what they would, they did nothing
of which he could be ashamed. They spoke manfully,
as was right, of what they deemed it just and impera
tive the congress should do for them; but they "Re
solved, unanimously, that at the commencement of the
present war the officers of the American army engaged
in the service of their country from the purest love and
attachment to the rights and liberties of human nature,
which motives still exist in the highest degree ; and that
no circumstances of distress or danger shall induce a
conduct that may tend to sully the reputation and glory
which they have acquired at the price of their blood
and eight years' faithful services."

Washington knew, nevertheless, how black a danger
lurked among these distressed men ; did not fail to
speak plainly of it to the congress ; and breathed freely
again only when the soldiers' just demands had at last
in some measure been met, by at any rate the proper
legislation. He grew weary with longing for peace,
when the work seemed done and his thoughts had lei-

224 GEORGE WASHINGTON

sure to turn towards his home again. But once in all
the lengthened days of fighting had he seen Mount
Yernon. He had turned aside to spend a night or two
there on his way to Yorktown, and he had seen the
loved place again for a little after the victory was won.
Now, amidst profitless days at Newburgh, or in counsel
with the committees of the congress upon business that
was never finished, while affairs stood as it were in a
sort of paralysis, waiting upon the interminable confer
ences of the three powers who haggled over definitive
terms of peace at Paris, home seemed to him, in his
weariness, more to be desired than ever before. Pri
vate griefs had stricken him at the very moment of his
triumph. Scarcely had the victory at Yorktown been
celebrated when he was called (November, 1781) to the
death-bed of Jack Custis, his wayward but dearly loved
step-son, and had there to endure the sight of his wife's
grief and the young widow's hopeless sorrow added to
his own. The two youngest children he claimed for
himself, with that wistful fatherly longing that had al
ways marked him ; and Mount Yernon seemed to him
more like a haven than ever, where to seek rest and
solace. The two years he had yet to wait may well
have seemed to him the longest of his life, and may
have added a touch of their own to what strangers
deemed his sternness.

He had seldom seemed so stern, indeed, as in one
incident of those trying months. An officer of the
American army had been taken in a skirmish, and the
English had permitted a brutal company of loyalists,
under one Captain Lippincott, to take him from his
prison in New York and wantonly hang him in broad
daylight on the heights near Middletown. Washington

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 225

at once notified the British commander that unless the
murderers were delivered up to be punished, a British
officer would be chosen by lot from among his prisoners
to suffer in their stead ; and, when reparation was with
held, proceeded without hesitation to carry his threat
into execution. The lot fell upon Captain Charles As-
gill, an engaging youth of only nineteen, the heir of a
great English family. Lady Asgill, the lad's mother,
did not stop short of moving the very French court it
self to intervene to save her son, and at last the con
gress counselled his release, the English commander
having disavowed the act of the murderers in whose
place he was to suffer, and Washington himself having
asked to be directed what he should do. " Captain As
gill has been released," Washington wrote to Yergennes,
in answer to the great minister's intercession. " I have
no right to assume any particular merit from the lenient
manner in which this disagreeable affair has terminated.
But I beg you to believe, sir, that I most sincerely re
joice, not only because your humane intentions are grat
ified, but because the event accords with the wishes of
his Most Christian Majesty." It lifted a great weight
from his heart to have the innocent boy go unhurt from
his hands, and he wrote almost tenderly to him in ac
quainting him with his release ; but it was of his simple
nature to have sent the lad to the gallows, nevertheless,
had things continued to stand as they were at the first.
He was inexorable to check perfidy and vindicate the
just rules of war. Men were reminded, while the affair
pencled, of the hanging of Andre, Arnold's British con
federate in treason, and how pitiless the command er-in-
chief had seemed in sending the frank, accomplished,
lovable gentleman to his disgraceful death, like any

15

226 GEORGE WASHINGTON

common spy, granting him not even the favor to be
shot, like a soldier. It seemed hard to learn the inflex
ible lines upon which that consistent mind worked, as if
it had gone to school to Fate.

But no one deemed him hard or stern, or so much as
a thought more or less than human, when at last the
British had withdrawn from New York, and he stood
amidst his officers in Fraunce's Tavern to say good-bye.
He could hardly speak for emotion : he could only lift
his glass and say : u With a heart full of love and grati
tude, I now take my leave of you, most devoutly wish
ing that your latter days may be as prosperous and
happy as your former ones have been glorious and hon
orable. ... I cannot come to each of you and take my
leave," he said, " but shall be obliged if you will come
and take me by the hand." When General Knox, who
stood nearest, approached him, he drew him to him with
a sudden impulse and kissed him, and not a soldier
among them all went away without an embrace from
this man who was deemed cold and distant. After the
parting they followed him in silence to Whitehall Ferry,
and saw him take boat for his journey.

And then, standing before the congress at Annapolis
to resign his commission, he added the crowning touch
of simplicity to his just repute as a man beyond others
noble and sincere. " I have now the honor of offering
my sincere congratulations to congress," he said, as he
stood amidst the august scene they had prepared for
him, "and of presenting myself before them to sur
render into their hands the trust committed to me, and
to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of
my country. Happy in the confirmation of our inde
pendence and sovereignty, and pleased with the op-

THE STRESS OF VICTORY 227

portunity afforded the United States of becoming a
respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the ap
pointment I accepted with diffidence — a diffidence in
my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which,
however, was superseded by a confidence in the recti-
( tude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of
the Union, and the patronage of Heaven. The success
ful termination of the war has verified the most sanguine
expectations ; and my gratitude for the interposition of
Providence and the assistance I have received from my
countrymen increases with every review of the momen
tous contest. ... I consider it my indispensable duty
to close this last solemn act of my official life by com
mending the interests of our dearest country to the pro
tection of Almighty God, and those who have the super
intendence of them to His holy keeping." It was as if
spoken on the morrow of the day upon which he accept
ed his commission : the same diffidence, the same trust
in a power greater and higher than his own. The
plaudits that had but just now filled his ears at every
stage of his long journey from New York seemed utterly
forgotten ; he seemed not to know how his fellow coun
trymen had made of him an idol and a hero ; his simplic
ity was once again his authentic badge of genuineness.
He knew, it would seem, no other way in which to act.
A little child remembered afterwards how he had prayed
at her father's house upon the eve of battle ; how he had
taken scripture out of Joshua, and had cried, " The Lord
God of gods, the Lord God of gods, He knoweth, and
Israel he shall know ; if it be in rebellion, or if in trans
gression against the Lord (save us not this day)." There
was here the same note of solemnity and of self-forget
ful devotion, as if duty and honor were alike inevitable.

228 GEORGE WASHINGTON

On Christmas Eve, 1783, he was once more at Mount
Vernon, to resume the life he loved more than victory
and power. He had a zest for the means and the labor
of succeeding, but not for the mere content of success.
He put the Eevolution behind him as he would have laid
aside a book that was read ; turned from it as quietly as
he had turned from receiving the surrender of Cornwal-
lis at Yorktown — interested in victory not as a pageant
and field of glory, but only as a means to an end. He
looked to find very sweet satisfaction in the peace which
war had earned, as sufficient a scope for his powers at
home as in the field. Once more he would be a Vir
ginian, and join his strength to his neighbors' in all the
tasks of good citizenship. He had seen nothing of the
old familiar places since that far-away spring of the
year 1775, when he had left his farming and his fox
hunting, amidst rumors of war, to attend the congress
which was to send him to Cambridge. He had halted
at Fredericksburg, indeed, with the Count de Rocham-
beau, two years ago, ere he followed his army from
York to its posts upon the Hudson. Mrs. Lewis, his
sister, had returned one day from visiting a neighbor in
the quiet town to look in astonishment upon an officer's
horses and attendants at her door, and had entered to
find her beloved brother stretched upon her own bed
within, sound asleep in his clothes, like a boy returned
from hunting. There had been a formal ball given, too,
in celebration of the victory, before the French officers
and the commander-in-chief left Fredericksburg to go
northward again, and Washington had had the joy of
entering the room in the face of the gay company with
his aged mother on his arm, not a whit bent for all her
seventy -four years, and as quiet as a queen at receiving

THE STRESS OF VICTORY

229

the homage of her son's comrades in arms. He had got
his imperious spirit of command from her. A servant
had told her that " Mars George " had put up at the tav
ern. "Go and tell George to come here instantly,"
she had commanded ; and he had come, masterful man
though he was. He had felt every old affection and
every old allegiance renew itself as he saw former neigh
bors crowd around him ; and that little glimpse of Vir
ginia had refreshed him like a tonic — deeply, and as if
it renewed his very nature, as only a silent man can
be refreshed. But a few days in Fredericksburg and
at Mount Yernon then had been only an incident of
campaigning, only a grateful pause on a march. Now
at last he had come back to keep his home and be a
neighbor again, as he had not been these nine years.

FIKST IN PEACE

CHAPTER IX

IT was not the same Virginia, nor even the same
home and neighborhood he had gone from, that Wash
ington came back to when the war was done. He had
left Mount Yernon in the care of Lund Washington, his
nephew, while the war lasted, and had not forgotten
amidst all his letter writing to send seasonable direc
tions and maintain a constant oversight upon the man
agement of his estate. It was part of his genius to find
time for everything ; and Mount Yernon had suffered
something less than the ordinary hazards and neglects
of war. It had suffered less upon one occasion, indeed,
than its proud owner could have found it in his heart
to wish. In the spring of 1781 several British vessels
had come pillaging within the Potomac, and the anx
ious Lund had regaled their officers with refreshments
from Mount Yernon to buy them off from mischief.
" It would have been a less painful circumstance to
me," his uncompromising uncle had written him, " to
have heard that, in consequence of your non-compliance
with their request, they had burnt my house and laid
the plantation in ruin. You ought to have considered
yourself as my representative." Kept though it was
from harm, however, the place had suffered many
things for lack of his personal care. There was some
part of the task to be done over again that had con-

234 GEORGE WASHINGTON

fronted him when he came to take possession of the
old plantation with his bride after the neglects of the
French war.

But Virginia was more changed than Mount Yernon.
He had left it a colony, at odds with a royal Governor;
he returned to find it a State, with Benjamin Harrison,
that stout gentleman and good planter, for Governor,
by the free suffrages of his fellow Virginians. There
had been no radical break with the aristocratic tradi
tions of the past. Mr. Harrison's handsome seat at
Lower Brandon lay where the long reaches of the James
marked the oldest regions of Virginia's life upon broad,
half-feudal estates ; where there were good wine and
plate upon the table, and gentlemen kept old customs
bright and honored in the observance. But the face
of affairs had greatly changed, nevertheless. The ol<J
generation of statesmen had passed away, almost with
the colony, and a younger generation was in the saddle,
notwithstanding a gray-haired figure here and there.
Richard Bland had died in the year of the Declaration ;
Peyton Randolph had not lived to see it. Edmund
Pendleton, after presiding over Virginia's making as a
State, as chairman of her revolutionary Committee of
Safety, was now withdrawn from active affairs to the
bench, his fine figure marred by a fall from his horse,
his old power as an advocate transmuted into the cooler
talents of the judge. Patrick Henry, the ardent leader
of the Revolution, had been chosen the State's first
Governor, in the year of the Declaration of Indepen
dence ; three years later Thomas Jefferson had suc
ceeded him in the office, the philosophical radical of
times of change ; the choice of Mr. Harrison had but
completed the round of the new variety in affairs. Men

FIRST IN PEACE 235

who, like Richard Henry Lee, had counselled revolution
and the breaking of old bonds, were now in all things
at the front of the State's business ; and younger men,
of a force and power of origination equal to their own,
were pressing forward, as if to hurry a new generation
to the stage which had known nothing but indepen
dence and a free field for statesmanship. Among the
rest, James Madison, only a little more than ten years
out of college, but already done with serving his no
vitiate in the Congress of the Confederation, a pub
licist and leader in the Old Dominion at thirty-two.
Edmund Randolph, of the new generation of the com
monwealth's great family of lawyers, like his forebears
in gifts and spirit, was already received, at thirty, into
a place of influence among public men. John Marshall,
just turned of twenty-eight, but a veteran of the long
war none the less, having been at the thick of the fight
ing, a lieutenant and a captain among the Virginian
forces, from the time Dunmore was driven from Nor
folk till the eve of Yorktown, was, now that that duty
was done, a lawyer in quiet Fauquier, drawing to him
self the eyes of every man who had the perception to
note qualities of force and leadership. James Monroe
had come out of the war at twenty-five to go at once
into the public councils of his State, an equal among his
elders. Young men came forward upon every side to
take their part in the novel rush of affairs that followed
upon the heels of revolution.

Washington found himself no stranger in the new
State, for all it had grown of a sudden so unlike that
old community in which his own life had been formed.
He found a very royal welcome awaiting him at his1
home-coming. The old commonwealth loved a hero

236 GEORGE WASHINGTON

still as much as ever; was as loyal to him now as it
had been in the far-away days of the French war, when
Dinwiddie alone fretted against him ; received him
with every tribute of affection ; offered him gifts, and
loved him all the better for refusing them. But he
must have felt that a deep change had come upon his
life, none the less, and even upon his relations with his
old familiars and neighbors. He had gone away hon
ored indeed, and marked for responsible services among
his people — a Burgess as a matter of course, a notable
citizen, whose force no man who knew him could fail
to remark ; but by no means accounted greatest, even
among the men who gathered for the colony's business
at Williamsburg ; chosen only upon occasion for spe
cial services of action ; no debater or statesman, so far
as ordinary men could see ; too reserved to be popular
with the crowd, though it should like his frankness
and taking address, and go out of its way to see him
on horseback ; a man for his neighbors, who could know
him, not for the world, which he refused to court. But
the war had suddenly lifted him to the view of all
mankind ; had set him among the great captains of the
world ; had marked him a statesman in the midst of
affairs — more a statesman than a soldier even, men
must have thought who had read his letters or heard
them read in Congress, on the floor or in the commit
tee rooms ; had drawn to himself the admiration of the
very men he had been fighting, the very nation whose
dominion he had helped to cast off. He had come home
perhaps the most famous man of his day, and could
not take up the old life where he had left it off, much
as he wished to ; was obliged, in spite of himself, to
play a new part in affairs.

FIRST IN PEACE 237

For a few weeks, indeed, after he had reached Mount
Yernon, Nature herself assisted him to a little privacy
and real retirement. The winter (1783-4) was an un
commonly severe one. Snow lay piled, all but impas
sable, upon the roads ; frosts hardened all the country
against travel ; he could not get even to Fredericksburg
to see his aged mother ; and not many visitors, though
they were his near neighbors, could reach him at Mount
Yernon. " At length, my dear Marquis," he could write
to Lafayette in his security, "I am become a private
citizen on the banks of the Potomac ; and under the
shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from
the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life,
I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments
of which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame, the
statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are
spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his
own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe
was insufficient for us all, and the courtier, who is al
ways watching the countenance of his prince, can have
very little conception. I have not only retired from
all public employments, but I am retiring within myself.
. . . Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased
with all ; and this, my dear friend, being the order of
my march, I will move gently down the stream of time
until I sleep with my fathers." The simple gentleman
did not yet realize what the breaking up of the frosts
would bring.

With the spring the whole life of the world seemed to
come pouring in upon him. Men of note everywhere
pressed their correspondence upon him ; no stranger
visited America but thought first of Mount Yernon in
planning where he should go and what he should see;

238 GEORGE WASHINGTON

new friends and old sat every day at his table ; a year
and a half had gone by since his home-coming before he
could note in his diary (June 30th, 1785) : " Dined with
only Mrs. Washington, which, I believe, is the first in
stance of it since my retirement from public life" — for
some visitors had broken their way even through the
winter roads. Authors sent him what they wrote ; in
ventors submitted their ideas and models to him ; every
thing that was being said, everything that was being
done, seemed to find its way, if nowhere else, to Mount
Yernon — till those who knew his occupations could
speak of Washington, very justly, as " the focus of polit
ical intelligence for the New World." He would not
alter his way of living even in the face of such over
whelming interruptions. His guests saw him for a lit
tle after dinner, and once and again, it might be, in the
evening also ; but he kept to his business throughout
all the working hours of the day ; was at his desk even
before breakfast, and after breakfast was always early
in the saddle and off to his farms.

Only at table did he play the host, lingering over the
wine to give and call for toasts and relax in genial con
versation, losing, as the months passed by, some of the
deep gravity that had settled upon him in the camp,
and showing once more an enjoying relish for " a pleas
ant story, an unaffected sally of wit, or a burlesque de
scription," as in the old days after hunting. Strangers
were often in awe of him. It did not encourage talk in
those who had little to say to sit in the presence of a
man who so looked his greatness in the very proportions
of his strong figure even, and whose grave and steady
eyes so challenged the significance of what was said.
Young people would leave off dancing and romping

• I

** '••-*»*a**r

WASHINGTON IN THE GARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON

FIRST IN PEACE 239

when he came into the room, and force him to with
draw, and peep at the fun from without the door, unob
served. It 'was only among his intimates that he was
suffered and taken to be the simple, straightforward,
sympathizing man he was, exciting, not awe, but only a
warm and affectionate allegiance. " The General, with
a few glasses of champagne, got quite merry," a young
Englishman could report who had had the good luck
to be introduced by Richard Henry Lee, "and, being
with his intimate friends, laughed and talked a good
deal."

As much as he could, he resumed the old life, and the
thoughts and pastimes that had gone with it. Once
more he became the familiar of his hounds at the ken
nels, and followed them as often as might be in the
hunt at sunrise. He asked but one thing of a horse, as
of old, "and that was to go along. He ridiculed the
idea that he could be unhorsed, provided the animal
kept on his legs." The two little children, a tiny boy
and a romping, mischievous lassie, not much bigger,
whom he had adopted at Jack Custis's death-bed, took
strong hold upon his heart, and grew slowly to an inti
macy with him such as few ventured to claim any longer
amidst those busy days in the guest-crowded house. It
seemed to Lafayette a very engaging picture when he
saw Washington and the little toddling boy together—
" a very little gentleman with a feather in his hat, hold
ing fast to one finger of the good General's remarkable
hand, which (so large that hand!)" was all the tiny fel
low could manage. These children took Washington
back more completely than anything else to the old
days when he had brought his bride home with her own
little ones. He felt those days come back, too, when he

240 GEORGE WASHINGTON

was on his horse in the open, going the round of good
twelve miles and more that carried him to all the quar
ters of his plantation.

Once more he was the thorough farmer, ransacking
books, when men and his own observation failed him,
to come at the best methods of cultivation. Once more
he took daily account of the character of his slaves and
servants, and of the progress of their work, talking with
them when he could, and gaining a personal mastery
over them. Contracts for work he drew up with his
own hand, with a minuteness and particularity which
were sometimes whimsical and shot through with a
gleam of grim humor. He agreed with Philip Barter
that if he would serve him faithfully as gardener and
keep sober at all other times, he would allow him " four
dollars at Christmas, with which to be drunk four days
and four nights ; two dollars at Easter, to effect the
same purpose ; two dollars at Whitsuntide, to be drunk
for two days ; a dram in the- morning, and a drink of
grog at dinner, at noon"; and the contract was drawn,
signed, and witnessed with all formality. Philip no
doubt found short shrift of consideration from his
thorough -going master if there was any drunkenness
in the garden beyond the limit of the eight days nomi
nated in the bond, and found the contract no jest in the
end, for "Washington had small patience and no soft
words for a breach of agreement, whatever its kind.
He would help men in distress with a generosity and
wise choice of means which few took the pains to exer
cise, but he had only sharp rebuke for carelessness or
neglect or any slackness in the performance of a duty.
Men who had cheated or sought to impose upon him
deemed him harsh and called him a hard master, so

WASHINGTON BRINGING HIS MOTHER INTO THE BALL-ROOM,
FREDERICKSBURG

FIRST IN PEACE 241

sharply did they smart after he had reckoned with
them. He exacted the uttermost farthing. But he
spent it, with the other hand, to relieve genuine suffer
ing and real want, though it were deserved and the fruit
of a crying fault. In his home dealings, as in every
thing else, his mind kept that trait by which men had
been awed in the camp — that trick, as if of Fate, of
letting every act come at its consequences and its full
punishment or reward, as if he but presided at a process
which was just Nature's own. When ha succored dis
tress, he did it in pity, not in justice — not excusing fault,
but giving leave to mercy. If he urged the government
to pension and reward the soldiers of the war, who had
only done their duty, he himself set an example. There
were black pensioners not a few about his own home
stead. Bishop, his old body-servant, lived like a retired
gentleman in his cottage there; even Nelson, the good
sorrel who had borne him so bravely in the field till
Yorktown, now went forever unsaddled, free in his own
pasture.

But, much as he loved his home and courted retire
ment amidst the duties of a planter, the old life would
not come back, was gone forever. He was too famous,
and there was an end on 't. He could not go abroad
without drawing crowds about him. If he attended
service on a Sunday away from home, though it were in
never so quiet a parish, the very walls of the church
groaned threateningly under the unaccustomed weight
of people gathered in the galleries and packed upon the
floor to see the hero of the Revolution. Not even a ride
into the far west, to view his lands and pull together
his neglected business on the Ohio, was long enough to
take him beyond the reach of public affairs. On the

16

242 GEORGE WASHINGTON

1st of September, 1784, with Dr. Craik for company, he
set out on horseback to go by Braddock's road again
into the west. For nearly five weeks he was deep in
the wilderness, riding close upon seven hundred miles
through the forested mountains, and along the remote
courses of the long rivers that ran into the Mississippi ;
camping out as in the old days when he was a surveyor
and a soldier in his 'prenticeship in these very wilds ; re
newing his zest for the rough life and the sudden advent
ures of the frontiersman. But, though he had come
upon his own business, it was the seat of a future em
pire he saw rather than his own acres scattered here
and there.

When last he had ridden the long stages from settle
ment to settlement and cabin to cabin in this far coun
try of the Ohio, he had been a Virginian and nothing
more, a colonial colonel merely, come to pick out lands
for his comrades and himself, their reward for serving
the crown against the French. A transformation had
been worked upon him since then. He had led the
armies of the whole country ; had been the chief instru
ment of a new nation in winning independence ; had
carried its affairs by his own counsels as no other man
had done ; had seen through all the watches of those
long campaigns the destinies and the hopes that were
at stake. Now he saw the crowding immigrants come
into the west with a new solicitude he had not felt be
fore. A new vision was in his thought. This western
country was now a " rising world," to be kept or lost,
husbanded or squandered, by the raw nation he had
helped put upon its feet. His thought was stretched at
last to a continental measure ; problems of statesman
ship that were national, questions of policy that had a

FIRST IN PEACE 243

scope great as schemes of empire, stood foremost in his
view. He returned home more engrossed than ever by
interests not his own, but central to public affairs, and
of the very stuff of politics.

And so not the letters merely which poured in with
every mail, not only his host of visitors, great and small
— the Governor of the State, the President of Congress,
foreign noblemen, soldiers, diplomatists, travellers,
neighbors, friends, acquaintances, intruders — but his
own unbidden thoughts as well, and the very sugges
tions of his own interest as a citizen and land-owner,
drew him from his dreams of retirement and forced him
upon the open stage again. Even hunting ceased be
fore many seasons were out. The savage boar-hounds
which Lafayette had sent, in his kindness, from the Old
World, proved too fierce and great a breed for even the
sharp sport with the gray fox; the old hunting com
panions were gone — the Fairfaxes over sea ; Belvoir de
serted and burned ; George Mason too much engaged —
none but boys and strangers left to ride with. 'Twas
poor sport, after all, without the right sportsmen. It
must needs give way before a statesman's cares.

Upon his first home-coming, Washington had found it
hard to break himself of his habit of waking very early
in the morning with a sense of care concerning the af
fairs of the day, as if he were still in camp and in the
midst of public duties. Now a new sense of responsi
bility possessed him, and more and more gained ascen
dency over him. He began to feel a deep anxiety lest a
weak government should make independence little bet
ter than a reproach, and the country should fall into a
hopeless impotency. At first he had been very san
guine. " Notwithstanding the jealous and contracted

244 GEORGE WASHINGTON

temper which seems to prevail in some of the States,"
he wrote to Jonathan Trumbull in January, 1784, " yet
I cannot but hope and believe that the good sense of
the people will ultimately get the better of their preju
dices, and that order and sound policy, though they do
not come so soon as one could wish, will be produced
from the present unsettled and deranged state of public
affairs. . . . Everything, my dear Trumbull, will come
right at last, as we have often prophesied. My only
fear is that we shall lose a little reputation first." But
the more he observed the temper of the time, the more
uneasy he grew. " Like a young heir," he cried, " come
a little prematurely to a large inheritance, we shall
.wanton and run riot until we have brought our reputa
tion to the brink of ruin, and then, like him, shall have
to labor with the current of opinion, when compelled,
perhaps, to do what prudence and common policy point
ed out, as plain as any problem in Euclid, in the first
instance. ... I think we have opposed Great Britain,
and have arrived at the present state of peace and in
dependency, to very little purpose, if we cannot con
quer our own prejudices."

For the present he saw little that could be done be
yond holding up the hands of the Congress, and increas
ing, as it might prove possible to do so, the meagre
powers of the Confederation. " My political creed," he
said, " is to be wise in the choice of delegates, support
them like gentlemen while they are our representatives,
give them competent powers for all federal purposes,
support them in the due exercise thereof, and, lastly, to
compel them to close attendance in Congress during
their delegation." But his thoughts took wider scope as
the months passed ; and nothing quickened them more

FIRST IN PEACE 245

than his western trip. He saw how much of the future
travelled with those slow wagon trains of immigrants into
the west ; realized how they were leaving behind them
the rivers that ran to the old ports at the sea, and going
down into the valleys whose outlet was the great high
way of the Mississippi and the ports of the Gulf; how
the great ridge of the Alleghanies lay piled between
them and the older seats of settlement, with only here
and there a gap to let a road through, only here and
there two rivers lying close enough at their sources to
link the east with the west ; and the likelihood of a
separation between the two populations seemed to him
as obvious as the tilt of the mountains upon either
slope. " There is nothing which binds one country or
one State to another but interest," he said. " Without
this cement the western inhabitants, who more than
probably will be composed in a great degree of foreign
ers, can have no predilection for us, and a commercial
connection is the only tie we can have upon them."
" The western settlers," he declared, while still fresh
from the Ohio, "stand as it were upon a pivot. The
touch of a feather would turn them any way" — down
the Mississippi to join their interests with those of the
Spaniard, or back to the mountain roads and the head
waters of the eastern streams, to make for themselves
a new allegiance in the east. He was glad to see the
Spaniard so impolitic as to close the Mississippi against
the commerce offered him, and hoped that things might
stand so until there should have been " a little time al
lowed to open and make easy the ways between the At
lantic States and the western territory."

The opening of the upper reaches of the Potomac to
navigation had long been a favorite object with Wash-

246 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ington ; now it seemed nothing less than a necessity.
It had been part of the original scheme of the old Ohio
Company to use this means of winning a way for com
merce through the mountains. Steps had been taken
more than twenty years ago to act in the matter through
private subscription ; and active measures for securing
the necessary legislation from the Assemblies of Vir
ginia and Maryland were still in course when Washing
ton was called to Cambridge and revolution drew men's
minds imperatively off from the business. In 1770
Washington had written to Jefferson of the project as
a means of opening a channel for " the extensive trade
of a rising empire"; now the empire of which he had
had a vision was no longer Britain's, but America's
own, and it was become a matter of exigent political
necessity to keep that western country against estrange
ment, winning it by commerce and close sympathy to
join itself with the old colonies in building up a free
company of united States upon the great continent.

Already the west was astir for the formation of new
States. Virginia had taken the broad and national
view of her duty that Washington himself held, and
had ceded to the Confederation all her ancient claims
to the lands that lay northwest of the Ohio River, re
serving for herself only the fair region that stretched
south of that great stream, from her own mountains to
the Mississippi. North Carolina would have ceded her
western lands beyond the mountains also, had they been
empty and unclaimed, like the vast territory that lay
beyond the Ohio. But for many a year settlers had
been crossing the mountains into those fertile valleys,
and both this region and that which Virginia still kept
showed many a clearing now and many a rude hamlet

SAMPLE PIECES OP THK FAMOUS CINCINNATI DINNER SET

(Blue-and-white china, with a centre decoration, in bright colors, of an angel with a trumpet carrying the
insignia of the order)

HEMAINS OF A TEA SET BELONGING TO MRS. WASHINGTON

FIRST IN PEACE 247

where hardy frontiersmen were making a new home for
civilization. Rather than be handed over to Congress,
to be disposed of by an authority which no one else was
bound to obey, North Carolina's western settlers de
clared they would form a State of their own, and North
Carolina had to recall her gift of their lands to the
Confederation before their plans of defiance could be
checked and defeated. Virginia found her own fron
tiersmen no less ready to take the initiative in whatever
affair touched their interest. Spain offered the United
States trade at her ports, but refused to grant them the
use of the lower courses of the Mississippi, lest terri
torial aggression should be pushed too shrewdly in that
quarter ; and news reached the settlers beyond the
mountains, in the far counties of North Carolina and
Virginia, that Mr. Jay, the Confederation's Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, had proposed to the Congress to yield
the navigation of the Mississippi for a generation in ex
change for trade on the seas. They flatly declared they
would give themselves, and their lands too, into the
hands of England again rather than submit to be so
robbed, cramped, and deserted. The New England
States, on their part, threatened to withdraw from the
Confederation if treaties were to be made to wait upon
the assent of frontiersmen on the far Mississippi.

The situation was full of menace of no ordinary sort.
It could profit the Confederation little that great States
like Virginia and New York had grown magnanimous,
and were endowing the Confederation with vast gifts of
territory in the west, if such gifts were but to loosen
still further the already slackened bonds of the common
government, leaving settlers in the unclaimed lands no
allegiance they could respect. Without a national gov-

248 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ernment spirited and strong enough to frame policies
and command obedience, " we shall never establish a
national character or be considered as on a respectable
footing by the powers of Europe," Washington had said
from the first. He had made a most solemn appeal to
the States in his last circular to them, ere he resigned
his commission, urging them to strengthen the powers
of Congress, put faction and jealousy away, and make
sure of " an indissoluble union under one federal head."
" An option is still left to the United States of Amer
ica," he had told them, with all his plain and stately elo
quence ; " it is in their choice, and depends upon their
conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosper
ous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. This is
the time of their political probation." The hazards of
that probation had been a burden upon his heart through
all the toil of the Revolution, and now it seemed as if
the States must needs make every evil choice in meet
ing them. Congress could not so much as carry out the
provisions of the treaty of peace, for its commissioners
had made promises in the name of the States which the
States would not redeem. England consequently re
fused to keep her part of the agreement and relinquish
the western posts. She levied commercial war against
the country, besides, without fear of reprisal ; for Con
gress had no power to regulate trade, and the States
were too jealous of each other to .co-operate in this or
any other matter. English statesmen had consented to
give up the colonies, and recognize their independence
as a nation, rather than face an}^ longer the world in
arms ; but they now looked to see them presently drop
back into their hands again, out of sheer helplessness
and hopeless division in counsel; and there were observ-

FIRST IN PEACE 249

ant men in America who deemed the thing possible,
though it brought an intolerable fire into their blood to
think of it.

Other nations, too, were fast conceiving a like con
tempt for the Confederation. It was making no pro
vision for the payment of the vast sums of money it had
borrowed abroad, in France and Holland and Spain;
and it could not make any. It could only ask the
States for money, and must count itself fortunate to get
enough to pay even the interest on its debts. It was
this that foreign courts were finding out, that the Con
federation was a mere " government of supplication," as
Kandolph had dubbed it ; and its credit broke utterly
down. Frenchman and Spaniard alike would only have
laughed in contemptuous derision to see the whole fabric
go to pieces, and were beginning to interest themselves
with surmises as to what plunder it would afford. The
States which lay neighbors to each other were embroiled
in boundary disputes, and were fallen to levying duties
on each other's commerce. They were individually in
debt, besides, and were many of them resorting to issues
of irredeemable paper money to relieve themselves of
the inevitable taxation that must sooner or later pay
their reckonings. " We are either a united people, or
we are not so," cried Washington. "If the former, let
us in all matters of general concern act as a nation
which has a national character to support ; if we are
not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."
As the months passed it began to look as if the farce
might be turned into a tragedy.

The troubles of the country, though he filled his let
ters with them and wrung his heart for phrases of pro
test and persuasion that would tell effectually in the

250 GEORGE WASHINGTON

deep labor of working out the sufficient remedy of a
roused and united opinion, though he deemed them per
sonal to himself, and knew his own fame in danger to be
undone by them, did not break the steady self-possession
of Washington's life at Mount Yernon. " It's astonish
ing the packets of letters that daily come for him, from
all parts of the world," exclaimed an English visitor;
but it was not till he had struggled to keep pace with
his correspondence unassisted for a year and a half that
he employed a secretary to help him. "Letters of
friendship require no study," he wrote to General Knox ;
"the communications are easy, and allowances are ex
pected and made. This is not the case with those that
require researches, consideration, recollection, and the
de — 1 knows what to prevent error, and to answer the
ends for which they are written." He grew almost doc
ile, nevertheless, under the gratuitous tasks of courtesy
thrust upon him. His gallantry, bred in him since a
boy, the sense of duty to which he was born, his feel
ing that what he had done had in some sort committed
him to serve his countrymen and his friends every
where, though it were only in answering questions, dis
posed him to sacrifice his comfort and his privacy to
every one who had the slightest claim upon his atten
tion. He even found sitting for his portrait grow easy
at last. " In for a penny, in for a pound, is an old
adage," he laughed, writing to Francis Hopkinson. " I
am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil
that I am now altogether at their beck ; and sit ' like
Patience on a monument' whilst they are delineating
the lines of my face. ... At first I was as impatient at
the request, and as restive under the operation, as a colt
is of the saddle. The next time I submitted very re-

FIRST IN PEACE 251

luctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray-horse
moves more readily to his thill than I do to the painter's
chair." Besides the failure of the public credit, it con
cerned him to note the fact that, though he kept a hun
dred cows, he was obliged to buy butter for his innu
merable guests. He saw to it that there should be at
least a very definite and efficient government upon his
own estate, and, when there was need, put his own hand
to the work. He "often works with his men himself —
strips off his coat and labors like a common man," meas
ures with his own hands every bit of building or con
struction that is going forward, and " shows a great turn
for mechanics," one of his guests noted, amidst com
ments on his greatness and his gracious dignity. It was
such constancy and candor and spirit in living that took
the admiration of all men alike upon the instant; and
his neighbors every day saw here the same strenuous
and simple gentleman they had known before ever the
war began.

It was through the opening of the Potomac, after all
—the thing nearest his hand — that a way was found to
cure the country of its malady of weakness and disorder.
Washington had been chosen president of the Potomac
Company, that it might have the advantage both of his
name and of his capacity in affairs ; and he had gone
upon a tour of inspection, with the directors of the com
pany, to the falls of the river in the summer of 1785,
keeping steadily to the business he had come upon, and
insisting upon being in fact a private gentleman busy
with his own affairs, despite the efforts made everywhere
he went to see and to entertain him ; and it presently
became evident even to the least sanguine that the
long-talked-of work was really to be carried through. A

252 GEORGE WASHINGTON

visitor at Mount Yernon in the autumn of 1785 found
Washington " quite pleased at the idea of the Baltimore
merchants laughing at him, and saying it was a ridicu
lous plan, and would never succeed. They begin now,
says the General, to look a little serious about the mat
ter, as they know it must hurt their commerce amaz-
ingly."

The scheme had shown its real consequence in the
spring of that very year, when it brought commissioners
from the two States that lay upon the river together in
conference to devise plans of co-operation. Both Vir
ginia and Maryland had appointed commissioners, and
a meeting had been set for March, 1785, at Alexandria.
For some reason the Virginian commissioners were not
properly notified of the place and time of conference.
The meeting was held, nevertheless, a minority of the
Virginian commissioners being present ; and, as if to
give it more the air of a cordial conference of neigh
bors, Washington invited the representatives of both
States to adjourn from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.
There they sat, his guests, from Friday to Monday. He
was not formally of the commission ; but conference
was not confined to their formal sessions, and his coun
sel entered into their determinations. It was evident
that two States were not enough to decide the questions
submitted to them. Pennsylvania, at least, must be
consulted before the full line of trade they sought could
be drawn from the head - waters of the Ohio to the
head - waters of the Potomac ; and if three States
were to consult upon questions of trade which con
cerned the whole continent, why should not more be
invited, and the conference be made general? Such
was the train of suggestion, certainly, that ran in

FIRST IN PEACE 253

Washington's mind, and which the commissioners car
ried home with them. Every sign of the time served to
deepen its significance for Washington. Just before
quitting the army he had ridden upon a tour of inspec
tion into the valley of the Mohawk, where a natural
way, like this of the Potomac, ran from the northern
settlements into the west. He knew that the question
of joining the Potomac with the Ohio was but one
item of a policy which all the States must consider and
settle — nothing less than the policy which must make
them an empire or doom them to remain a weak and
petty confederacy.

The commissioners did not put all that they had
heard at Mount Yernon into their reports to their re
spective Assemblies. They recommended only that,
besides co-operating with each other and with Penn
sylvania in opening a wa}T to the western waters, Vir
ginia and Maryland should adopt a uniform system
of duties and of commercial regulations, and should es
tablish uniform rules regarding their currency. But
the Maryland Assembly itself went further. It pres
ently informed the Virginian Legislature that it had
not only adopted the measures recommended by the
commissioners, but thought it wise to do something
more. Delaware ought to be consulted, with a view to
carrying a straight watercourse, by canal, from Chesa
peake Bay to the Delaware River; and, since conference
could do no harm and bind nobody, it would be as well
to invite all the States to confer with them, for the
questions involved seemed far-reaching enough to justify
it, if not to make it necessary. Governor Bowdoin, of
Massachusetts, had that very year urged his Legislature
to invite a general convention of the States in the in-

254 GEORGE WASHINGTON

terest of trade. The whole country was in a tangle of
disagreement about granting to Congress the power to
lay imposts ; Gardoqui, it was rumored, was insisting,
for Spain, upon closing the Mississippi : 'twas evident
enough conference was needed. Every thoughtful man
might well pray that it would bring peace and accom
modation. When Maryland's suggestion was read in
the Virginian Assembly, there was prompt acquiescence.
Virginia asked all the States of the Union (January,
1786) to send delegates to a general conference to be
held at Annapolis on the first Monday in September, to
consider and recommend such additions to the powers
of Congress as might conduce to a better regulation of
trade. " There is more wickedness than ignorance in
the conduct of the States, or, in other words, in the
conduct of those who have too much influence in the
government of them," Washington wrote hotly to
Henry Lee, upon hearing to what lengths contempt of
the authority of Congress had been carried ; " and until
the curtain is withdrawn, and the private views and
selfish principles upon which these men act are exposed
to public notice, I have little hope of amendment with
out another convulsion." Perhaps the conference at
Annapolis would withdraw the curtain and give the
light leave to work a purification ; and he waited anx
iously for the issue.

But when the commissioners assembled they found
only five States represented — Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Maryland had
suddenly fallen indifferent, and had not appointed dele
gates. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and North Carolina had appointed delegates, but they
had not taken the trouble to come. Connecticut, South

FIRST IN PEACE 255

Carolina, and Georgia had ignored the call altogether.
The delegates who were in attendance, besides, had
come with only the most jealously restricted powers;
only New Jersey, in her great uneasiness at being
neighbor to the powerful States of New York and
Pennsylvania, had authorized -her representatives to
" consider how far a uniform system in their commercial
regulations and other important matters might be neces
sary to the common interest and permanent harmony
of the several States." The other delegates had no
such scope ; all deemed it futile to attempt their busi
ness in so small a convention ; and it was resolved to
make another opportunity. Alexander Hamilton, of
New York, drew up their address to the States, and in
it made bold to adopt New Jersey's hint, and ask for a
conference which should not merely consider questions
of trade, but also "devise such further provisions as
should appear to them necessary to render the constitu
tion of the federal government adequate to the exigen
cies of the Union." Hamilton held with Washington
for a national government. He had been born, and
bred as a lad, in the West Indies, and had never re
ceived the local pride of any colony-state into his blood.
He had served with the army, too, in close intimacy
with Washington, and, though twenty -five years his cap
tain's junior, had seen as clearly as he saw the deep
hazards of a nation's birth.

The Congress was indifferent, if not hostile, to the
measures which the address proposed ; and the States
would have acted on the call as slackly as before, had
not the winter brought with it something like a threat
of social revolution, and fairly startled them out of their
negligent humor. The central counties of Massachu-

256 GEORGE WASHINGTON

setts broke into violent rebellion, under one Shays, a
veteran of the Revolution — not to reform the govern
ment, but to rid themselves of it altogether; to shut
the courts and escape the payment of debts and taxes.
The insurgents worked their will for weeks together;
drove out the officers of the law, burned and plun
dered at pleasure through whole districts, living upon
the land like a hostile army, and were brought to a
reckoning at last only when a force thousands strong
had been levied against them. The contagion spread
to Vermont and New Hampshire ; and, even when
the outbreak had been crushed, the States concerned
were irresolute in the punishment of the leaders.
Khode Island declared her sympathy with the insur
gents ; Vermont offered them asylum ; Massachusetts
brought the leaders to trial and conviction only to par
don and set them free again. Congress dared do no
more than make covert preparation to check a general
rising. " You talk, my good sir," wrote Washington to
Henry Lee, in Congress, "of employing influence to
appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know
not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable,
that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders.
Influence is no government. Let us have one by which
our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let
us know the worst at once." It was an object-lesson
for the whole country ; the dullest and the most lethar
gic knew now what slack government and financial dis
order would produce. The States one and all — save
Rhode Island — bethought them of the convention called
to meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday in May,
1787, and delegates were appointed. Even Congress took
the lesson to heart, and gave its sanction to the conference.

FIRST IN PEACE 257

The Legislature of Virginia put Washington's name
at the head of its own list of delegates, and after his
name the names of Patrick Henry, Edmund Kandolph,
John Blair, James Madison, George Mason, and George
Wythe — the leading names of the State, no man could
doubt. But Washington hesitated. He had already de
clined to meet the Society of the Cincinnati in Phila
delphia about the same time, he said, and thought it
would be disrespectful to that body, to whom he owed
much, " to be there on any other occasion." He even
hinted a doubt whether the convention was constitu
tional, its avowed purposes being what they were, until
Congress tardily sanctioned it. His real reason his in
timate friends must have divined from the first. They
knew him better in such matters than he knew himself.
He not only loved his retirement ; he deemed himself
a soldier and man of action, and no statesman. The
floor of assemblies had never seemed to him his princi
pal sphere of duty. He had thought of staying away
from the House of Burgesses on private business twenty
years ago, when he knew that the Stamp Act was to be
debated. But it was not for the floor of the approach
ing convention that his friends wanted him ; they told
him from the first he must preside. He was known to
be in favor of giving the Confederation powers that
would make it a real government, and he thought that
enough ; but they wanted the whole country to see him
pledged to the actual work, and, when they had per
suaded him to attend, knew that they had at any rate
won the confidence of the people in their patriotic pur
pose. His mere presence would give them power.

Washington and the other Virginians were prompt
to be in Philadelphia on the day appointed, but only
17

258 GEORGE WASHINGTON

the Pennsylvania!! delegates were there to meet them.
They had to wait an anxious week before so many as
seven States were represented. Meanwhile, those who
gathered from day to day were nervous and appre
hensive, and there was talk of compromise and half
way measures, should the convention prove weak or
threaten to miscarry. They remembered for many a
long year afterwards how nobly Washington, " standing
self-collected in the midst of them," had uttered brave
counsels of wisdom in their rebuke. " It is too prob
able," he said, " that no plan we propose will be adopt
ed. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained.
If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves
disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work?
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest
can repair. The event is in the hand of God." It
was an utterance, they knew, not of statesmanship
merely, but of character ; and it was that character, if
anything could, that would win the people to their sup
port. When at last seven States were represented — a
quorum of the thirteen — an organization was effected,
and Washington unanimously chosen president of the
convention. He spoke, when led to the chair, " of the
novelty of the scene of business in which he was to act,
lamented his want of better qualifications, and claimed
the indulgence of the house towards the involuntary
errors which his inexperience might occasion"; but no
mere parliamentarian could have given that anxious
body such steadiness in business or such grave earnest
ness in counsel as it got from his presence and influence
in the chair. Five more States were in attendance be
fore deliberation was very far advanced ; but he had the
satisfaction to see his own friends lead upon the floor.

FIRST IN PEACE 259

It was the plan which Edmund Randolph proposed, for
his fellow Virginians, which the convention accepted as
a model to work from ; it was James Madison, that
young master of counsel, who guided the deliberations
from day to day, little as he showed his hand in the
work or seemed to put himself forward in debate. No
speeches came from the president ; only once or twice
did he break the decorum of his office to temper some
difference of opinion or facilitate some measure of ac
commodation. It was the 17th of September when the
convention at last broke up ; the 19th when the Consti
tution it had wrought out was published to the country.
All the slow summer through, Washington had kept
counsel with the rest as to the anxious work that was
going forward behind the closed doors of the long con
ference ; it was a grateful relief to be rid of the painful
strain, and he returned to Mount Yernon like one whose
part in the work was done.

" I never saw him so keen for anything in my life as
he is for the adoption of the new scheme of govern
ment," wrote a visitor at Mount Yernon to Jefferson ;
but he took no other part than his correspondence af
forded him in the agitation for its acceptance. Through
out all those long four months in Philadelphia he had
given his whole mind and energy to every process of
difficult counsel by which it had been wrought to com
pletion ; but he was no politician. Earnestly as he com
mended the plan to his friends, he took no public part
either in defence or in advocacy of it. He read not only
the Federalist papers, in which Hamilton and Madison
and Jay made their masterly plea for the adoption of
the Constitution, but also " every performance which
has been printed on the one side and the other on the

260 GEORGE WASHINGTON

great question," he said, so far as he was able to obtain
them ; and he felt as poignantly as any man the deep
excitement of the momentous contest. It disturbed him
keenly to find George Mason opposing the Constitution
— the dear friend from whom he had always accepted
counsel hitherto in public affairs — and Eichard Henry
Lee and Patrick Henry, too, in their passionate attach
ment to what they deemed the 'just sovereignty of Vir
ginia. He could turn away with all his old self-pos
session, nevertheless, to discuss questions of culture and
tillage, in the midst of the struggle, with Arthur Young
over sea, and to write very gallant compliments to the
Marquis de Chastellux on his marriage. " So your day
has at length come," he laughed. " I am glad of it with
all my heart and soul. It is quite good enough for you.
Now you are well served for coming to fight in favor of
the American rebels all the way across the Atlantic
Ocean, by catching that terrible contagion — domestic
felicity — which, like the small-pox or the plague, a man
can have only once in his life, because it commonly lasts
him (at least with us in America — I don't know how
you manage such matters in France) for his whole life
time."

Ten months of deep but quiet agitation — the forces
of opinion in close grapple — and the future seemed to
clear. The Constitution was adopted, only two States
dissenting. It had been a tense and stubborn fight : in
such States as Massachusetts and New York, the con
certed action of men at the centres of trade against the
instinctive dread of centralization or change in the re
gions that lay back from the rivers and the sea ; in States
like Virginia, where the mass of men waited to be led,
the leaders who had vision against those who had

FIRST IN PEACE 261

only the slow wisdom of caution and presentiment.
But, though she acted late in the business, and some
home-keeping spirits among even her greater men held
back, Virginia did not lose the place of initiative she
had had in all this weighty business of reform. Some
thing in her air or her life had given her in these latter
years an extraordinary breed of public men — men liber
ated from local prejudice, possessed of a vision and an
efficacy in affairs worthy of the best traditions of states
manship among the English race from which they were
sprung, capable of taking the long view, of seeing the
permanent lines of leadership upon great questions, and
shaping ordinary views to meet extraordinary ends.
Even Henry and Mason could take their discomfiture
gracefully, loyally, like men bred to free institutions;
and Washington had the deep satisfaction to see his
State come without hesitation to his view and hope.

The new Constitution made sure of, and a time set by
Congress for the elections and the organization of a new
government under it, the country turned as one man
to Washington to be the first President of the United
States. " We cannot, sir, do without you," cried Gov
ernor Johnson, of Maryland, " and I and thousands more
can explain to anybody but yourself why we cannot
do without you." To make any one else President, it
seemed to men everywhere, would be like crowning a
subject while the king was by. But Washington held
back, as he had held back from attending the Constitu
tional Convention. He doubted his civil capacity, called
himself an old man, said "it would be to forego repose
and domestic enjoyment for trouble, perhaps for public
obloquy." " The acceptance," he declared. " would be
attended with more diffidence and reluctance than I

262 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ever experienced before in my life." But he was not
permitted to decline. Hamilton told him that his at
tendance upon the Constitutional Convention must be
taken to h&ve pledged him in the view of the country to
take part also in the formation of the government. " In
a matter so essential to the well-being of society as the
prosperity of a newly instituted government," said the
great advocate, "a citizen of so much consequence as
yourself to its success has no option but to lend his ser
vices, if called for. Permit me to say it would be in
glorious, in such a situation, not to hazard the glory,
however great, which he might have previously ac
quired."

Washington of course yielded, like the simple-minded
gentleman and soldier he was, when it was 'made thus a
matter of duty. When the votes of the electors were
opened in the new Congress, and it was found that they
were one and all for him, he no longer doubted. He
did not know how to decline such a call, and turned
with all his old courage to the new task.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES

CHAPTER X

THE members of the new Congress were so laggard
in coming together that it was the 6th of April, 1789,
before both Houses could count a quorum, though the
4th of March had been appointed the day for their
convening. Their first business was the opening and
counting of the electoral votes ; and on the 7th Charles
Thomson, the faithful and sedulous gentleman who had
been clerk of every congress since that first one in the
old colonial days fifteen years ago, got away on his
long ride to Mount Yernon to notify Washington of his
election. Affairs waited upon the issue of his errand.
Washington had for long known what was coming, and
was ready and resolute, as of old. There had been no
formal nominations for the presidency, and the votes
of the electors had lain under seal till the new Congress
met and found a quorum ; but it was an open secret
who had been chosen President, and Washington had
made up his mind what to do. Mr. Thomson reached
Mount Yernon on the 14th, and found Washington
ready to obey his summons at once. He waited only
for a hasty ride to Fredericksburg to bid his aged
mother farewell. She was not tender in the parting.
Her last days had come, and she had set herself to bear
with grim resolution the fatal disease that had long
been upon her. She had never been tender, and these

266 GEORGE WASHINGTON

latter days had added their touch of hardness. But it
was a tonic to her son to take her farewell, none the
less ; to hear her once more bid him God-speed, and
once more command him, as she did, to his duty. On
the morning of the 16th he took the northern road
again, as so often before, and pressed forward on the
way for New York.

The setting out was made with a very heavy heart;
for duty had never seemed to him so unattractive as it
seemed now, and his diffidence had never been so dis
tressing. " For myself the delay may be compared to
a reprieve," he had written to Knox, when he learned
how slow Congress was in coming together, " for in
confidence I tell you that my movements to the chair
of government will be accompanied by feelings not
unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of
execution." When the day for his departure came, his
diary spoke the same heaviness of heart. " About ten
o'clock," he wrote, " I bade adieu to Mount Yernon, to
private life, and to domestic felicity ; and, with a mind
oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations
than I have words to express, set out for New York."
He did not doubt that he was doing right ; he doubted
his capacity in civil affairs, and loved the sweet retire
ment and the free life he was leaving behind him.
Grief and foreboding did not in the least relax his
proud energy and promptness in action. He was not
a whit the less resolute to attempt this new role, and
stretch his powers to the uttermost to play it in master
ful fashion. He was only wistful and full of a sort
of manly sadness ; lacking not resolution, but only
alacrity.

He had hoped to the last that he would be suffered

THOMSON, THE CLEHK OF CONGRESS, ANNOUNCING TO WASHINGTON,
AT MOUNT VERNON, HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 267

to spend the rest of his days at Mount Yernon; he
knew the place must lack efficient keeping, and fall
once more out of repair under hired overseers ; he feared
his strength would be spent and his last years come ere
he could return to look to it and enjoy it himself again,
lie had but just now been obliged to borrow a round
sum of money to meet pressing obligations ; and the
expenses of this very journey had made it necessary to
add a full hundred pounds to the new debt. If the
estate brought money so slowly in while he farmed
it, he must count upon its doing even less while he was
away ; and yet he had determined to accept no salary
as President, but only his necessary expenses while in
the discharge of his official duties, as in the old days
of the war. It had brought distressing perplexities
upon him to be thus drawn from his private business
to serve the nation. Private cares passed off, no doubt,
and were forgotten as the journey lengthened. But
the other anxiety, how he should succeed in this large
business of statesmanship to which he had been called,
did not pass off; the incidents of that memorable ride
only served to heighten it. When he had ridden to
Cambridge that anxious summer of 1775, he had been
hailed by cheering crowds upon the way, who admired
the fine figure he made, and shouted for the cause he
was destined to lead ; but he knew himself a soldier
then, was but forty-three, and did not fear to find his
duty uncongenial. The people had loved him and had
thronged about him with looks and words it had quick
ened his heart to see and hear as he made his way from
New York to Annapolis to resign his commission but
six years ago ; but that was upon the morrow of a task
accomplished, and the plaudits he heard upon the way

268 GEORGE WASHINGTON

were but greetings to speed him the more happily
homeward. Things stood very differently now. Though
he felt himself grown old, he had come out to meet a
.hope he could not share, and it struck a subtle pain to
his heart that the people should so trust him — should
give him so royal a progress as he fared on his way to
attempt an untried task.

No king in days of kings' divinity could have looked
for so heartfelt a welcome to his throne as this modest
gentleman got to the office he feared to take. Not only
were there civil fete and military parade at every stage
of the journey ; there was everywhere, besides, a run
ning together from all the country roundabout of peo
ple who bore themselves not as mere sight-seers, but as
if they had come out of love for the man they were to
see pass by. It was not their numbers but their manner
that struck their hero with a new sense of responsibil
ity : their earnest gaze, their unpremeditated cries of
welcome, their simple joy to see the new government
put into the hands of a man they perfectly trusted. He
was to be their guarantee of its good faith, of its respect
for law and its devotion to liberty ; and they made him
know their hope and their confidence in the very tone of
their greeting. There was the manifest touch of love in
the reception everywhere prepared for him. Refined
women broke their reserve to greet him in the open
road ; put their young daughters forward, in their en
thusiasm, to strew roses before him in the way ; brought
tears to his eyes by the very artlessness of their affec
tion. When at last the triumphal journey was ended,
the display of every previous stage capped and outdone
by the fine pageant of his escort of boats from Newark
and of his reception at the ferry stairs in New York,

-—

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 269

the demonstration seemed almost more than he could
bear. " The display of boats which attended and joined
us," he confessed to his diary, "the decorations of the
ships, the roar of the cannon, and the loud acclamations
of the people which rent the skies as I walked along
the streets, filled my mind with sensations as painful
as they are pleasant"; for his fears foreboded scenes
the opposite of these, when he should have shown him
self unable to fulfil the hopes which were the burden of
all the present joy.

It was the 27th of April when he reached New York.
Notwithstanding his executive fashion of making haste,
the rising of the country to bid him God-speed had kept
him four days longer on the way than Mr. Thomson had
taken to carry the summons to Mount Yern on. Three
days more elapsed before Congress had completed its
preparations for his inauguration. On the 30th of April,
in the presence of a great concourse of people, who first
broke into wild cheers at sight of him, and then fell si
lent again upon the instant to see him so moved, Wash
ington stood face to face with the Chancellor of the
State upon the open balcony of the Federal Hall in Wall
Street, and took the oath of office. " Do you solemnly
swear," asked Livingston, " that you will faithfully exe
cute the office of President of the United States, and
will, to the best of your ability, preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States ?" " I do
solemnly swear," replied Washington, " that I will faith
fully execute the office of President of the United States,
and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States," and then,
bending to kiss the Bible held before him, bowed his
head and said " So help me God !" in tones no man could

270 GEORGE WASHINGTON

mistake, so deep was their thrill of feeling. " Long live
George Washington, President of the United States !"
'cried Livingston to the people ; and a great shout went
up with the booming of the cannon in the narrow
streets.

Washington was profoundly moved, and, with all his
extraordinary mastery of himself, could not hide his
agitation. It was a company of friends, the Senators
and Representatives who stood about him within the
Senate chamber as he read his address, after the taking
of the oath. Some very old friends were there — men
who had been with him in the first continental con
gress, men who had been his intimate correspondents
the long years through, men who were now his close
confidants and sworn supporters. Not many strangers
could crowd into the narrow hall ; and it was not mere
love of ceremony, but genuine and heartfelt respect,
that made the whole company stand while he read. He
visibly trembled, nevertheless, as he stood in their pres
ence, strong and steadfast man though he was, "and
several times could scarce make out to read " ; shifted
his manuscript uneasily from hand to hand ; gestured
with awkward effort ; let his voice fall almost inaudi
ble ; was every way unlike himself, except for the sim
ple majesty and sincerity that shone in him through it
all. His manner but gave emphasis, after all, to the
words he was reading. " The magnitude and difficulty
of the trust," he declared, " could not but overwhelm
with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endow
ments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil
administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his
own deficiencies " ; and no one there could look at him
and deem him insincere when he added, "All I dare

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 2*71

aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my
duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by
which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that, if
in executing this task I have been too much swayed by
a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the
confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too
little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination
for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error
will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and
its consequences be judged by my country with some
share of the partiality with which they originated."
His hearers knew how near the truth he struck when he
said, " The smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a
nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and
right which Heaven itself has ordained ; and the pres
ervation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of
the republican model of government, are justly consid
ered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experi
ment intrusted to the hands of the American people."
It was, no doubt, " a novelty in the history of society to
see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon
itself," as the people of America had done; "to see it
carefully examine the extent of the evil" into which dis
union and disorder had brought it ; " patiently wait for
two years until a remedy was discovered " ; and at last
voluntarily adopt a new order and government " with
out having wrung a tear or a drop of blood from man
kind." But Washington knew that the praise deserved
for such mastery and self-possession would be short
lived enough if the new government should fail or be
discredited. It was the overpowering thought that he
himself would be chiefly responsible for its success or

272 GEORGE WASHINGTON

failure that shook his nerves as he stood there at the
beginning of his task ; and no man of right sensibility
in that audience failed to like him the better and trust
him the more implicitly for his emotion. " It was a
very touching scene," wrote Fisher Ames, of Massa
chusetts. " It seemed to me an allegory in which
virtue was personified as addressing those whom she
would make her votaries. Her power over the heart
was never greater, and the illustration of her doctrine
by her own example was never more perfect." " I
feel how much I shall stand in need of the countenance
and aid of every friend to myself, of every friend to
the Revolution, and of every lover of good govern
ment," were Washington's words of appeal to Edward
Rutledge, of South Carolina ; and he never seemed
to his friends more attractive or more noble than
now.

The inauguration over, the streets fallen quiet again,
the legislative business of the Houses resumed, "Wash
ington regained his old self-possession, and turned to
master his new duties with a calm thoroughness of pur
pose which seemed at once to pass into the action of the
government itself. Perhaps it was true, as he thought,
that he had been no statesman hitherto; though those
who had known him would have declared themselves of
another mind. He had carried the affairs of the Con
federation upon his own shoulders, while the war lasted,
after a fashion the men of that time were not likely to
forget, so full of energy had he been, so provident and
capable upon every point of policy. His letters, too,
since the war ended, had shown his correspondents the
country over such an appreciation of the present, so
sure a forecast of the future, so masculine an under-

THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL MANSION, AT PEARL AND CHERRY
STREETS, NEW YORK

Ml fel fe

as s s

WASHINGTON MANSION, 190 MARKET STREET, PHILADELPHIA

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 273

standing of what waited to be done and of the means
at hand to do it, that they, at least, accounted him their
leader in peace no less than in war. But statesman
ship hitherto had been only incidental to his duties as a
soldier and a citizen. It had been only an accident of
the Revolution that he had had himself, oftentimes, to
supply the foresight and the capacity in action which
the halting congress lacked. He had had no experience
at all in actual civil administration. He did not know
his own abilities, or realize how rich his experience in
affairs had, in fact, been. He went about his new tasks
with diffidence, therefore, but with the full - pulsed
heartiness, too, of the man who thoroughly trusts him
self, for the capacity at any rate of taking pains.
Statesmanship was now his duty — his whole duty — and
it was his purpose to understand and execute the office
of President as he had understood and administered the
office of General.

He knew what need there was for caution. This was
to be, " in the first instance, in a considerable degree, a
government of accommodation as well as a government
of laws. Much was to be done by prudence, much by
conciliation, much by firmness." "I walk," he said,
" on untrodden ground. There is scarcely an action the
motive of which may not be subjected to a double in
terpretation. There is scarcely any part of my conduct
which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent."
But, though he sought a prudent course, he had no mind
to be timid ; though he asked advice, he meant to be
his own master.

Washington had, no doubt, a more precise understand
ing of what the new government must be made to
mean than any other man living, except, perhaps, Ham-
is

274 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ilton and Madison, the men whom he most consulted.
The Confederation had died in contempt, despised for
its want of dignity and power. The new government
must deserve and get pre-eminent standing from the
first. Its policy must make the States a nation, must
stir the people out of their pettiness as colonists and
provincials, and give them a national character and
spirit. It was not a government only that was to be
created, but the definite body of opinion also which
should sustain and perfect it. It must be made worth
believing in, and the best spirits of the country must be
rallied to its support. It was not the question simply
of how strong the government should be. Its action
must, as Washington said, be mixed of firmness, pru
dence, and conciliation, if it would win liking and loyal
ty as well as respect. It must cultivate tact as well as
eschew weakness; must win as well as compel obedience.
It was of the first consequence to the country, there
fore, that the man it had chosen to preside in this deli
cate business of establishing a government which should
be vigorous without being overbearing was a thorough
bred gentleman, whose instincts would carry him a
great way towards the solution of many a nice question
of conduct. While he waited to be made President he
called upon every Senator and Representative then in
attendance upon Congress, with the purpose to show
them upon how cordial and natural a basis of personal
acquaintance he wished, for his part, to see the govern
ment conducted ; but, the oath of office once taken, he
was no longer a simple citizen, as he had been during
those two days of waiting; the dignity of the govern
ment had come into his keeping with the office. Hence
forth he would pay no more, calls, accept no in vita-

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 275

tions. On a day fixed he would receive calls ; and be
would show himself once a week at Mrs. Washington's
general receptions. He would invite persons of official
rank or marked distinction to his table at suitable in
tervals. There should be no pretence of seclusion, no
parade of inaccessibility. The President should be a
republican officer, the servant of the people. But he
would not be common. It should be known that
his office and authority were the first in the land.
Every proper outward form of dignity, ceremony, and
self-respect should be observed that might tell whole
somely upon the imagination of the people ; that might
be made to serve as a visible sign, which no man could
miss, that there was here no vestige of the old federal
authority, at which it had been the fashion to laugh,
but a real government, and that the greatest in the land.
It w^s not that the President was not to be seen by
anybody who had the curiosity to wish to see him.
Many a fine afternoon he was to be seen walking, an
unmistakable figure, upon the Battery, whither all per
sons of fashion in the town resorted for their daily
promenade, his secretaries walking behind him, but
otherwise unattended. Better still, he could be seen
almost any day on horseback, riding in his noble way
through the streets. People drew always aside to give
him passage wherever he went, whether he walked or
rode ; no doubt there was something in his air and bear
ing which seemed to expect them to do so; but their
respect had the alacrity of affection, and he would
have borne himself with a like proud figure in his own
Virginia. Some thought him stiff, but only the churl
ish could deem him unrepublican, so evident was it to
every candid man that it was not himself but his office

276 GEORGE WASHINGTON

he was exalting. His old passion for success was upon
him, and he meant that this government of which he
had been made the head should have prestige from the
first. Count de Moustier, the French Minister 'to the

/ United States, deeming America, no doubt, a protege of
France, claimed the right to deal directly with the Pres
ident in person, as if upon terms of familiar privilege,
when conducting his diplomatic business; but was
checked very promptly. It was not likely a man bred
in the proud school of Virginian country gentlemen
would miss so obvious a point of etiquette as this. To
demand intimacy was to intimate superiority, and Wash
ington's reply drew from the Count an instant apology.
That the United States had every reason to hold France
in loyal affection Washington gladly admitted with all
stately courtesy ; but affection became servility when it
lost self-respect, and France must approach the President
of the United States as every other country did, through
the properly constituted department. "If there are
rules of proceeding," he said, quietly, " which have
originated from the wisdom of statesmen, and are sanc
tioned by the common assent of nations, it would not
be prudent for a young state to dispense with them
altogether," — particularly a young state (his thought
added) which foreign states had despised and might
now try to patronize. These small matters would carry
an infinite weight of suggestion with them, as he knew,
and every suggestion that proceeded from the President

v should speak of dignity and independence.

For the first few months of the new government's
life these small matters that marked its temper and its
self-respect were of as much consequence as its laws or
its efficient organization for the tasks of actual adminis-

WASHINGTON

(After a paiuting by Edward Savage)

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 277

tration. The country evidently looked to Washington
to set the tone and show what manner of government
it was to have. Congress, though diligent and purpose
ful enough, could linger, meanwhile, the whole summer
through upon its task of framing the laws necessary for
the erection and organization of Departments of State,
for Foreign Affairs, of the Treasury, and of War, and
the creation of the office of Attorney-General — a simple
administrative structure to suffice for the present. In
the interval the treasury board of the Confederation and
its secretaries of war and foreign affairs were continued
in service, and the President found time to digest the
business of the several departments preparatory to their
reorganization. He sent for all the papers concerning
their transactions since the treaty of peace of 1783, and
mastered their contents after his own thorough fashion,
making copious notes and abstracts as he read.

He had been scarcely six weeks in office when he was
stricken with a sharp illness. A malignant tumor in
his thigh seemed to his physicians for a time to threaten
mortification. It was three weeks before he could take
the air again, stretched painfully at length in his coach ;
even his stalwart strength was slow to rally from the
draught made upon it by the disease, and its cure with
the knife. There was deep anxiety for a little among
those who knew, so likely did it seem that the life of
the government was staked upon his life. He himself
had* looked very calmly into the doctor's troubled face,
and had bidden him tell him the worst with that placid
firmness that always came to him in moments of dan
ger. " I am not afraid to die," he said. " Whether to
night or twenty years hence makes no difference. I
know that I am in the hands of a good Providence." A

278 GEORGE WASHINGTON

chain had been stretched across the street in front of
the house where he lay, to check the noisy traffic that
might have disturbed him more deeply in his fever.
But the government had not stood still the while. He
had steadily attended to important matters as he could.
JTwas scarcely necessary he should be out of bed and
abroad again to make all who handled affairs feel his
mastery ; and by the time the summer was ended that
mastery was founded upon knowledge. He understood
the affairs of the new government, as of the old, better
than any other man ; knew the tasks that waited to be
attempted, the questions that waited to be answered,
the difficulties that awaited solution, and the means at
hand for solving them, with a grasp and thoroughness
such as made it impossible henceforth that any man
who might be called to serve with him in executive
business, of whatever capacity in affairs, should be more
than his counsellor. He had made himself once for all
head and master of the government.

By the end of September (1789) Congress had com
pleted its work of organization and Washington had
drawn his permanent advisers about him. The federal
courts, too, had been erected and given definitive juris
diction. The new government had taken distinct shape,
and was ready to digest its business in detail. Wash
ington chose Alexander Hamilton to be Secretary of the
Treasury, Henry Knox to be Secretary of War, Thomas
Jefferson Secretary of State, and Edmund Randolph
Attorney - General — young men all, except Jefferson,
and he was but forty-six.

The fate of the government was certain to turn, first
of all, upon questions of finance. It was hopeless pov
erty that had brought the Confederation into deep dis-

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 279

grace ; the new government had inherited from it noth
ing but a great debt ; and the first test of character to
which the new plan in affairs would be put, whether at
home or abroad, was the test of its ability to sustain
its financial credit with businesslike thoroughness and
statesmanlike wisdom. Alexander Hamilton was only
thirty-two years old. He had been a spirited and capa
ble soldier and an astute and eloquent advocate ; but
he had not had a day's experience in the administration
of a great governmental department, and had never
handled — so far as men knew, had never studied — ques
tions of public finance. Washington chose him, never
theless, without hesitation, for what must certainly turn
out to be the most critical post in his administration.
No man saw more clearly than Washington did how
large a capacity for statesmanship Hamilton had shown
in his masterly papers in advocacy of the Constitution.
He had known Hamilton, moreover, through all the
quick years that had brought him from precocious
youth to wise maturity ; had read his letters and felt
the singular power that moved in them ; and was ready
to trust him with whatever task he would consent to
assume.

Henry Knox, that gallant officer of the Eevolution,
had been already four years Secretary of War for the
Confederation. In appointing him to the same office
under the new Constitution, Washington was but re
taining a man whom he loved and to whom he had for
long been accustomed to look for friendship and coun
sel. He chose Thomas Jefferson to handle the delicate
questions of foreign affairs which must press upon the
young state because, John Adams being Vice-President,
there was no other man of equal gifts available who had

280 GEORGE WASHINGTON

had so large an experience in the field of diplomacy.
Again and again Jefferson had been chosen for foreign
missions under the Confederation ; he was American
Minister to France when Washington's summons called
him to the Secretaryship of State ; and he came of that
race of Virginian statesmen from whom Washington
might reasonably count upon receiving a support
touched with personal loyalty. Richard Henry Lee,
Patrick Henry, and George Mason were home-keeping
spirits, and doubted of the success of the new govern
ment ; but Jefferson, though he had looked upon its
making from across the sea, approved, and was ready
to lend his aid to its successful establishment. In ap
pointing Edmund Randolph to be Attorney - General,
Washington was but choosing a brilliant young man
whom he loved out of a great family of lawyers who
had held a sort of primacy at the bar in Virginia ever
since he could remember — almost ever since she had
been called the Old Dominion. Knox was thirty-nine,
Edmund Randolph thirty-six ; but if Washington chose
young men to be his comrades and guides in counsel, it
was but another capital proof of his own mastery in af
fairs. Himself a natural leader, he recognized the like
gift and capacity in others, even when fortune had not
yet disclosed or brought them to the test.

It was hard, m filling even the greater offices, to find
men of eminence who were willing to leave the service
of their States or the security and ease of private life to
try the untrodden paths of federal government. The
States were old and secure — so men thought — the fed
eral government was new and an experiment. The
stronger sort of men, particularly amongst those bred
to the law, showed, many of them, a great reluctance

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 281

to identify themselves with new institutions set up but
live or six months ago ; and Washington, though he
meant to make every liberal allowance for differences of
opinion, would invite no man to stand with him in the
new service who did not thoroughly believe in it. He
was careful to seek out six of the best lawyers to be had
in the country when he made up the Supreme Court,
and to choose them from as many States — John Jay, of
New York, to be chief justice ; John Rutledge, of South
Carolina ; "William Cushing, of Massachusetts ; John
Blair, of Virginia ; James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and
R. H. Harrison, of Maryland — for he knew that the
government must draw its strength from the men who
administered it, and that the common run, of people
must learn to respect it in the persons of its officers.
But he was equally careful to find out in advance of
every appointment what the man whom he wished to
ask thought of the new government and wished its
future to be. Many to whom he offered appointment
declined ; minor offices seemed almost to go a-begging
amongst men of assured position such as it was his ob
ject to secure. It needed all the tact and patience he
could command to draw about him a body of men such
as the country must look up to and revere. His letters
again went abroad by the hundred, as so often before,
to persuade men to their duty, build a bulwark of right
opinion round about the government, make his purposes
clear and his plans effective. He would spare no pains
to make the government both great and permanent.

In October, 1T89, his principal appointments all made,
the government in full operation, and affairs standing
still till Congress should meet again, he went upon a
four weeks' tour through the eastern States, to put the

282 GEORGE WASHINGTON

people in mind there, by his own presence, of the ex
istence and dignity of the federal government, and to
make trial of their feeling towards it. They received
him with cordial enthusiasm, for he was secure of their
love and admiration ; and he had once more a royal
progress from place to place all the way to far New
Hampshire and back again. He studiously contrived to
make it everywhere felt, nevertheless, by every turn of
ceremonial and behavior, that he had come, not as the
hero of the Revolution, but as the President of the
United States. At Boston Governor Hancock sought
by cordial notes and pleas of illness to force Washing
ton to waive the courtesy of a first call from him, and
so give the executive of Massachusetts precedence, if
only for old friendship's sake. But Washington would
not be so defeated of his errand ; forced the perturbed
old patriot to come to him, swathed as he was in
flannels and borne upon men's shoulders up the stairs,
received him with grim courtesy, and satisfied the gos
sips of the town once and for all that precedence be
longed to the federal government — at any rate, so long
as George Washington was President. Having seen
him and feted him, the eastern towns had seen and
done homage to the new authority set over them.
Washington was satisfied, and returned with a notice
able accession of spirits to the serious work of federal
administration.

No man stood closer to him in his purpose to
strengthen and give prestige to the government than
Hamilton ; and no man was able to discover the means
with a surer genius. Hamilton knew who the well-
wishers of the new government were, whence its
strength was to be drawn, what it must do to approve

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 283

itself great and permanent, with an insight and thor
oughness Washington himself could not match : for
Hamilton knew Washington and the seats of his
strength in the country as that self-forgetful man him
self could not. He knew that it was the commercial
classes of the country — such men as he had himself
dwelt amongst at the great port at New York — who
were bound by self-interest to the new government,
which promised them a single policy in trade, in the
stead of policies a half -score; and that the men who
were standing to its support out of a reasoned prudence,
out of a high-minded desire to secure good government
and a place of consideration for their country amongst
the nations of the world, were individuals merely, to be
found only in small groups here and there, where a
special light shone in some minds. He knew that
Washington was loved most for his national character
and purpose amongst the observant middle classes of
substantial people in the richer counties of Pennsyl
vania, New Jersey, New York, and New England,
while his neighbors in the South loved him with an
individual affection only, and rather as their hero than
as their leader in affairs. He saw that the surest way
to get both popular support and international respect
was to give to the government at once and in the outset
a place of command in the business and material inter
ests of the country. Such a policy every man could
comprehend, and a great body of energetic and influ
ential men would certainly support ; that alone could
make the government seem real from the first — a veri
table power, not an influence and a shadow merely.

Here was a man, unquestionably, who had a quick
genius in affairs ; and Washington gave him leave and

284 GEORGE WASHINGTON

initiative with such sympathy and comprehension and
support as only a nature equally bold and equally orig
inative could have given. Hamilton's measures jumped
with Washington's purpose, ran with Washington's per
ception of national interests ; and they were with Wash
ington's aid put into execution with a promptness and
decision which must have surprised the friends of the
new government no less than it chagrined and alarmed
its enemies.

Having done its work of organization during its first
summer session, the Congress came together again, Jan
uary 4th, 1790, to attempt the formulation of a policy of
government, and Hamilton at once laid before it a " plan
for the settlement of the public debt" which he had
drawn and Washington had sanctioned. He proposed
that provision should be made for the payment of the
foreign debt in full — that of course ; that the domestic
debt, the despised promises and paper of the Confeder
ation, should be funded and paid ; and that the debts
contracted by the several States in the prosecution of
the war for independence should be assumed by the
general government as the debt of the nation. No one
could doubt that the foreign debt must be paid in full :
to that Congress agreed heartity and without hesitation.
But there was much in the rest of the plan to give pru
dent men pause. To pay off the paper of the Confed
eration would be to give to the speculators, who had
bought it up in the hope of just such a measure, a gra
tuity of many times what they had paid for it. To
assume the State debts would be taken to mean that
the States were bankrupt or delinquent, that the federal
government was to be their guardian and financial
providence, and that the capital of the country must

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 285

look only to the government of the nation, not to the
government of the States, for security and profitable
employment. This was nationalizing the government
with a vengeance, and was a plain bid, besides, to win
the moneyed class to its support. Members whose con
stituencies lay away from the centres of trade looked
askance at such measures, and deemed them no better
than handing the government over to the money lenders
of the towns. But boldness and energy prevailed, as
they had prevailed in the adoption of the Constitution
itself, and both measures were carried through the
Houses — the first at once, the second after a close and
doubtful struggle — by stratagem and barter.

Jefferson had been in France when Washington called
him to assume the headship of foreign affairs at home ;
had not reached New York on his return voyage until
December 23d, 1789 ; and did not take his place in Wash
ington's council till March 21st, 1790. All of Hamilton's
great plan had by that time passed Congress, except the
assumption of the State debts. Upon that question a
crisis had been reached. It had wrought Congress to
a dangerous heat of feeling. Members from the South,
where trade was not much astir and financial interests
told for less than local pride and sharp jealousy of a too
great central power, were set hotly against the measure ;
most of the Northern members were as hotly resolved
upon its adoption. Mr. Jefferson must have caught
echoes and rumors of the great debate as he lingered
at Monticello in order to adjust his private affairs be
fore entering upon his duties in the cabinet. The meas
ure had been lost at last in the House by the narrow
margin of two votes. But the minority were in no
humor to submit. They declined to transact any busi-

286 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ness at all till they should be yielded to in this matter.
There were even ugly threats to be heard that some
would withdraw from Congress and force a dissolution
of the Union rather than make concessions upon the
one side or the other.

It was to this pass that things had come when Mr.
Jefferson reached the seat of government ; and his
arrival gave Hamilton an opportunity to show how
consummate a politician he could be in support of his
statesmanship. The Southern members wanted the seat
of the federal government established within their
reach, upon the Potomac, where Congress might at least
be rid of importunate merchants and money lenders
clamoring at its doors, and of impracticable Quakers
with their petitions for the abolition of slavery ; and
were almost as hot at their failure to get their will in
that matter as the Northern men were to find them
selves defeated upon the question of the State debts.
Mr. Jefferson was fresh upon the field, was strong
among the Southern members, was not embroiled or
committed in the quarrel. Hamilton besought him to
intervene. The success of the government was at stake,
he said, and Mr. Jefferson could pluck it out of peril.
Might it not be that the Southern men would consent
to vote for the assumption of the State debts if the
Northern members would vote for a capital on the
Potomac ? The suggestion came as if upon the thought
of the moment, at a chance meeting on the street, as
the two men walked and talked of matters of the day ;
but it was very eloquently urged. Mr. Jefferson de
clared he was " really a stranger to the whole subject,"
but would be glad to lend what aid he could. Would
not Mr. Hamilton dine with him the next day, to meet

ELEA.NOR PARKE CUSTIS

(From the painting iu possession of General Custis Lee)

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 287

and confer with a few of the Southern members ? In
the genial air of the dinner-table the whole difficulty
was talked away. Two of the diners agreed to vote
for the assumption of the State debts if Mr. Hamilton
could secure a majority for a capital on the Potomac ;
and Congress presently ratified the bargain. There was
not a little astonishment at the sudden clearing of the
skies. The waters did not go down at once ; hints of
a scandal and of the shipwreck of a fair name or two
went about the town and spread to the country. But
Congress had come out of its angry tangle of factions,
calm had returned to the government, and Hamilton's
plan stood finished and complete. He had nationalized
the government as he wished.

It was this fact that most struck the eye of Jefferson
when he had settled to his work and had come to see
affairs steadily and as a whole at the seat of govern
ment. He saw Hamilton supreme in the cabinet and in
legislation — not because either the President or Con
gress was weak, but because Hamilton was a master in
his new field, and both Congress and the President had
accepted his leadership. It chagrined Jefferson deeply
to see that he had himself assisted at Hamilton's tri
umph, had himself made it complete, indeed. He could
not easily brook successful rivalry in leadership ; must
have expected to find himself, not Hamilton, preferred
in the counsels of a Virginian President ; was beyond
measure dismayed to see the administration already in
the hands, as it seemed, of a man just two months turned
of thirty-three. He began ere long to declare that he
had been "most ignorantly and innocently made to hold
the candle" to the sharp work of the Secretary of the
Treasury, having been " a stranger to the circum-

288 GEORGE WASHINGTON

stances." But it was not the circumstances of which
he had been ignorant ; it was the effect of what he had
done upon his own wish to play the chief role in the
new government. When he came to a calm scrutiny of
the matter, he did not like the assumption of the State
debts, and, what was more serious for a man of politi
cal ambition, it was bitterly distasteful to the very men
from whom he must look to draw a following when par
ties should form. He felt that he had been tricked ; he
knew that he had been outrun in the race for leadership.
"What he did not understand or know how to reckon
with was the place and purpose of Washington in the
government. Hamilton had been Washington's aide
and confidant when a lad of twenty, and knew in what
way those must rule who served under such a chief. He
knew that Washington must first be convinced and
won; did not for a moment doubt that the President
held the reins and was master; was aware that his own
plans had prospered both in the making and in the
adoption because the purpose they spoke was the purpose
Washington most cherished. Washington had adopted
the fiscal measures as his own ; Hamilton's strength
consisted in having his confidence and support. Jefferson
had slowly to discover that leadership in the cabinet was
to be had, not by winning a majority of the counsellors
who sat in it, but by winning Washington. That master
ful man asked counsel upon every question of conse
quence, but took none his own judgment did not ap
prove. He had chosen Hamilton because he knew his
views, Jefferson only because he knew his influence,
ability, and experience in affairs. When he did test
Jefferson's views he found them less to his liking than
he had expected.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 289

He had taken Jefferson direct from France, where for
five years he had been watching a revolution come on
apace, hurried from stage to stage, not by statesmen
who were masters in the art and practice of freedom,
like those who had presided in the counsels of America,
but by demagogues and philosophers rather; and the
subtle air of that age of change had crept into the
man's thought. He had come back a philosophical
radical rather than a statesman. He had yet to learn,
in the practical air of America, what plain and steady
policy must serve him to win hard-headed men to his
following; and Washington found him a guide who
needed watching. Foreign affairs, over which it was
Jefferson's duty to preside, began of a sudden to turn
upon the politics of France, where Jefferson's thought
was so much engaged. The year 1789, in which America
gained self-possession and set up a government soberly
planned to last, was the year in which France lost self-
possession and set out upon a wild quest for liberty
which was to cost her both her traditional polity and
all the hopes she had of a new one. In that year broke
the storm of the French revolution.

It was a dangerous infection that went abroad from
France in those first days of her ardor, and nowhere
was it more likely to spread than in America.

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven ! O times
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute took at once
The attraction of a country in romance !
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress, to assist the work
19

290 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Which then was going forward in her name !
Not favored spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moments might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown."

Was not this spirit that had sprung to such sudden
might in France the very spirit that had made America
free, her people sovereign, her government liberal as
men could dream of? Was not France now more than
ever America's friend and close ally against the world '(
'Twould be niggardly to grudge her aid and love to the
full in this day of her emulation of America's great ex
ample. The Bastile was down, tyranny at an end,
Lafayette the people's leader. The gallant Frenchman
himself could think of nothing more appropriate than to
send the great key of the fallen fortress to Washington.
But Washington's vision in affairs was not obscured.
He had not led revolutionary armies without learning
what revolution meant. "The revolution which has
been effected in France," he said, " is of so wonderful a
nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact " — his
calm tones ringing strangely amidst the enthusiastic
cries of the time. u I fear, though it has gone trium
phantly through the first paroxysm, it is not the last it
has to encounter before matters are finally settled. The
revolution is of too great a magnitude to be effected in
so short a space and with the loss of so little blood."
He hoped, but did not believe, that it would run its
course without fatal disorders ; and he meant, in any
case, to keep America from the infection. She was her
self but " in a convalescent state," as he said, after her
own great struggle. She was too observant still, more-

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 291

over, of European politics and opinion, like a province
rather than like a nation — inclined to take sides as if she
were still a child of the European family, who had flung
away from her mother England to cling in pique to an
ancient foe. Washington's first and almost single ob
ject, at every point of policy, was to make of the pro
vincial States of the Union a veritable nation, inde
pendent, at any rate, and ready to be great when its
growth should come, and its self-knowledge. " Every
true friend to this country," he said, at last, " must see
and feel that the policy of it is not to embroil ourselves
with any nation whatever, but to avoid their disputes
and their politics, and, if they will harass one another,
to avail ourselves of the neutral conduct we have adopt
ed. Twenty years' peace, with such an increase of pop
ulation and resources as we have a right to expect,
added to our remote situation from the jarring powers,
will in all probability enable us, in a just cause, to bid
defiance to any power on earth"; and such were his
thought and purpose from the first. " I want an Amer
ican character," he cried, "that the powers of Europe
may be convinced we act for ourselves, and not for
others" He had been given charge of a nation in the
making, and he meant it should form, under his care, an
independent character.

It was thus he proved himself no sentimentalist, but
a statesman. It was stuff of his character, this purpose
of independence. He would have played a like part of
self-respect for himself among his neighbors on the Yir-
ginian plantations ; and he could neither understand nor
tolerate the sentiment which made men like Jefferson
eager to fling themselves into European broils. Truly
this man was the first American, the men about him

292 GEORGE WASHINGTON

provincials merely, dependent still for their life and
thought upon the breath of the Old World, unless, like
Hamilton, they had been born and had stood aloof, or,
like Gouverneur Morris, had divined Europe in her own
capitals with clear, unenamoured eyes. Fortunately
affairs could be held steadily enough to a course of wise
neutrality and moderation at first, while France's revolu
tion wrought only its work of internal overthrow and
destruction ; and while things went thus opinion began
slowly to cool. 'Twas plain to be seen, as the months
went by, that the work being done in France bore no

real likeness at all to the revolution in America ; and
i

wise men began to see it for what it was, a social dis
temper, not a reformation of government — effective
enough as a purge, no doubt ; inevitable, perhaps ; a
cure of nature's own devising ; but by no means to be
taken part in by a people not likewise stricken, still
free to choose. At first Washington and a few men of
like insight stood almost alone in their cool self-posses
sion. Every man of generous spirit deemed it his mere
duty to extol the French, to join clubs after their man
ner, in the name of the rights of man, to speak every
where in praise of the revolution. But by the time it
became necessary to act — to declare the position and
policy of the nation's government towards France — a
sober second thought had come, and Washington's task
was a little simplified.

The crisis came with the year 1793. In 1792 France
took arms against her European neighbors, let her mobs
sack the King's palace, declared herself a republic, and
put her monarch on trial for his life. The opening days
of 1793 saw Louis dead upon the scaffold; England,
Holland, Spain, and the Empire joined with the alliance

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 293

against the fevered nation; and war as it were spread
suddenly to all the world. Would not America succor
her old ally ? Was there no compulsion in the name of
liberty ? Would she stand selfishly off to save herself
from danger? There was much in such a posture of
affairs to give pause even to imperative men like Wash
ington. Those who favored France seemed the spokes
men of the country. The thoughtful men, to whom
the real character of the great revolution over sea was
beginning to be made plain, were silent. It would have
required a veritable art of divination to distinguish the
real sentiment of the country, upon which, after all, the
general government must depend. " It is on great oc
casions only, and after time has been given for cool
and deliberate reflection," Washington held, " that the
real voice of the people can be known"; but a great
risk must be run in waiting to know it.

The measures already adopted by the government,
though well enough calculated to render it strong, had
not been equally well planned to make it popular. The
power to tax, so jealously withheld but the other day
from the Confederation, the new Congress had begun
promptly and confidently to exercise upon a great scale,
not only laying duties upon imports, the natural re
source of the general government, but also imposing
taxes upon distilled spirits, and so entering the fiscal
field of the States. Not only had the war debts of the
States been assumed, but a national bank had been set
up (1791), as if still further to make the general govern
ment sure of a complete mastery in the field of finance.
Jefferson and Randolph had fought the measure in the
cabinet, as many a moderate man had fought it in Con
gress, and Washington had withheld his signature from

294 GEORGE WASHINGTON

it till he should hear what they had to urge. But he
had sent their arguments to Hamilton for criticism, and
had accepted his answer in favor of the bank. Jeffer
son and Randolph had challenged the measure on the
ground that it was without warrant in the Constitu
tion, which nowhere gave Congress the right to create
corporations, fiscal or other. Hamilton replied that,
besides the powers explicitly enumerated, the Constitu
tion gave to Congress the power to pass any measure
" necessary and proper " for executing those set forth ;
that Congress was itself left to determine what might
thus seem necessary ; and that if it deemed the erection
of a bank a proper means of executing the undoubted
financial powers of the government, the constitutional
question was answered. By accepting such a view
"Washington sanctioned the whole doctrine of " implied
powers," which Jefferson deemed the very annulment
of a written and explicit constitution. No bounds,
Jefferson believed, could be set to the aggressive sweep
of congressional pretension if the two Houses were to
be given leave to do whatever they thought expedient
in exercising their in any case great and commanding
powers. No man could doubt, in the face of such meas
ures, what the spirit and purpose of Hamilton were, or
of the President whom Hamilton so strangely domi
nated.

Strong measures bred strong opposition. When the
first Congress came together there seemed to be no par
ties in the country. All men seemed agreed upon a fair
and spirited trial of the new Constitution. But an oppo
sition had begun to gather form before its two years'
term was out ; and in the second Congress party lines
began to grow definite — not for and against the Consti-

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 295

tution, but for and against an extravagant use of con
stitutional powers. There was still a majority for the
principal measures of the administration ; but the minor
ity had clearly begun to gather force both in the votes
and in the debates. The reaction was unmistakable.
Even Madison, Washington's stanch friend and inti
mate counsellor, who had at first been his spokesman in
the House, began to draw back — first doubted and
then opposed the policy of the Treasury. He had led
the opposition to the bank, and grew more and more
uneasy to note the course affairs were taking. It looked
as if the administration were determined of set purpose
to increase the expenses of the government, in order
that they might add to the loans,which were so accept
able to influential men of wealth, and double the taxes
which made the power of the government so real in the
eyes of the people. Steps were urged to create a navy ;
to develop an army with permanent organization and
equipment ; and the President insisted upon vigorous
action at the frontiers against the western Indians.
This was part of his cherished policy. It was his way
of fulfilling the vision that had long ago come to him,
of a nation spreading itself down the western slopes of
the mountains and over all the broad reaches of fertile
land that looked towards the Mississippi ; but to many a
member of Congress from the quiet settlements in the
east it looked like nothing better than a waste of men
and of treasure. The President seemed even a little too
imperious in the business: would sometimes come into
the Senate in no temper to brook delay in the consider
ation and adoption of what he proposed in such matters.
When things went wrong through the fault of the com
manders he had sent to the frontier, he stormed in a

296 GEORGE WASHINGTON

sudden fury, as sometimes in the old days of the war,
scorning soldiers who must needs blunder and fail. The
compulsion of his will grew often a little irksome to
the minority in Congress ; and the opposition slowly
pulled itself together as the months went by to concert
a definite policy of action.

Washington saw as plainly as any man what was
taking place. He was sensitive to the movements of
opinion ; wished above all things to have the govern
ment supported by the people's approval; was never
weary of writing to those who were in a position to know,
to ask them what they and their neighbors soberly
thought about the questions and policies under debate ;
was never so impatient as to run recklessly ahead of
manifest public opinion. He knew how many men had
been repelled by the measures he had supported Hamil
ton in proposing ; knew that a reaction had set in ; that
even to seem to repulse France and to refuse her aid or
sympathy would surely strengthen it. The men who
were opposed to his financial policy were also the men
who most loved France, now she was mad with revolu
tion. They were the men who dreaded a strong gov
ernment as a direct menace to the rights alike of in
dividuals and of the separate States ; the men who held
a very imperative philosophy of separation and of revolt
against any too great authority. If he showed himself
cold towards France, he would certainly strengthen
them in their charge that the new government craved
power and was indifferent to the guarantees of freedom.

But Washington's spirit was of the majestic sort that
keeps a great and hopeful confidence that the right view
will prevail; that the "standard to which the wise and
honest will repair" is also the standard to which the

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 297

whole people will rally at last, if it be but held long and
steadily enough on high to be seen of all. When the
moment for action came he acted promptly, unhesitat
ingly, as if in indifference to opinion. The outbreak of
war between France and England made it necessary he
should let the country know what he meant to do.
" War having actually commenced between France and
Great Britain," he wrote to Jefferson in April, 1793, " it
behooves the government of this country to use every
means in its power to prevent the citizens thereof from
embroiling us with either of those powers, by endeavor
ing to maintain a strict neutrality. I therefore require
that you will give the subject mature consideration,
that such measures as shall be deemed most likely to
effect this desirable purpose may be adopted without
delay. . . . Such other measures as may be necessary
for us to pursue against events which it may not be in
our power to avoid or control, you will also think of, and
lay them before me at my arrival in Philadelphia; for
which place I shall set out to-morrow." He was at
Mount Yernon when he despatched these instructions ;
but it did not take him long to reach the seat of gov
ernment, to consult his cabinet, and to issue a proclama
tion of neutrality whose terms no man could mistake.
It contained explicit threat of exemplary action against
any who should presume to disregard it.

That very month (April, 1793) Edrnond Charles Genet,
a youth still in his twenties whom the new republic over
sea had commissioned Minister to the United States,
landed at Charleston. It pleased him to take posses
sion of the country, as if it were of course an appanage
of France. He was hardly ashore before he had begun
to arrange for the fitting out of privateers, to issue let-

298 GEORGE WASHINGTON

ters of marque to American citizens, and to authorize
French consuls at American ports to act as judges of ad
miralty in the condemnation of prizes. As he journeyed
northward to Philadelphia he was joyfully confirmed in
his views and purposes by his reception at the hands of
the people. He was everywhere dined and toasted and
feted, as if he had been a favorite prince returned to his
subjects. His speeches by the way rang in a tone of au
thority and patronage. He reached Philadelphia fairly
mad with the sense of power, and had no conception of
his real situation till he stood face to face with the Pres
ident. Of that grim countenance and cold greeting
there could be but one interpretation ; and the fellow
winced to feel that at last he had come to a grapple
with the country's government. It was, no doubt, in
the eyes of the sobering man, a strange and startling
thing that then took place. The country itself had not
fully known Washington till then — or its own dignity
either. It had deemed the proclamation of neutrality a
party measure, into which the President had been led
by the enemies of France, the partisans of England.
But the summer undeceived everybody, even Genet.
Not content with the lawless mischief he had set afoot
on the coasts by the commissioning of privateersmen,
that mad youth had hastened to send agents into
the south and west to enlist men for armed expedi
tions against the Floridas and against New Orleans, on
the coveted Mississippi ; but his work was everywhere
steadily undone. Washington acted slowly, deliberately
even, with that majesty of self-control, that awful cour
tesy and stillness in wrath, that had ever made him a
master to be feared in moments of sharp trial. One by
one the unlawful prizes were seized ; justice was done

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 299,

upon their captors ; the false admiralty courts were shut
up. The array of the United States was made ready
to check the risings in the south and west, should there
be need ; the complaints of the British Minister were
silenced by deeds as well as by words ; the clamor of
those who had welcomed the Frenchman so like pro
vincials was ignored, though for a season it seemed the
voice of the country itself ; and the humiliating work,
which ought never to have been necessary, was at last
made effective and complete.

Towards the close of June, Washington ventured to
go for a little while to Mount Yernon for rest. At once
there was trouble. A privateer was found taking arms
and stores aboard in the very river at Philadelphia ;
Jefferson allowed her to drop down to Chester, believ
ing Genet instead of the agents of the government ; and
she was upon the point of getting to sea before Wash
ington could reach the seat of government. Jefferson
was not in town when the President arrived. "What
is to be done in the case of the Little Sarah, now at
Chester?" came Washington's hot questions after him.
" Is the Minister of the French Republic to set the acts
of this government at defiance with impunity? And
then threaten the executive with an appeal to the peo
ple ? What must the world think of such conduct, and
of the United States in submitting to it? Circumstances
press for decision; and as you have had time to con
sider them, I wish to know your opinion upon them,
even before to-morrow, for the vessel may then be
gone." It was indeed too late to stop her : a gross vio
lation of neutrality had been permitted under the very
eyes of the Secretary of State. Washington stayed
henceforth in Philadelphia, in personal control of affairs.

300 GEORGE WASHINGTON

It was an appeal to the people that finally delivered
Genet into his hands. Washington revoked the exe
quatur of one Duplaine, French consul at Boston, for
continuing to ignore the laws of neutrality ; Genet de
clared he would appeal from the President to the sover
eign State of Massachusetts ; rumors of the silly threat
got abroad, and Genet demanded of the President that
he deny them. Washington answered with a chilling
rebuke ; the correspondence was given to the public
prints ; and at last the country saw the French Minister
for what he was. A demand for his recall had been re
solved upon in the cabinet in August ; by February,
1794, the slow processes of diplomatic action were com
plete, and a successor had arrived. Genet did not vent
ure to return to his distracted country ; but he was as
promptly and as readily forgotten in America. Some
might find it possible to love France still; but no one
could any longer stomach Genet.

Washington had divined French affairs much too
clearly to be for a moment tempted to think with
anything but contempt of the French party who had
truckled to Genet. " The affairs of France," he said to
Lee, in the midst of Genet's heyday, " seem to me to be
in the highest paroxysm of disorder ; not so much from
the presence of foreign enemies, but because those in
whose hands the government is intrusted are ready to
tear each other to pieces, and will more than probably
prove the worst foes the country has." It was his clear
perception what the danger would be should America
be drawn into the gathering European wars that had
led him to accept a second term as President. It had
been his wish to remain only four years in the arduous
office : but he had no thought to leave a task unfinished ;

WASHINGTON AND NELLY CUSTIS

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 301

knew that he was in the very midst of the critical busi
ness of holding the country to the course which should
make it a self-respecting nation; and consented to
submit himself once more to the vote of the electors.
Parties were organizing, but there was no opposition to
Washington. He received again a unanimous vote ; and
John Adams was again chosen Vice- President. The
second inauguration (March, 1793) seemed but a rou
tine confirmation of the first. But the elections to
Congress showed a change setting in. In the Senate
the avowed supporters of the administration had still a
narrow majority ; but in the House they fell ten votes
short of control ; and Washington had to put his policy
of neutrality into execution against the mad Genet with
nothing but doubts how he should be supported. The
insane folly of Genet saved the President serious embar
rassment, after all ; made the evidence that Washington
was right too plain to be missed by anybody ; and gave
the country at last vision enough to see what was in
fact the course of affairs abroad, within and without
unhappy France. Before that trying year 1793 was
out, an attack upon Hamilton in the House, though led
by Madison, had failed ; Jefferson had left the cabinet ;
and the hands of those who definitely and heartily sup
ported the President were not a little strengthened.
There was sharp bitterness between parties — a bitter
ness sharper as yet, indeed, than their differences of
view ; but the " federalists," who stood to the support
of Washington and Hamilton, were able, none the less,
to carry their more indispensable measures — even an
act of neutrality which made the President's policy the
explicit law of the land. The sober second thought of
the country was slowly coming about to their aid.

302 GEORGE WASHINGTON

The air might have cleared altogether had the right
method of dealing with France been the only question
that pressed ; but the ill fortune of the time forced the
President to seem not only the recreant friend of
France, but also the too complacent partisan of Eng
land. Great Britain seemed as mischievously bent upon
forcing the United States to war as Genet himself had
been. She would not withdraw her garrisons from the
border posts; it was believed that she was inciting the
Indians to their savage inroads upon the border, as the
French had done in the old days ; she set herself to de
stroy neutral trade by seizing all vessels that carried the
products of the French islands or were laden with pro
visions for their ports ; she would admit American ves
sels to her own West Indian harbors only upon suffer
ance, and within the limits of a most jealous restriction.
It gave a touch of added bitterness to the country's
feeling against her that she should thus levy as it were
covert war upon the Union while affecting to be at
peace with it, as if she counted on its weakness, es
pecially on the seas ; and Congress would have taken
measures of retaliation, which must certainly have led
to open hostilities, had not Washington intervened, de
spatching John Jay, the trusted Chief Justice, across sea
as minister extraordinary, to negotiate terms of accom
modation ; and so giving pause to the trouble.

While the country waited upon the negotiation, it
witnessed a wholesome object-lesson in the power of
its new government. In March, 1791, Congress had
passed an act laying taxes on distilled spirits : 'twas
part of Hamilton's plan to show that the federal gov
ernment could and would use its great authority. The
act bore nowhere so hard upon the people as in the vast

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 3Q3

far counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia, beyond the
mountains — and there the very allegiance of the people
had been but the other day doubtful, as Washington
very well knew. How were they to get their corn to
market over the long roads if they were not to be per
mitted to reduce its bulk and increase its value by turn
ing it into whiskey ? The tax seemed to them intoler
able, and the remedy plain. They would not pay it.
They had not been punctilious to obey the laws of the
States ; they would not begin obedience now by sub
mitting to the worst laws of the United States. At first
they only amused themselves by tarring and feathering
an exciseman here and there ; but resistance could not
stop with that in the face of a government bent upon
having its own way. Opposition organized itself and
spread, till the writs of federal courts had been defied
by violent mobs and the western counties of Pennsyl
vania were fairly quick with incipient insurrection.

For two years Washington watched the slow gather
ing of the storm, warning those who resisted, keeping
Congress abreast of him in preparation for action when
the right time should come, letting all the country know
what was afoot and prepare its mind for what was to
come. It must have won him to a stern humor to learn
that seven thousand armed men had gathered in mass-
meeting on Braddock's field to defy him. At last he
summoned an army of militia out of the States, sent it
straight to the lawless counties, going with it himself
till he learned there would be no serious resistance —
and taught the country what was back of federal law.
Hamilton had had his way, the country its lesson.
" The servile copyist of Mr. Pitt thought he must hav&
his alarms, his insurrections and plots against the Con-

304 GEORGE WASHINGTON

stitution," sneered Jefferson. " It aroused the favorite
purposes of strengthening government and increasing
the public debt ; and therefore an insurrection was
announced and proclaimed and armed against and
marched against, but could never be found. And all
this under the sanction of a name which has done too
much good not to be sufficient to cover harm also."
" The powers of the executive of this country are more
definite and better understood, perhaps, than those of any
other country," Washington had said, " and my aim has
been, and will continue to be, neither to stretch nor to
relax from them in any instance whatever, unless com
pelled to it by imperious circumstances," and that was
what he meant the country to know, whether the law's
purpose was good or bad.

The next year the people knew what Mr. Jay had
done. He reached New York May 28th, 1796 ; and the
treaty he brought with him was laid before the Senate
on the 8th of June. On the 2d of July the country
knew what he had agreed to and the Senate had rati
fied. There was an instant outburst of wrath. It swept
from one end of the country to the other. The treaty
yielded so much, gained so little, that to accept it
seemed a veritable humiliation. The northwestern posts
were, indeed, to be given up at last; the boundaries
between English and American territory were to be
determined by commissioners ; unrestricted commerce
writh England herself, and a free direct trade with her
East Indian possessions, were conceded ; but not a word
was said about the impressment of American seamen ;
American claims for damages for unjust seizures in the
West Indies were referred to a commission, along with
American debts to Englishmen ; the coveted trade with

DEATH OF WASHINGTON

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 305

the West Indian islands was secured only to vessels of
seventy tons and under, and at the cost of renouncing
the right to export sugar, molasses, coffee, cocoa, or
cotton to Europe. "Washington agreed with the Senate
that ratifications of the treaty ought not to be ex
changed without a modification of the clauses respect
ing the West Indian trade, and October had come
before new and better terms could be agreed upon ;
but he had no doubt that the treaty as a whole ought
to be accepted. The opposition party in Congress had
refused to vote money for an efficient navy, and so had
made it impossible to check British aggressions : they
must now accept this unpalatable treaty as better at
any rate than war.

It was hard to stand steady in the storm. The coun
try took fire as it had done at the passage of the Stamp
Act. Harder things had never been said of king and
parliament than were now said of Washington and his
advisers. Many stout champions stood to his defence —
none stouter or more formidable than Hamilton, no
longer a member of the cabinet, for imperative private
interests had withdrawn him these six months and
more, but none the less redoubtable in the field of con
troversy. For long, nevertheless, the battle went heav
ily against the treaty. Even Washington, for once,
stood a little while perplexed, not doubting his own pur
pose, indeed, but very anxious what the outcome should
be. Protests against his signing the treaty poured in
upon him from every quarter of the country : many of
them earnest almost to the point of entreaty, some hot
with angry comment. His reply, when he vouchsafed
any, was always that his very gratitude for the appro
bation of the country in the past fixed him but the more
20

306 GEORGE WASHINGTON

firmly in his resolution to deserve it now by obeying his
own conscience. " It is very desirable," he wrote to
Hamilton, " to ascertain, if possible, after the paroxysm
of the fever is a little abated, what the real temper of
the people is concerning it ; for at present the cry
against the Treaty is like that against a mad dog;" but
he showed himself very calm to the general eye, mak
ing his uneasiness known only to his intimates. The
cruel abuse heaped upon him cut him to the quick.
" Such exaggerated and indecent terms," he cried, " could
scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter,
or even to a common pickpocket." But the men who
sneered and stormed, talked of usurpation and impeach
ment, called him base, incompetent, traitorous even,
were permitted to see not so much as the quiver of an
eyelid as they watched him go steadily from step to
step in the course he had chosen.

At last the storm cleared ; the bitter months were
over ; men at the ports saw at length how much more
freely trade ran under the terms of the treaty, and re
membered that, while they had been abusing Jay and
maligning the President, Thomas Pinckney had ob
tained a treaty from Spain which settled the Florida
boundary, opened the Mississippi without restriction,
secured a place of deposit at New Orleans, and made
commerce with the Spaniards as free as commerce with
the French. The whole country felt a new impulse of
prosperity. The " paroxysm of the fever " Avas over,
and shame came upon the men who had so vilely abused
the great President and had made him wish, in his bit
terness, that he were in his grave rather than in the
Presidency ; who had even said that he had played false
in the Revolution, and had squandered public moneys ;

ai.

IT is with the deepeft grief flia*
wre announce to the public the deaifi

our «g# d'iftinguijbed fellow-c
sen £K.//. General George Wvjhing
on. He died at Mount Vernon ctf
Saturday evening-, the *3th inft. oj
an Inflammatory affection of the
hroat, which put a period to his ex.
iftence in 23 hoars.
1 The grief which we fuf&r on this
:ruly mournful occafion, would be
n fome degree aleviated, if -we pof
xitTed abilities to do juttice to th<
aierits of this illuftrious bcnefafiw $

nankind; but, confcious of our in-
eriority, we fhrink from the fubli
irity df the fubjeft. To the i mpar-
ial and eloquent biftorian, thete
bre, we confign the high and grate-
ut office of exhibiting the life 01
^eorge Wafhington to the prefeftt
ige, and to generations yet unborn,
is a perfect model of all that is K
'uous, nobie, great* and dignified ill
man. Our feelings, however, will
not permit us to forbear obferving,
hat the very difintereft d and lm«
portant fer vices rendered by Cforgl
fbington to thefe United States
both in the Field and In the Cabinet,
have creeled in the hearts of his
countrymen, monuments of fine
and unbounded gratitude, which
the mouldering hand of Time can
Pol deface ^ and that in every quar
ter of the Globe, where a tree Co.
v«mment U .ranked amongft the
choice/I bteffings of Providence,-^
virtue* Morality* religion, and palrb
tifm are rcfpeded, THE NAME d
WASHINGTON WILL BE HELD 2«
veneration. •

And at along the fiream of rnts, his name
Expauded ffidi, oad gather* «11 its tece»

NOTE. — The announcement of the death of Washington reproduced
here was printed originally as the leading editorial in the New York
Gazette and General Advertiser of Saturday, December 21, 1799. This
daily newspaper was published by John Lang, Franklin Head, No.
116 Pearl Street.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 307.

who had gone beyond threats of impeachment and dared
to hint at assassination ! They saw the end of his term,
approach, and would have recalled their insults. But
they had alienated his great spirit forever.

When he had seen parties forming in his cabinet in
the quiet days of his first term as President, he had
sought to placate differences ; had tried to bring Ham
ilton and Jefferson to a cordial understanding which
should be purged of partisan bias, as he meant his own
judgments to be; had deemed parties unnecessary and
loyalty to the new Constitution the only standard of
preferment to office. But he had come to another mind
in the hard years that followed. " I shall not, whilst I
have the honor to administer the government, bring a
man into any office of consequence knowingly," he de
clared in the closing days of 1795, " whose political
tenets are adverse to the tenets which the general gov
ernment are pursuing ; for this, in my opinion, would be
a sort of political suicide ;" and he left the Presidency
ready to call himself very flatly a " Federalist " — of the
party that stood for the Constitution and abated noth
ing of its powers. " You could as soon scrub a blacka-
more white," he cried, " as to change the principle of a
profest Democrat " — " he will leave nothing unattempt-
ed to overturn the Government of this Country."

Affairs fell very quiet again as the last year of his
Presidency drew towards its close. Brisk trade under
the new treaties heartened the country more and more ;
the turbulent democratic clubs that had so noisily af
fected French principles and French modes of agitation
were sobered and discredited, now the Reign of Terror
had come and wrought its bloody work in France ; the
country turned once more to Washington with its old

308 GEORGE WASHINGTON

confidence and affection, and would have had him take
the Presidency a third time, to keep the government
steady in its new ways.

But he would not have the hard office again. On the
19th of September, 1796, he published to the people a
farewell address, quick with the solemn eloquence men
had come to expect from him. He wrote to Hamil
ton and to Madison for advice as to what he should
say, as in the old days of his diffident beginnings in the
great office — though Hamilton was the arch-Federalist
and Madison was turning Democrat — took their phrases
for his thought where they seemed better than his own ;
put the address forth as his mature and last counsel to
the little nation he loved. " It wTas designed," he said,
" in a more especial manner for the yeomanry of the
country," and spoke the advice he hoped they might
take to heart. The circumstances which had given his
services a temporary value, he told them, were passed ;
they had now a unified and national government, which
might serve them for great ends. He exhorted them
to preserve it intact, and not to degrade it in the using ;
to put down party spirit, make religion, education, and
good faith the guides and safeguards of their govern
ment, and keep it national and their own by excluding
foreign influences and entanglements. 'Twas a noble
document. No thoughtful man could read it without
emotion, knowing how it spoke in all its solemn sen
tences the great character of the man whose career was
ended.

When the day came on which he should resign his
office to John Adams, the great civilian who was to
succeed him, there was a scene which left no one in
doubt — not even Washington himself — what the people

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 309

thought of the leader they had trusted these twenty
years. A great crowd was assembled to see the simple
ceremonies of the inauguration, as on that April day in
New York eight years ago ; but very few in the throng
watched Adams. All eyes were bent upon that great
figure in black velvet, with a light sword slung at his
side. No one stirred till he had left the room, to follow
and pay his respects to the new President. Then they
and all the crowd in the streets moved after him, an
immense company, going as one man, " in total silence,"
his escort all the way. He turned upon the threshold
of the President's lodgings and looked, as if for the last
time, upon this multitude of nameless friends. " No
man ever saw him so moved." The tears rolled un
checked down his cheeks ; and when at last he went
within, a great smothered common voice went through
the stirred throng, as if they sobbed to see their hero
go from their sight forever.

It had been noted how cheerful he looked, at thought
of his release, as he entered the hall of the Representa
tives, where Mr. Adams was to take the oath. As soon
as possible he was at his beloved Mount Vernon once
more, to pick up such threads as he might of the old
life again. " I begin my diurnal course with the sun,"
he wrote, in grave playfulness, to a friend; "if my
hirelings are not in their places by that time, I send
them messages of sorrow for their indisposition ; having
put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of
things further; the more they are probed the deeper I
find the wounds which my buildings have sustained by
an absence and neglect of eight years ; by the time I
have accomplished these matters breakfa'st (a little after
seven o'clock, about the time, I presume, that you are

310 GEORGE WASHINGTON

taking leave of Mrs. McHenry) is ready; this being
over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which
employs me until it is time to dress for dinner. . . . The
usual time of sitting at the table, a walk, and tea bring
me within the dawn of candlelight ; previous to which,
if not prevented by company, I resolve that as soon as
the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great
luminary I will retire to my writing-table and acknowl
edge the letters I have received ; when the lights are
brought I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this
work, conceiving that the next night will do as well.
The next night comes, and with it the same causes for
postponement, and so on. Having given you the his
tory of a day, it will serve for a year, and I am per
suaded that you will not require a second edition of it."
He had kept his overseers under his hand all the time
he was President; had not forgotten to write to Dr.
Young upon methods of cultivation; had shown the
same passion as ever for speeding and regulating at
its best every detail of his private business ; but matters
had gone ill for lack of his personal supervision. He
was obliged to sell no less than fifty thousand dollars'
worth of his lands in the course of four or five years to
defray the great expenses he was put to in the Presi
dency and the cost of bringing his estate into solvent
shape again. He did not try to begin anew ; he only
set things in order, and kept his days serene.

A spark of war was kindled by the new administra
tion's dealings with France, and Washington was called
once more to prepare for command, should the fighting
leavj the sea and come ashore. But formal war did not
come. The flurry only kept him a little nearer the
movements of politics than he cared to be. He was the

-

HANOVER COURT-HOUSE

THE OLD TOMB, MOUNT VERNON

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 31 1

more uneasy to see how the Democrats bore themselves
in the presence of the moment's peril ; doubted the ex
pediency of assigning men of that party to places of
command in the army ; approved the laws passed against
aliens and against those who should utter seditious libel
against the government; showed again, and without re
serve, how deeply his affections were engaged on the
side of the institutions he had so labored to set up and
protect ; was intolerant towards any who sought to
touch or question at any point their new authority —
imperious as of old in question of action.

But it was his homt that chiefly held his thought
now. He had not changed towards his friends through
all the long years of public care and engrossing business.
An old comrade, who had come in his rough frontier
dress all the way from far Kentucky to Philadelphia to
see the President, had been told " that Washington had
become puffed up with the importance of his station,
and was too much of an aristocrat to welcome him in
that garb." But the old soldier was not daunted, press
ed on to make his call, and came back to tell his friends
how the President and his lady had both seen him and
recognized him from the window, and had hurried to
the door to draw him cordially in. " I never was
better treated," he said. " I had not believed a word
against him ; and I found that he was ' Old Hoss ' still."
'Twas the same with his neighbors, and with strangers
too. He was the simple gentleman of the old days. A
strolling actor, riding Mount Yernon way on a day in
July, stopped to help a man and woman who had been
thrown from their chaise, and did not recognize the stal
wart horseman who galloped up to his assistance till
the overturned vehicle had been set up again, they had

312 GEORGE WASHINGTON

dusted each the other's coat, and the stately stranger,
saying he had had the pleasure of seeing him play in
Philadelphia, had bidden him come to the house yonder
and be refreshed. " Have I the honor of addressing
General "Washington ?" exclaimed the astonished player.
" An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard," smiled the
heated soldier ; " but I am pleased to find you can play
so active a part in private, and without a prompter."

Those who saw him now at Mount Yernon thought
him gentler with little children than Mrs. Washington
even, and remembered how he had always shown a like
love and tenderness for them, going oftentimes out of
his way to warn them of danger, with a kindly pat on
the head, when he saw them watching the soldiers in
the war days. Now all at Mount Yernon looked for
ward to the evening. That " was the children's hour."
He had written sweet Nelly Custis a careful letter of
advice upon love matters, half grave, half playful, in the
midst of his Presidency, when the troubles with Eng
land were beginning to darken ; she had always found
him a comrade, and had loved him with an intimacy
very few could know. Now she was to be married, to
his own sister's son, and upon his birthday, February
22d, 1799. She begged him to wear the " grand em
broidered uniform," just made for the French war, at
her wedding; but he shook his head and donned in
stead the worn buff and blue that had seen real cam
paigns. Then the delighted girl told him, with her
arm about his neck, that she loved him better in that.

The quiet days went by without incident. He served
upon a petty jury of the county when summoned ; and
was more than content to be the simple citizen again,
great duties put by, small ones diligently resumed.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 313

Once and again his anger flamed at perverse neglects
and tasks ill done. Even while he was President, he
had stormed to find his horses put to the chariot with
unpolished hoofs upon a day of ceremony. But old age,
and the consciousness of a lifework done, had added
serenity now to his self-control ; and at last the end
came, when he was readjr. On the 12th of December,
1799, he was chilled through by the keen winds and
cold rain and sleet that beat upon him as he went his
round about the farms. He spent the evening cheer
fully, listening to his secretary read ; but went to bed
with a gathering hoarseness and cold, and woke in the
night sharply stricken in his throat. Physicians came
almost at dawn, but the disease was already beyond
their control. Nothing that they tried could stay it ;
and by evening the end had come. He was calm the
day through, as in a time of battle ; knowing what be-
tided, but not fearing it ; steady, noble, a warrior figure
to the last; and he died as those who loved him might
have wished to see him die.

The country knew him when he was dead : knew
the majesty, the nobility, the unsullied greatness of the
man who was gone, and knew not whether to mourn
or give praise. He could not serve them any more;
but they saw his light shine already upon the future as
upon the past, and were glad. They knew him now
the Happy Warrior,

"Whose powers shed round him, in the common strife
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace ;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad, for humankind,

314 GEORGE WASHINGTON

Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired ;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

*******

A soul whose master-hias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes ;

*******
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:-
* * * the man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought of in obscurity, —
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won."

INDEX

ACTS of Trade, 121.

Adams, John, represents Massa
chusetts in Congress at Phila
delphia, 154; character of, 156-
157 ; opinion of, concerning Ma
ryland and Virginia delegates to
Congress at Philadelphia, 158 ;
accused as rebel at Congress,
161-162 ; proposes Washington
as commander of Continental
army, 173 ; mentioned, 174. 188,
198; Vice-President with Wash
ington, 279 ; elected Vice-Presi
dent the second time, 301 ; in
augurated as President, 309.

Adams, Samuel, represents Massa
chusetts in Congress at Phila
delphia, 154; character of, 155,
156 ; accused as rebel at Con
gress, 161-162.

Ajax, Washington's horse, men
tioned, 110.

Alexandria, recruiting at, for west
ern expedition, 71, 77 ; Wash
ington rejoins regiment at, 78 ;
Braddock's regiment at, 82 ;
Braddock calls council of gov
ernors at, 83; Potomac commis
sioners adjourn from, to Mount
Vernon, 252.

Allen, Ethan, takes possession of
Ticonderoga, 171.

Ames, Fisher, comment of, on in
auguration of Washington, 272.

Amherst, General, takes Louis-
bo urg, 93.

Annapolis, Washington resigns
commission at, 226 ; conference
of States at, 254.

Army, Continental, created by
Congress, 173; Washington takes
command of, 180 ; unsatisfacto
ry condition of, 182 ; desertions
from, 191; hardships of, at Val
ley Forge, 199 ; trained by Steu-
ben, 200 ; difficulty in maintain
ing, 206 ; treatment of, after the
war, 218 ; efforts of Washington
in behalf of, 221; Washington's
loss of popularity with, 222; dis
affection in, 222-223 ; resolution
passed by officers of, 223.

Army and navy, steps for forma
tion of, 295. "

Arnold, Benedict, attempt of, to
capture Quebec, 183 ; Carleton
checked by, 194, 198 ; at Sara
toga, 195 ; treason of, 207.

Articles of Confederation, adopted
by states, 213 ; effect of, 214.

Asgill, Captain Charles, incident
of, 225 ; Washington's gratifica
tion at release of, 225.

Attorney-General, creation of of
fice of, by Congress, 277.

BARTER, Philip, Washington's
gardener, makes agreement with
Washington, 240.

Beaujeu leads attack on Brad-
dock and is killed, 88.

Beausejour, expedition planned
against, 84 ; taken, 90.

Belvoir, seat of William Fairfax,
51 ; life at, 53 ; referred to,
107.

Bennington, Vermont, attack on,
195,

316

INDEX

Berkeley, Sir William, resigns Vir
ginia to the Commonwealth, 13.

Bernard, an actor, meeting of, with
Washington, 312.

Betty, Parson, description of, by
Colonel Byrd, 35.

Beverley, Robert, writings and
character of, 31-32 ; character
ization of Virginia by, 32 ; on
Virginian hospitality, 50.

Bishop, servant of Washington, at
Mrs. Custis's, 100 ; pensioned by
Washington, 241.

Blair, James, " commissary " to. the
Bishop of London in Virginia,
character, influence, and breed
ing of, 36-37.

Blair, John, President of Virginia
Council, 139; appointed delegate
to Philadelphia conference, 257 ;
appointed to Supreme Court, 281.

Bland, Richard, referred to, in con
nection with debate of Stamp
Act, 130 ; referred to, 135 ; pam
phlet of, on colonial rights, 138 ;
chosen delegate to Congress at
Philadelphia, 148 ; votes re
ceived by, as delegate to Con
gress, 161 ; opposes Henry in
convention, 170; mentioned, 172;
death of, 234.

Blueskin, Washington's horse,
mentioned, 110.

Board of Trade, search-warrants
issued by, 122.

Boston, Washington visits, in 1756,
92; troops sent to, 140; massa
cre in, 145 ; "Tea Party," 148 ;
port of, closed, 148 ; fresh troops
sent to, 168; Continental troops
in front of, 171 ; reinforced by
General Howe, 179 ; evacuation
of, by British, 185 ; Washington
occupies, 185 ; D'Estaing's fleet
at, 204.

Boston News Letter, referred to,
121.

Botetourt, Lord, appointed Gov
ernor-General of Virginia, 139 ;
attempts to dissolve House of
Burgesses, 140 ; attitude of, tow
ards colonists, 141 ; death of,
141.

Bowdoin, Governor, of Massachu
setts, urges convention of states,
253.

Braddock, Major-General Edward,
made commander-in-chief in
America, 81; "a very Iroquois
in disposition, "81; invites Wash
ington to his staff, 83 ; plan of,
for attacking Fort Duquesne,
84 ; force of, against Fort Du
quesne, 85 ; advance of, upon
Duquesne, 85-86 ; unreasonable
temper of, on the advance, 86 ;
defeat of, 86 ff. ; stupid tactics
of, 87 ; bravery of, 88 ; death of,
89 ; buried in the road, 89 ; losses
in force of, 89 ; papers of, taken
at Duquesne, 90 ; former master
of Washington's servant, 100 :
referred to, 161.

Brandywine, the, Washington de
feated at, 196.

Brest, French fleet blockaded at,
207.

Bridges' Creek, homestead of Au
gustine Washington, birthplace
of George, 40-41 ; Washington
with his brother Augustine at,
51.

Brofflie, Prince de, 216.

Bunker Hill, battle of, 179-180.

Burgesses, House of, Governor
Spots wood on education of mem
bers of, 38 ; Augustine Wash-
ton in, 46 ; quarrels with Din-
widdie about land fee, 69; grants
money for an expedition to the
Ohio, 71 ; thanks Washington
for service at Great Meadows,
77; votes more money against
the French, 79 ; appoints com
mittee to spend money granted,
79 ; thanks Washington for his
services with Braddock, 91 ;
Washington chosen member of,
103; Washington's election ex
penses to the, 109 ; temper of,
at time of Washington's en
trance, 113 ; memorial of, to
King, protesting against Stamp
Act, 124 - 125 ; action of, on
resolutions concerning taxa
tion, 125; dissolved by Gov-

INDEX

317

ernorFauquier, 133 ; attempt of
Botetourt to dissolve, 140 ; res
olution of, against importing
taxed articles, 140 ; convened
by Dunmore, 146 ; resolves to
urge a Congress of all the colo
nies, 148 ; gives a ball to Lady
Dunmore, 148 ; last meeting of,
172.

Burgoyne, General, plan of cam
paign of, 194 ; capture of Ticon-
deroga by, 195 ; movements of,
195 ; capitulation of, 195, 197.

Burke, Edmund, knowledge of, of
temper of colonies, 117.

Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, Vicar of
Greenwich, views of, on public
character of Virginians in 1759,
120.

Byrd, Colonel William, remark of,
concerning exploration of the
interior, 12 ; remark of, concern
ing character of New-Eugland-
ers, 12 ; on the powers of colo
nial governors, 26; character and
breeding of, 32 ft'.; influence of,
in development of Virginia. 33-
34 ; undaunted spirits of, 34-35 ;
characteristics of, as a writer, 33-
35 ; remark of, about North
Carolina, 34, 38; description of
Mr. Betty by, 35; on Captain
Washington's management of
iron mines, 45 ; opinion of, re
garding taxation, 119-120 ; re
mark of, 120.

CAMDEN, Cornwallis routs Gates
at, 205.

Carleton, Sir Guy, attempt of, on
Champlain.

Carr, Dabney, meets with Henry
and others to discuss colonial af
fairs, 146.

Cartagenn, Lawrence Washington
at siege of. 47-48.

Cary, Miss, Washington's relations
with, 101.

Gary, Robert, & Company, Wash
ington's factors in London, 105;
carefully watched by Washing
ton, 112.

Champlain, Lake, the French es

tablished upon, 61 ; attempt at
capture of, by Carleton, -194.

Charleston, creation of, 18 ; a cen
tre for pirates, 21 ; taking of,
by Clinton, 205.

Charlestown, occupied by Conti
nental troops, 179 ; captured by
British, 180.

Chastellux, Marquis de, 216, 217,
218 ; Washington's congratula
tions of, on hfs maniage7260.

Chatham, Lord, knowledge of, of
temper of colonies, 117 ; com
ment of, on Rockingham's "de
claratory act," 138 ; advocates
conciliation of America, 167.

Chinkling, Washington's horse,
mentioned, 110.

Church, position of Established,
in colonial Virginia, 8.

Clark, George Rogers, drives Brit
ish from the Illinois, 204.

Clinton, General, succeeds General
Howe, 202 ; ordered to leave
Philadelphia, 202; attacked by
Washington atMonmouth Court
House, 202 ; withdraws to New
York, 203 ; troops sent by, take
Savannah, 204 ; goes south, 205;
captures Charleston, 205 ; returns
north, 205.

Colonies, English, in America,
« population and condition of, in
1732, 4; individual development
of, 4-5 ; contrast between Vir
ginia and New England, 9, 13-
14; expansion of, after the Res
toration, 17-18; expulsion of the
Dutch from, 17; mixture of
population in middle and south
ern, 18-19; exchange of popula
tion amongst, 19 ; nature of set
tlement of, 20 ; operation of
the Navigation Acts upon, 20 ;
smuggling and privateering
in, 21; piracy in, 21-22 ; irrita
tion of, with regard to Naviga
tion Acts, 22 ; early effects of the
French power on, 23 ft". ; stub
born separateness and indepen
dence of, in respect of govern
ment, 23-27; drawn into Euro
pean politics by presence of the

318

INDEX

French in North America, 25;
separate action of, in dealing
with the French, 25-26; first
feeling of independence among,
113-114; effect of close of
French war on, 113; taxation of,
best imposed by Parliament, 118;
resistance to port dues in, 122 ;
Stamp Act imposed on, 123-124;
spread of Henry's resolutions
through, 134; delegates of, 'as
semble in New York, 134 ; cus
tom-house and revenue commis
sioners created for, 139; attitude
of, towards Massachusetts, 154-
155; adopt Articles of Confed
eration, 213.

Concord, fighting begins at, 170.

Conference, at Annapolis, signifi
cance of, 254; at Philadelphia,
256; twelve states represented
in, 258 ; frames constitution,
259; adjournment of, 259.

Congress, delegates to, from Vir
ginia, 148; at Philadelphia, 149;
delegates to, from Massachusetts,
154; unfitness of, for counsel,
157 ; leadership of Virginian
delegates in, 158-159; forms
declaration of rights, 164-165;
adjournment of, 165 ; second
Continental, meets at Philadel
phia (1775), 171; business trans
acted by, 171; appoints Wasl1'
ington commander of Continen
tal Army, 173; removes to Balti
more. 191 ; Washington's power
increased by, 194 ; inefficiency
of, 197, 206; policy of, with re
gard to western lands, 247; Wash
ington urges increase of power
of, 248; inability of, to pay na
tional debts, 249 ; Washington's
letter to Lee on contempt for
authority of, 254 ; indifference
of, towards Hamilton's proposal,
256; weakness of, in face of re
bellion, 256; sanctions confer
ence at Philadelphia, 256; con
vening of first, under the Con
stitution, 265; organizes vari
ous departments, 277; meas
ures adopted by, for settle

ment of public debt, 284; bill
defeated in, for assumption of
state debts by government, 285;
compromise in, effected by Jef
ferson, 287; taxes levied by,
293; division in, over constitu
tional powers, 294; changes in,
301; lays taxes on distilled spir
its, 302.

Congress at New York, delegates
sent to, by nine colonies, 134;
bill of rights and immunities
passed by, 134.

Connecticut fails to send delegates
to Annapolis conference, 254.

Constitution, framed by confer
ence at Philadelphia, 259; im
partial interest of Washington
in discussions of, 259; adoption
of, 260.

Contrecoeur, commander at Du-
quesne, against Braddock, 87-88.

Corbin, Richard, acquaints Wash
ington with his commission as
lieutenant-colonel, 72.

Cornwallis, Lord, advances to meet
Washington, 192; defeat of de
tachment of, at Princeton, 193 ;
retreat of, to New York, 193 ;
defeats Gates at Camden, 205;
defeat of, at King's Mountain,
North Carolina, 208 ; forced into
Virginia, 208; at Yorktown, 208,
209; surrender of, 209; admira
tion of, for Washington, 209.

Craik, Dr., accompanies Washing
ton on western journey, 242.

Crawford, Captain, correspond
ence of, with Washington, 143.

Criminals, hired for private service
in colonial Virginia, 7; importa
tion of, for servants, 45.

Cromwell, Oliver, the instrument
and representative of a minor
ity, 10.

Crown Point, a French post at, 61;
William Johnson chosen to lead
attack upon, 84 ; Johnson does
not reach, 90 ; taken possession
of by insurgents, 171.

Culpeper County, Washington
made official surveyor for, 56.

Gushing, Thomas, represents Mas-

INDEX

319

sachusetts in Congress at Phila
delphia, 154.

Gushing, William, appointed to
Supreme Court, 281.

Custis, Daniel Parke, first husband
of Martha Custis, 99 ; leaves
property to wife and children,
104.

Custis, "Jack," placed at King's
College by Washington, 147;
married, 147, 174 ; death of,
224.

Custis, Martha, meets with Wash
ington, 99 ; previous life of,
99-100 ; Washington becomes
engaged to, 101; marriage of, to
Washington, 102.

Custis, Nelly, marriage of, 312.

Custis, " Patsy," death of, 147.

DANDRIDGE, Francis, Washing
ton writes to, about Stamp Act,
134.

Deane, Silas, opinion of, of South
ern delegates to Congress at
Philadelphia, 158.

Declaration of independence, mo
tion for, adopted, 187.

De Lancey, James, Governor of
New York, consults with Brad-
dock at Alexandria, 83.

Delaware, crossed by Washington,
191; forts on, taken by Howe,
197 ; delegates from, to Annap
olis conference, 254.

Department of Foreign Affairs,
organization of, 277.

Department of State organized by
Congress, 277.

Department of the Treasury, or
ganization of, 277.

Department of War organized by
Congress, 277.

Dickinson, John, 170.

Dieskau, Count, defeated by John
son at Lake George, 90.

Dinw7iddie, Governor, appoints
Washington adjutant-general of
a military district. 58 ; member
of Ohio company, 62-64 ; activ
ity of, against the French, 62-64;
authorized to warn the French
from the Ohio, 63 ; sends Wash

ington to convey warning. 64 ;
correspondence of, with Law
rence Washington, 64; speaks of
young Washington as "a per
son of distinction, "64 ; contest
with the Burgesses on the land
fee, 69 ; orders a draft of mili
tia to be sent to the Ohio, 69 ;
feeling of, towards the Burgess
es, 70 ; orders Washington's jour
nal to the Ohio printed, 70; im
patience of, to reattack the
French, 78 ; resolves militia in
to independent companies, 79 ;
restrained in expenditure of
money by committee of Bur
gesses, 79 ; consults with Brad-
dock at Alexandria, 83 ; on the
cowardice of Colonel Dunbar,
90.

Dorchester Heights, 179 ; occu
pied by Washington, 184.

Dun bar, Colonel, given command
of Braddock's rear division, 86 ;
craven behavior of, after Brad-
dock's defeat, 90.

Dun more, John Murray, Earl of,
becomes governor of Virginia,
145 ; convenes House of ^Bur
gesses, 146 ; reports of, on con
dition of Virginia, 168; lands
troops near Williamsburg, 170 ;
flight of, 172; raids of, upon
Virginia, 186-187.

Duplaine, French consul at Bos
ton, 300.

Duquesne, the Marquis, becomes
governor on the St. Lawrence,
60 ; forestalls the English in the
west, 62.

Duquesne, Fort, built by French
on the Ohio, 73 ; Braddock's
plan for attacking, 84; Virgin
ian route to, chosen by Brad-
clock, 85 ; Braddock's defeat at,
86-89 ; General Forbes sent to
command expedition against,
93 ; taken and renamed Fort
Pitt, 94 ; Forties's preparations
for advancing against, 100.

Dutch, conquest of the, in Amer
ica, 17; presence of, in New York
and Pennsylvania, 18.

320

INDEX

EDEN, Charles, Governor of North
Carolina, accompanies Wash
ington to Philadelphia, 143.

Edict of Nantes, Revocation of,
sends Huguenots to America,
18.

,Education, unsystematic charac
ter of, in early Virginia, 29-30.

Elkton, Howe 'land's troops at,
196.

England, compelled to act for
herself against the French in
America by the colonies, 27 ;
neglects government of colonies,
117-118 ; attitude of, towards
United States, 248 ; war of, with
France, 297 ; covert hostilities
of, against United States, 302 ;
John Jay sent to, 302 ; treaty
with, effected by John Jay, 304.

Estaing, Count d', appears off
New York, 203; refits fleet, 204.

FAIRFAX, Anne, marries Law
rence Washington, 48 ; family
connections of, 48-49.

Fairfax, George, Washington's
companion in western survey
ing, 54.

Fairfax, Thomas, third Lord, sum
mons Colonel H. Washington
at Worcester, 48-49.

Fairfax, Thomas, sixth Baron, es
tates of, in Northern Neck, 49 ;
life and character of. 49-50 ;
establishes himself in Virginia,
49-50; liking of, for Washing
ton, 53; employs Washington
as surveyor, 53-56; purpose of,
in coming to America, 54 ; chief
in hunting parties, 109.

Fairfax, William, family and ca
reer of, 48-49; president of the
King's Council, 50-51; Belvoir,
seat of, 51, 53; influence of, upon
Washington, 51-53 ; cheers
Washington at the frontier, 92.

Fauquier, Francis, Governor of
Virginia, present at Washing
ton's marriage, 102 ; dissolves
House of Burgesses, 133 ; tastes
of, 136 ; death of, 139.

Federal Hall, New York City,

Washington takes oath of office
in, 269.

Federalists support Washington,
301.

Finns in Pennsylvania, 18.

Forbes, General, sent to Virginia
to command against Fort Du-
quesue, 93; takes Duquesne, 94;
preparations of, for advancing
against Duquesne, 100.

Fort Cumberland, built by Cap
tain Innes at Will's Creek, 78 ;
Braddock at, 85 ; deserted by
Colonel Dunbar, 90.

"Fort Necessity," Washington's
intrenchmeuts at Great Mead
ows. 75.

Fort Pitt, Fort Duquesne renamed,
94 ; left in charge of Colonel Mer
cer, 101.

Fort Washington, surrender of, by
General Greene, 190.

Fort William Henry taken by the
French, 90.

France, money loaned by, 199 ;
forms alliance withUuited States,
201 ; United States in debt to, 249 ;
effects of Revolution iu,on Amer
ica, 289; progress of Revolution
in, 292 ; Washington's attitude
towards, 290-292, 296; at war
with England, 297; war of, with
United States threatened, 310.

Franklin, Benjamin, on Braddock's
plan for attacking Fort Du
quesne, 84 ; remark of, 197.

Fraunce's Tavern, Washington's
farewell to officers at, 226.

Frederick County, Washington
chosen member of House of
Burgesses for, 103.

Frederick the Great, provokes for
mation of league against himself,
80, 193 ; comment of, 203.

Fredericksburg, 228, 265.

French, in Pennsylvania and the
southern colonies, 18; threaten
ing power of, in North America,
22 ff. ; development of conquest
by, in America, 23; hold of, upon
the fur trade, 23-24 ; effect of
power of, upon relations of col
onies to England, 25 ; separate

INDEX

321

action of colonies in dealing
with, 25-26 ; indecisive wars
with, in America, 27; movements
of, in the West, 1752, 59-60 ; ag
gressive efficiency of, 60; warned
from the Ohio by Diuwiddie,
64-66 ; at Fort Le Boeuf, 65 ;
claims of, to the West. 66 ; seize
fort at forks of the Ohio, 71 ; in
crease their force on the Ohio,
72; build Fort Duquesne, 73; at
tacked by Washington nearGreat
Meadows, 73-74; profess friend
ship for the English, 80-81; send
reinforcements to Canada, 81 ;
force of, against Braddock, 87 ;
lose Louisbourg, 93, Duquesne,
94, Quebec, 95 ; volunteer for
service in America, 200; respect
of, for Washington, 215.

French and Indian War, begun by
Washington, 73-74; action in, at
Great Meadows, 74-75 ; Brad-
dock made commander-in-chief
in, 81; Braddock's defeat in. 86
ff. ; goes heavily Ugaiust the Eng
lish, 90; drags upon the frontier,
91 ; goes against the French, 93-
95; effect of close of, on colo
nies, 113; close of, 114.

French Revolution, beginning of,
289; progress of, 292; Washing
ton's attitude towards, 290-292,
296.

Fry, Colonel Joshua, made com
mander of western expedition,
72 ; dies, 73.

Fur trade, early rivalry of French
and Englishm the, 23-25; effort
of the English to control, at Os-
wego, 61.

GAGE, General, 170.

Galloway, Joseph, leader of Penn
sylvania delegation, 164; propo
sition of, in Congress, 164.

Gardoqui insists on closing the
Mississippi, 254.

Gaspe, schooner, destruction of,
146.

Gates, General, 198 ; defeated at
Camden, South Carolina, 205.

Genet, Edmond Charles, minister
21

from France, 297; conduct of,
in America, 298 ; plans of, de
feated by Washington, 298 ; re
call of, 300.

Georgia, prevented by governor
from sending delegates to " con
gress" in New York, 134; over
run by British, 204; fails to
send delegates to Annapolis con
ference, 255.

Germans, in Pennsylvania and
Virginia, 18 ; settle in valley of
Shenandoah, 61; Pennsylvanian,
oppose war with France, 63 ;
attacked by Indians on Virgin
ian frontier, 91 ; volunteer for
service in America, 200.

Germantown, battle of, 197.

Gist, Christopher, agent of Ohio
Company, 65; goes with Wash
ington to warn the French, 65 ;
solicitude of, for Washington,
66.

Gooch, William, Governor of Vir
ginia, 40.

Grafton referred to, 139.

Grasse, Count de, co-operates with
Washington before Yorktown,
209.

Great Meadows, Washington en
camps at. 73; "a charming field
for an encounter," 73; Wash
ington attacked by Villiers at,
74-75 ; bought by Washington,
144; referred to, 161.

Greene, General, surrender of
Fort Washington by, 190 ; har
asses Cornwallis in North Caro
lina, 208.

Greenway Court, built by Lord
Fairfax, 50 ; Washington at,
55-56; referred to, 107.

Grenville, George, Prime -Minis
ter, favors direct taxation of
colonies, 119; attempt of, to en
force collection of port dues,

122 ; proposes Stamp Act, and
billeting of troops in colonies,

123 ; referred to, 139.
Gunston Hall, centre of sport, 109.

HAMILTON, Alexander, address of,
to the states, 255 ; previous rec-

322

INDEX

ord of, 256 ; favors adoption
of Constitution, 259 ; urges
Washington to accept presi
dency, 262; referred to/ 273;
appointed Secretary of Treas
ury, 278; Washington's reasons
for choice of, 279 ; policy of,
282-283 ; plans of, for settle
ment of public debt, 284 ; Jef
ferson's envy of, 287 ; relations
of, with Washington, 288 ; re
ferred to, 292 ; arguments of, for
National Bank, 294 ; attacked
in the House by Madison, 301;
defence of Washington by, 305 ;
referred to, 307 ; Washington
ask-* advice of, 308.

Hamilton, Governor, of Pennsyl
vania, acts with Ohio Company,
63.

Hancock, Governor, of Massachu
setts, visit of, to Washington,
282.

Hard wick, Washington's overseer,
108.

Harlem Heights, right at, 190.

Harrison, Benjamin, chosen dele
gate to a congress in Philadel
phia, 148; referred to, 157; votes
received by, as delegate to con
gress, 161 ; opposes Henry in
convention, 170 ; mentioned,
172 ; Governor of Virginia, 234.

Harrison, R. H. , appointed to
Supreme Court, 281.

Haw ley, Joseph, advice of, to rep
resentatives of Massachusetts at
Philadelphia, 155 ; referred to,
158.

Hay, Anthony, Burgesses meet at
house of, 140.

Henry, Patrick, family and char
acter of, 126-127 ; entrance of,
into House of Burgesses, 127;
appearance and dress of, 127 ;
comparison of, with Washing
ton. 127 ; previous life of, 128;
leadership of, in debate of Stamp
Act, 128-129 ; triumph of, in de
bate of Stamp Act, 132; influence
on colonies of resolutions of, 134;
recognized as a leader, 138 ;
meets with Jefferson and others

to discuss colonial affairs, 146 ;
chosen delegate to Congress at
Philadelphia, 148-149 ; leader
ship of, in Congress at Philadel
phia, 159 ; votes received by, as
delegate to Congress, 161 ; criti
cised for boldness, 163 ; referred
to, 165 ; advocates arming col
onists, 169; heads militiamen
against Dunmore, 171; mention
ed, 172 ; chosen governor of
Virginia, 234 ; appointed dele
gate to conference at Philadel
phia, 257 ; opposes Constitution,
260 ; referred to, 280.

Hessians surrendered to Wash
ington, 192.

Holland, United States in debt to,
249.

Howe, Admiral Lord, assists Gen
eral Howe at New York, 189 ;
offers pardon for submission,
189, 191.

Howe, General William, reinforces
Boston, 179 ; evacuates Boston,
185 ; forces » Washington from
Brooklyn Heights, 189; plans of,
194 ; movements of, 195 ; ad
vance of, on Philadelphiachecked
by Washington, 196 ; landing
of, at Elkton, 196 ; defeats
Washington at the Brandy wine,
196 ; enters Philadelphia, 197 ;
attacked by Washington at, Ger-
mantovvn, 197 ; winters at Phila
delphia, 197 ; resigns command,
202.

ILLINOIS, the French in the coun
try of the, 23.

Independent Company, temper of.
from South Carolina at G resit
Meadows, 73 ; from New York
fails to join Washington against
the French, 76 ; from New York
and from South Carolina at Fort
Cumberland, 78 ; from New
York with Braddock, 85.

Indians, Ohio Company, makes in
terest with, 61-62; Washington's
efforts to retain friendship of, for
the English. 66; with Villiers at
Great Meadows, 75 ; Washing-

INDEX

323

ton's struggle with the, on the
frontier, 91-92 ; desert French
at Duquesue, 93-94.
Innes, Captain, builds Fort Cum
berland at Will's Creek, 78.

JAY, John, supports proposition
of Rutledge in Congress, 164 ;
proposition of, concerning Mis
sissippi, 246 ; favors adoption
of Constitution, 259 ; appointed
chief -justice, 281 ; sent by Wash
ington to England, 302 ; provi
sions of treaty effected by, 304.

Jefferson, Thomas, referred to,
137 ; meets with Henry and
others to discuss colonial affairs,
146 ; becomes governor of Vir
ginia, 234 ; appointed Secretary
of State, 278; Washington's rea
sons for choice of, 279 ; compro
mise in Congress effect ed by, 287 ;
envy of, of Hamilton, 287 ; re
lation of, with Washington, 288 ;
French influences on, 289 ; op
position of, to National Bank,
293 ; letter to, from Washington,
concerning United States policy
towards France, 297 ; neutrality
violated by, 299 ; leaves the
cabinet, 301 ; remark of, on
Whiskey Rebellion, 304 ; re
ferred to, 307.

Johnson, Governor, of Maryland,
urges Washington to accept
presidency, 261.

Johnson, Colonel William, chosen
to lead attack on Crown Point,
84; beats Dieskau at Lake
George, 90.

Jones, Rev. Husrh, author of Pres
ent State of Virginia, 36.

Jones, John Paul, 205.

Jumonville, M., killed near Great
Meadows, 74 ; death of, begins
French and Indian War, 74, 80.

KEITH, Sir William, Governor of
Pennsylvania, suggestion of, for
taxation of colonies, 118 ; re
ferred to. 119.

Keppel, Admiral, commands fleet
sent to Virginia, 81.

Knox, General, Washington's fare
well to, 226 ; letter to, from
Washington, 266 ; made Secre
tary of War, 278.

Knyphausen, General, left by Clin
ton in charge of New York, 205.

LAFAYETTE, Mai quisde, volunteers
for service in America, 200, 202;
harasses Cornwallis in Virginia,
208 ; letter of Washington to,
237 ; remark of, concerning
Washington's home life, 239 ;
sends hounds to Washington,
243 ; becomes people's leader in
French Revolution, 290.

Lake George, Dieskau beaten by
Johnson at, 90.

Land fee, protest of the Virginia
Burgesses concerning, 69.

Laurie, Dr., comes to Mount Ver-
nou drunk, 109.

Lee, Arthur, referred to, 141.

Lee, Charles, 168 ; second in com
mand to Washington, 191; taken
prisoner, 191; treachery of, 202.

Lee, Henry (" Light -horse Har
ry"), 208.

Lee, Richard Henry, referred to,
132 ; forms association for re
sistance to Stamp Act, 135 ;
meets with Henry and others to
discuss colonial affairs, 146 ;
chosen delegate to Congress at
Philadelphia, 148 ; leadership of,
in Congress at Philadelphia, 159;
votes received by, as delegate
to Congress, 161 ; interview of,
with Massachusetts delegates,
161-162 ; referred to, 166 ; men
tioned, 172 ; motion of, for dec
laration of independence, 187 ;
harasses Cornwallis in North
Carolina, 208, 235 ; Washing-
ton's letter to, on contempt for
authority of Congress, 254 ; op
poses Constitution, 260; referred
to, 280.

Lee, Thomas, president of Ohio
Company, 64.

Lewis, Mrs., sister of Washington,
228.

Lexington, battle of, 170.

324

INDEX

Lincoln, General, taken prisoner, |
205.

Lippincott, Captain, bangs Ameri
can officer, 224.

Little Sarah, the, 299.

Livingston, Chancellor of New
York, administers oath of office
to Washington, 269.

Louisbourg taken by Amherst, 93.

Lower Brandon, estate of Ben
jamin Harrison, 234.

Lynch, Mr., delegate from South
Carolina to Congress at Phila
delphia, 158.

MACKAY, Captain of Independent
Company from South Carolina,
79.

Mackenzie, Captain, letter of, to
Washington, 162.

Madison, James, leader in Virgini
an politics, 235; appointed dele
gate to Philadelphia conference,
257; part of, in the conference,
2.59; favors adoption of Consti
tution, 259 ; referred to, 274 ;
opposes policy of Treasury De
partment, 295; attack of, on
Hamilton, 301; Washington asks
advice of, 308.

Magnolia, Washington's horse,
mentioned, 110.

Marshall, John, becomes promi
nent, 235.

Maryland, resolution of, to arm
colonists, 169 ; takes measures for
opening the Potomac, 246; com
missioners from, meet at Mount
Vernon concerning Potomac,
252 ; action of Assembly of, re
garding trade, 253 ; fails to send
delegates to Annapolis confer
ence, 254.

Mason, George, urges Washington
to guard his health, 94-95; Wash
ington stalking deer with, 110;
conferences of, with Washington
on state of colonies, 135; draws
up resolution for House of Bur
gesses, 140; referred to, 166, 243,
280; appointed delegate to Phil
adelphia conference, 257 ; op
poses Constitution, 260.

Massachusetts, independence of
men of, 117; resents direct taxa
tion, 119; refuses standing grunt
to governor, 119; summons col
onies to send delegates to New
York, 134; attitude of colonies
to wards,154-155; delegates from,
at Congress, accused of rebellion,
161-162; proclaimed in rebel
lion, 167-168 ; provincial con
gress formed in, and votes to
equip militia of, 168; fails to
send delegates to Annapolis con
ference, 254 ; rebellion in, 256;
struggle in, over Constitution,
260.

Mercer, Colonel, engages Wash
ington by mistake, 94 ; Fort
Pitt left in charge of, 102.

Mifflin, Thomas, member of Con
gress at Philadelphia, 157.

Mississippi, early power of the
French on the, 23; closed to
commerce by the Spanish, 245;
opening of, 306.

Monckton, Colonel, directed to
attack Beauseiour in Acadia,
84.

Monmouth Court House, battle of,
202.

Monroe, James, becomes promi
nent, 235.

Montgomery, General, captures
Montreal, 183; death of, 183,
215.

Montreal captured by Montgom
ery, 183.

Morgan, General, 198 ; harasses
Cornwallis in North Carolina,
208.

Morris, Gouverneur, 292.

Morris, Robert Hunter, Governor
of Pennsylvania, consults with
Braddock at Alexandria, 83.

Morristown Heights, withdrawal
of Washington to, 193.

Mount Vernon, named after Ad
miral Vernon, 48 ; Washington
as a boy at, 51-53, 56; Washing
ton visits, before Yorktown, 224;
Washington returns to, after the
war, 228; left in charge of Lund
Washington, 233; many visitors

INDEX

325

at, 237, 243; Washington's cor
respondence at, 250; meeting of
Potomac commissioners at, 252 ;
Washington leaves, to take presi
dency, 265; retires to private
life at, 309.

Moustier, Count de, French minis
ter to the United States, pre
sumption of, 276.

Murray, John, Earl Dunmore. See
Dunmore.

NATIONAL Bank, foundation of,
293.

Navigation Acts, policy of the,
towards the colonies, 20 ; eva
sion of the,21 ; irritation wrought
by the, 22; advantages gained to
the colonies by the, 22.

Nelson, Washington's horse, 241.

Nelson, William, president of Vir
ginia Council, 145.

New Brunswick. British stores at,
193.

Newcastle, Duke of, aroused on
the French war, 80.

New England, peculiar character
of population in, 9-10; persistent
character of, amidst change, 10 ;
modification of, 10-11 ; a body
of churches, 11; population and
condition of, at end of seven
teenth century, 11-12 ; separate
life of, 11-12 ; difference be
tween, and Virginia accentuated
under the Commonwealth, 13 ;
emigration of congregations
from, into New Jersey, 19; astir
in the French war, 84.

New Hampshire, fails to send del
egates to Annapolis conference,
254; rebellion in, 256.

New Jersey, establishment of, 18 ;
emigration of New England con
gregations to, 19 ; sends dele
gates to Annapolis conference,
254.

New Orleans, growing French
village at, 60 ; Genet's plans
against, 298.

Newport, D'Estaing sails against,
204 ; Rochambeau lands at, 206.

New Providence, in the Bahamas,

headquarters of colonial pirates,
22.

New York, establishment of colo
ny of, 17; early preponderance
of the Dutch in, 18 ; a rival of
the French in the fur trade, 24 ;
Assembly of, questions English
claim to the Ohio, 70; Indepen
dent Company from, fails to
join Washington against the
French, 76 ; Independent Com
panies from, under Innes at
Will's Creek, 78; astir in the
French war, 84 ; Independent
Companies from, with Brad-
dock, 85 ; legislative powers of
Colonial Assembly of, suspend
ed, 139 ; majority in, opposed
to revolution, 163 ; opposes mo
tion for declaration of inde
pendence, 187 ; delegates from,
to Annapolis conference, 254;
struggle in, over Constitution,
260/

New York City, cosmopolitan
character of colonial, 19 ; a cen
tre for pirates, 21; delegates of
colonies assemble in, 134; Wash
ington's plans for defence of,
186 ; British arrive before, 188 ;
withdrawal of Washington from,
190 ; Clinton retreats to, 203 ;
D'Estaing's fleet appears off,
203 ; Washington's welcorrie in,
as President, 268 ; Washing
ton takes oath of office in,
269.

Niagara, a French post at, 61 ;
Governor Shirley to lead attack
upon, 84 ; failure of Shirley's
expedition against, 90.

Nicholas, Robert Carter, member
of House of Burgesses, referred
to in connection with debate
of Stamp Act, 131 ; opposes
Henry in convention, 170.

Nicola, Colonel Lewis, proposal
of, to make Washington king,
219-220.

Norfolk, Virginia, burned by Dun-
more, 187.

North, Lord, Prime-Minister, re
peals taxes, 144.

326

INDEX

North Carolina, establishment of,
18 ; characterization of, by Colo
nel Byrd, 34, 38 ; sends militia
men to assist Washington against
the French, 76 ; prevented by
governor from sending dele-

fates to "congress" in New
ork, 134; riots in, 145; delegates
of, authorized to join in declara
tion of independence, 187 ; up
rising of, 208; refusal of, to yield
western land claims. 246 ; fails to
send delegates to Annapolis con
ference, 254.

"Northern Neck" of Virginia,
settlement of, 15-16 ; division
of, into counties, 16 ; a natural
seat of commerce, 16 ; immigra
tion of the Washingtons into,
16; intimate intercourse of, with
England, 30 ; of a piece with the
rest of Virginia, 39 ; property of
Augustine Washington in, 45 ;
estates of Lord Fairfax in, 49.

OHIO, determination of Duquesne
to occupy upper waters of, 60-
61 ; first movement of the French
towards the, 62; Dinwiddie de
termines to send militia to the,
69; Washington's journal to the,
printed, 70 ; fort begun at the
forks of the, by the English, 71;
the fort seized by the French,
71; French build Fort Duquesne
on the, 73.

Ohio (Company, formation of, 61 ;
establishment of posts by, in the
west, 62; Governor Dinwiddie
member of, 62, 64 ; Thomas Lee,
president of the, 64 ; Lawrence
Washington president of the,
64 ; interested in Virginia route
to Duquesne, 85 ; plans of, for
opening the upper Potomac,
246.

Orme, Captain, invites Washing
ton to Braddock's staff, 83.

Oswego, English military post at,
61 ; westward expedition of the
French observed from, 62; taken
by the French, 90.

Otis, James, Advocate-General in

Court of Admiralty, warns min
isters against enforcing search-
warrants, 123 ; criticised for
boldness, 163.

PAINE, Robert Treat, represents
Massachusetts in Congress at
Philadelphia, 154.

Parliament renounces right to tax
colonies, 201.

Pendleton, Edmund, member of
House of Burgesses, referred to
in connection with debate of
Stamp Act, 131; character of,
131 ; referred to, 135 ; chosen
delegate to Congress at Phila
delphia, 148-149 ; vote received
by, as delegate to Congress, 161;
opposes Henry in convention,
170 ; referred to, 172 ; president
of Committee of Safety, 187;
becomes judge, 234.

Penn, Thomas, comment of, on
Washington's resignation from
militia, 80.

Pennsylvania, establishment of
colony of, 17 ; mixed population
of, 18 ; immigration of Scots-
Irish into, 19 ; westward move
ment of settlers from, 60-61;
Assembly of, refuses to act
against the French, 63 ; Assem
bly of, doubts English claim to
the Ohio, 70 ; votes money to
be used against the French, 76;
advantages of route through, to
Duquesne, 85 ; majority in, op
posed to revolution, 163 ; dele
gation from, led by Joseph
Galloway, 164 ; delegates from,
to Annapolis conference, 254 ;
Whiskey Rebellion in, 303.

Philadelphia, creation of, 17 ; cos
mopolitan character of colonial,
19 ; Congress at, 149, 171 ; en
tered by Howe, 197 ; British
leave, 202.

Phillipse, Mary, interests Wash
ington, 93, 101, 174.

Pinckney, Thomas, treaty of, with
Spain, 306.

Piracy in the colonies, 21-22 ; sup
pression of, 22.

INDEX

327

Pitt. William, becomes Prime-
Minister and ends the French
war, 93 ff.

Planters, in colonial Virginia,
mode of life of, 6, 28-29 ; pro
portion of, in colonial Virginia,
7 ; social position of, 8-9.

Poles volunteer for service in
America, 200.

Potomac, Washington surveying
on the, 55 ; importance of, to
commerce, 246 ; Washington's
plans concerning, 246 ; confer
ence of commissioners concern
ing, at Mount Vernon, 252.

Potomac Company, Washington
chosen president of, 251.

Presque Isle, French establish
themselves at, 62.

Princeton, Washington retreats to,
191 ; battle of, 193.

Principio Iron Company, interest
of Angustine Washington in,
45 ; Colonel Byrd on the man
agement of, 45.

Privateering in the colonies, 21.

Puritan Commonwealth in Eng
land the government of a mi
nority, 10.

Puritans, unlike other English
men, 9 ; of the minority in Eng
land, 10; ascendency of, in New
England, 10.

QUAKERS of Pennsylvania op
pose war with French, 63.

Quebec, Wolfe takes command of
expedition against, 93 ; taken,
95 ; attempt of Arnold to capt
ure, 183.

RAUL, Colonel, mortally wound
ed, 192.

Randolph, Edmund, becomes
prominent, 235 ; appointed dele
gate to conference at Philadel
phia, 257 ; part of, in the con
ference, 259 ; appointed Attor
ney-General, 278 ; Washington's
reasons for choice of, 280 ; op
position of, to National Bank,
293.

Randolph, Peyton, member of

House of Burgesses, referred to
in connection with debate of
Stamp Act, 131; previous life of,
132; referred to, 135; chosen dele
gate to Congress at Philadelphia,
148-149 ; chosen president of
Congress at Philadelphia, 159 ;
votes received by, as delegate to
Congress, 160 ; referred to, 172 ;
death of, 234.

Rangers, Virginian, added to Brad-
dock's forces, 82 ; behavior of,
in Braddock's defeat, 87, 88, 89;
Brad dock praises, 89.

"Red Sea trade," the, 21-22.

Redstone Creek, Ohio Company
establishes post on, 62.

Reed, Joseph, comment of, on
Virginia delegates, 172.

Restoration, effect of, upon colonial
settlement, 17.

Revolution, first battle of, 170;
goes against British, 203 ; ^oes
against Americans, 205 ; favors
Americans in the South, 208 ;
close of, 209 ; effect of, on Wash
ington, 216.

Rhode Island, Puritan though
various, 11 ; fails to send dele
gates to Annapolis conference,
254; in sympathy with Shays,
256.

Richmond, Virginia convention
meets in, 169.

Robin, Abbe. 215, 221.

Robinson, Beverly, entertains
Washington in New York, 93.

Robinson, Speaker of House and
Treasurer of Virginia, thanks
Washington for services, 103 ;
death of, referred to, 113.

Rochambeau, Count, lands men
at Newport, 206 ; assists Wash
ington's plans, 208, 228.

Rocldngham, Lord, referred to,
135; "declaratory act" under
ministry of, 138.

Rutledge, Edward, supports prop
osition of Galloway in Con
gress, 164 ; Washington's appeal
to, 272.

Rutledge, John, appointed to Su
preme Court, 281.

328

INDEX

ST. CLAIR, Sir John, Washington
at Williamsburg by order of,
100.

St. Lawrence, power of the French
on the, 28.

St. Leger, General, plans of, 194 ;
failure of, 195.

San Lazaro, Fort, storming of, 48.

Saratoga, battle of, 195.

Savannah taken by British, 204

Schuyler, General, driven from
Ticonderoga, 195 ; mentioned,
198.

Scots -Irish, in Virginia and the
middle colonies, 19; settlement
of, in Slienandoah Valley, 61;
harassed by Indians on Virgini
an frontier, 91.

Search-warrants issued by Board
of Trade, 122.

Servants, hired, in colonial Vir
ginia, 7.

Settlers harassed by Indians on
Virginian frontier, 91-92.

Sharpe, Horatio, Governor of Ma
ryland, consults with Braddock
at Alexandria, 83.

Shays leads rebellion in Massa
chusetts, 256.

Shenandoah, Washington survey
ing on the, 55 ; first movement
of settlers into valley of, 61.

Shippen, Dr., interview of, with
Massachusetts delegates, 161-
162.

Shirley, William, Governor of
Massachusetts, consults with
Braddock at, Alexandria, 83; to
lead attack on Niagara, 84 ; fails
in attack, 90; Washington's
visit to, in 1756, 92, 93, 174.

Slaves, proportion of, in colonial
Virginia, 7.

Smuggling, in the colonies, 21 ;
common practice of, 121.

Society of the Cincinnati, Wash
ington declines to meet, 257.

"Sons of Liberty," 175.

South Carolina, establishment of,
18 ; Independent Company
from, at Great Meadows, 73 ;
provincials from, under Innes at,
Will's Creek, 78 ; majority in,

opposed to revolution, 163; in
power of British, 205 ; fails to
send delegates to Annapolis
conference, 254.

Spain, alliance of, with France and
America, 204 ; invasion of Eng
land attempted by. 204 ; closes
Mississippi River to commerce,
245, 247, 249 ; treaty with, ob
tained by Pinckney, 306.

Spectator, the, Lord Fairfax a con
tributor to, 49-50; Washington's
acquaintance with, 56.

Spotswood, Alexander, character
of, and career in Virginia, 37-
38 ; judgment of Virginians by,
38 ; on the education of Bur
gesses, 38 ; referred to, 119.

Stamp Act, proposed by Grenville,
123 ; passage of, 124 ; protest
against, by House of Burgesses,
124; Henry's leadership in de
bate of, 128-129 ; repeal of, 135.

Steuben, Baron von, joins Wash
ington at Valley Forge, 200 ;
harasses Cornwallis in North
Carolina, 208.

Stith, Rev. William, character and
writings of, 35-36.

Sullivan, General, 192.

Swedes on the Delaware, 18.

TAXATION, Virginian Burgesses
regard Dinwiddie's land fee as,
69 ; of colonies, best imposed by
Parliament, 118 ; imposed on
wines and sugars, 1764, 119 ; di
rect, of colonies, favored by
George Grenville, 119; disregard
of, by officials and traders, 120 ;
ministry willing to remit. 167.

Thomson, Charles, clerk of Con
gress, notifies Washington of
his election, 265.

Ticonderoga, Allen takes posses
sion of, 171 ; captured by Bur-
goyne, 195.

Townshend, Charles, referred to,
139.

Trade, Ohio Company and the
western, 61-62 ; Acts of, 121.

Trenton captured by Washington,
192.

INDEX

329

Trnmbull, Governor, referred to,
189.

Trumbull, Jonathan, Jr., Wash
ington's letter to, 244.

Truro, parish of, represented by
Augustine Washington, 46.

Tryon, Governor of North Caro
lina, 145.

VALIANT, Washington's horse,
mentioned, 110.

Valley Forge, Washington win
ters at, 197, 199; Mrs. Washing
ton's visit to, 199.

Vanbraam, Jacob, fencing-master
at Mount Vernon, goes with
Washington to warn the French,
64.

Vergennes, intercession of, in be
half of Captain Asgill, 225.

Vermont, rebellion in, 256.

Vernon, Admiral, at Cartagena,
47-48.

VilHers, Coulon de, attacks Wash
ington at Great Meadows, 74-75.

Virginia, general English charac
ter of colonial, 5 ; fixed nature
of society in, 5-6 ; lack of towns
in, 6 ; independent plantation
life in, 6-7, 28-29; classes of
population in, 7; proportion of
slaves in, 7 ; democratic spirit
in, 8; position of Church in, 8 ;
position of Established Church
in, 8; contrasted with New Eng
land, 9; temper of, at establish
ment of the Commonwealth, 13;
change in population of, during
Commonwealth, 13-14 ; emigra
tion of John and Lawrence
Washington to, 14 ; French Hu
guenots and Germans in, 18 ;
meets the French in western fur
trade, 24 ; character and habits
of society in, 28 ff. ; individu
ality of men in, 28-29 ; educa
tion and study in, 29-30 ; char
acter of literary work in, 30-31;
travel in, 38; culture mixed with
rough life in, 39; obliged to act
alone against the French, 63 ;
English regiments for French
war arrive in, 81; route through,

to Duquesne chosen by Brad-
dock, 85 ; forces of, with Brad-
dock, 85 ; resents direct taxation,
119; loyalty of colonists to, 130;
prevented by governor from
sending delegates to "congress"
in New York. 134; passes bill of
rights, 134; leadership of dele
gates from, in Congress at Phil
adelphia, 158-159 ; colonists of,
armed, 168; convention of, meets
at Richmond, 169 ; changes in,
during the war, 234; yields west
ern land claims, 246; commis
sioners from, meet at Mount
Vernon concerning the Potomac,
252 ; calls general conference at
Annapolis, 254; delegates from,
to Annapolis conference, 254 ;
final adoption of national Con
stitution by, 260-261.

WALPOLE, Horace, calls Washing
ton a " brave braggart," 78, 80,
206.

Wai pole, Sir Robert, answer of,
to Keith, 118.

Washington, Augustine, father of
George, 40 ; character and occu
pations of, 45-46 ; a represent
ative in the House of Burgesses,
46; death and will of, 46; court
ship and marriage of, 47.

Washington, Augustine (half-
brother of George), estate and
education of, 46 ; George with,
at Bridges' Creek, 51; member
of Ohio Company, 61.

Washington, George, breeding of,
epitomized, 3; birth of, 40; birth
place of, 41; age of, at his fa
ther's death, 46 ; interest of, in
his father's estate, 46; under his
mother's care, 47 ; as a boy at
Mount Vernon and Belvoir, 50-
51, 52-53, 56; comradeships of,
as a boy. at Belvoir and Mount
Vernon, 50-53, 56 ; keptat school
till sixteen. 51 ; at Bridges' Creek
with his brother Augustine, 51;
kept from going to sea, 51; boy
ish relish of, for practical effi
ciency, 51-52; quits school, 52;

330

INDEX

intimacy of, with Lord Fairfax,
53-56; surveyor for Lord Fair
fax, 53-56; letter of, on sur
veying experiences, 55 ; boy
ish reading of, 56 ; official ap
pointment of, as surveyor, 56 ;
studies tactics and the broad
sword at Mount Veruon, 56; be
comes known throughout the
Northern Neck, 57; goes to the
Bahamas with Lawrence, 57;
made Lawrence's executor, 57-
58 ; contracts the small-pox in
the Bahamas, 58 ; takes Law
rence's place in the militia, 58 ;
put in charge of a military dis
trict, 58; contingent interest in
Mount Vernon, 58; sent by Din-
widdie to warn the French from
the Ohio, 64-66; difficulties of
the journey, 65-66 ; endeavors
to attach Indians to the English,
66; appointed by Dinwiddie to
command militia sent to the
Ohio, 69; journal of, to the Ohio
printed, 70; recruiting at Alex
andria, 71 ; commissioned lieu
tenant-colonel under Joshua
Fry, 72 ; sent forward to cut a
road to the Ohio, 72; establishes
camp at Great Meadows, 73;
trouble of, with Independent
Company at Great Meadows, 73 ;
succeeds Colonel Fry in com
mand, 73; spills first blood of the
Frencli war, 73-74; attacked
by Villiers at Great Meadows,
74-75 ; capitulates and retreats,
76; thanked by the House of
Burgesses, 77; letters of, on man
agement of expedition to Ohio,
77 ; likes the sound of bullets,
77 ; laughed at by Horace Wai-
pole, 78; rejoins regiment at
Alexandria, '78 ; resigns com
mand, 79 ; Thomas Penn's com
ment upon resignation of, 80 ;
visits Braddock's regiment at
Alexandria, 82; accepts place on
Braddock's staff, 83 ; disputes
of, with Braddock during ad
vance on Duquesne, 86; advises
division of Braddock's force,

86; in Braddock's defeat, 87-89 ;
ill just before the battle, 88; di
rects retreat alone, 89; distress of,
at sufferings of frontier settlers,
91 ; thanked by the Burgesses for
his services under Braddock, 91;
keeps the frontier against the
Indians, 91 - 92; cheered by
Colonel Fairfax, 92 ; behavior
of, towards his comrades, 92 ;
hangs insubordinates, 92 ; visits
Governor Shirley on matter of
rank, 92-93; becomes interested
in Mary Phillipse in New York,
93 ; goes with Forbes against Fort
Duquesne, 94; in ill-health, 94;
George Mason to, on need of
preserving himself for the coun
try, 94-95; meets Martha Cus-
tis, 99; becomes engaged to Mrs.
Custis, 101; early love affairs of,
101 ; marriage of, 102 ; stay of,
at the White House, 102; takes
wife to Williamsburg, 102;
chosen member of House of Bur
gesses, 103 ; embarrassed on en
tering House of Burgesses, 103;
publicly thanked for services,
103; management of estates by,
104; home life of, 104-112, 251;
business ability of, 105-106; at
titude of, towards drinking, 108-

109 ; election expenses of, 109;
fondness of, for hunting, 109-

110 ; getting estates into condi
tion, 110; pleasure outings of,
111; taste of, in clothes, 111; de
sire of, to go to England, 112;
comparison of, with Henry, 127;
attitude of, towards debate on
Stamp Act, 133; views of, on
enforcement of Stamp Act, 134 ;
confers with Mason on state of
colonies, 135; relations of, with
Fauquier. 136; letter of, to Ma
son on actions of Parliament,
140 ; presents Mason's resolution
to House of Burgesses, 140-141;
encourages observance of impor
tation resolution, 142; buys new
"chariot," 142; pre-empts lands
in the west, 142; employments
of, 142-143; gives ball at Alex-

INDEX

331

andria, 143; attends horse-races
in Philadelphia, 143 ; secures
western laud for comrades in
French war, 143 - 144 ; places
"Jackie" Custis in King's Col
lege, New York, 147 ; letter to
Colonel Bassett, 147 ; chosen
delegate to Congress at Phila
delphia, 148-149; not a leader
in Congress at Philadelphia,
359-160 ; criticism of, of Gage's
conduct, 160; reported saying
of, 160; votes received by, as
delegate to Congress, 161; in
terview of. with Massachusetts
delegates, 161-162; foresees out
come of Congress's actions, 165-
166; business affairs of, 166-167,
assumes command of Virginia
companies, 169; attends second
Continental Congress, 171 ; ac
cepts commnnd of arm}'' at Bos
ton, 174, 214; reverence of peo
ple for, 174; reaches Cambridge,
180; assumes command of army,
180 ; correspondence of, from
headquarters, 181 ; privateers
equipped by orders of, 182; oc
cupies Dorchester Heights, 184;
enters Boston, 185 ; transfers de-
fence to New York, 186 ; favors
motion for declaration of inde
pendence, 188; evacuates Brook
lyn Heights, 190 ; withdrawal of,
from New York City, 190; re
treat of, through New Jersey,
191; crosses the Delaware, 191;
forces recruited by, 192 ; capt
ures Trenton, 192; defeats Brit
ish at Princeton, 193 ; with
draws to Morristown, 193; proc
lamation of, 193; fortune of,
pledged for payment of troops,
194; causes Howe to retreat to
New York, 196; defeat of, at the
Brandy wine, 196; attacks Howe
at Germantown,,197; winters at
Valley Forge, 197; plots against,

198 ; trials of, at Valley Forge,

199 ; joined by Steuben, 200 ;
attacks Clinton at Monmouth
Court House, 202 ; wrath of, at
Lee's cowardice, 202 ; grief of,

at Arnold's treason, 207 ; takes
Corn wall is at Yorktown, 209 ;
courage of, 215 ; effect of the
war on, 216 ; reserve of, in dis
charge of duty, 218 ; advises
with Congress, 219; rejoins army
at Newburgh, 219; indignation
of, at Colonel Nicola's proposal,
220 ; efforts of, in behalf of the
army, 221 ; loses popularity with
the army, 222 ; treatment of mu
tinous officers by, 222-223; long
ing of, for home, 223; sternness
of, 224; reply of, to Vergennes
concerning Captain Asgill, 225;
gratification of, at release of
Captain Asgill, 225; farewell of,
to officers, 226 ; speech of, on re
signing commission at Annap
olis, 226-227; prayer of, before
battle, 227 ; returns to Mount
Vernon, 228 ; simplicity of, 228 ;
attends ball with his" mother,
228 ; deference of, to his mother,
229 ; rebukes his nephew, 233 ;
welcome of, on return to Vir
ginia, 235; privacy of, at Mount
Vernon, 237; letter of, to La
fayette, 237; interruptions of, at
Mount Vernon, 238 ; as a host.
238 ; affection of, for adopted
children, 239; agreement of, with
gardener, 240 f strictness of, in
business dealings, 241; eagerness
of people to see, 241 ; makes
journey to western lands, 242;
cares of, as statesman, 243 ; anx
iety of, for success of govern
ment, 243-244; "political creed "
of, 244 ; forebodings of, for fut
ure of the West, 245; efforts of,
to open the Potomac, 246; urges
increase of Congress's power,
248; portraits of, 250; makes
tour of inspection as president
of Potomac Company, 251 ; in
vites commissioners on opening
of the Potomac to Mount Ver
non, 252 ; letter of, to Henry Lee,
254 ; criticises weakness of Con
gress, 256 ; appointed delegate
to Philadelphia conference, 257;
reluctance of, to attend confer-

332

INDEX

ence at Philadelphia, 257 ; op
poses compromise in conference
at Philadelphia, 258 ; chosen
president of conference, 258; re
turns to Mount Vernon, 259; in
tense interest of, in discussions
of Constitution, 259; congratu-
lationsof. to Chasiellux on mar
riage, 260 ; reluctance of, to ac
cept presidency, 261 ; accepts
presidency, 262 ; bids farewell
to his mother, 265; leaves Mount
Vernon, 265; feelings of, on leav
ing home, 266; financial troubles
of, 267; journey of, to New York,
267; present journey contrasted
with former ones, 267: welcome
of, in New York, 268; takes oath
of office, 269; emotion of, during
inaugural address, 270-271; in
experience of, in administration,
272-273; fitness of, for office,
273 ; dignity of, in office, 274-
276 ; illness of, 277 ; familiarity
of, with affairs of government,
278; choice of cabinet by, 278;
care of, in federal appointments,
281 ; makes tour of eastern states,
281 - 282 ; sympathy of, with
Hamilton's policy, 284; attitude
of, towards French Revolution,
290-291, 292, 296; object in na
tional policy of, 291 ; sanctions
National Bank, 294 ; frontier
policy of, 295 ; neutrality of, be
tween France and England, 297;
frustrates plans of Genet, 298 ;
demands recall of Genet, 300 ;
elected to second term,301 ; sends
John Jay to England, 302; puts
down Whiskey Rebellion, 303 ;
favors Jay's treaty with Eng
land, 305; abuse of, by the peo
ple, 305; behavior of , under abuse,
306; wisdom of, recognized, 306;
attempts reconciliation of Ham
ilton and Jefferson, 307; declines
third term, 308; farewell address
of, 308 ; emotion of, on retire
ment from office, 309; retires to
Mount Vernon, 309-310; connec
tions of, with public life, 310;
treatment of old comrade by,

311 ; gentleness of, with chil
dren, 312 ; attends marriage of
Nellie Custis, 312 ; sickness and
death of, 313-314

Washington, Colonel Henry, holds
Worcester for the king, 14, 48-
49.

Washington, John, emigration of,
to Virginia, 14-15; ancestry of,
14-15 ; settlement of, in "North
ern Neck" of Virginia, 16-17 ;
life of, in Virginia, 40; fortunes
of descendants of, 40.

Washington, Rev. Lawrence, rec
tor of Purleigh, 15, 41.

Washington, Lawrence, emigrant
to Virginia, 14-15 ; ancestry of,
14-15; settlement of, in " North
ern Neck " of Virginia, 16-17.

Washington, Lawrence (half-broth
er of George), estate and educa
tion of, 46 ; service of, at Carta
gena, 47 ; in the storming of
Fort San Lazaro, 48 ; head of
the family and adjutant - gen
eral of the colonial militia, 48 ;
marriage of, 48-49 ; member of
the House of Burgesses, 50; in
fluence of, upon George, 50-53,
57 ; illness and death of, 57 ;
makes George his executor and
residuary legatee, 57-58 ; mem
ber of Ohio Company. 61; presi
dent of Ohio Company, 64 ; cor
respondence of, with Diuwiddie.
64.

Washington, Lund, 181 ; manage
ment of Mount Vernon by, 233.

Washington, Martha, outings of,
with Washington, 111 ; at Wash
ington's headquarters at Cam
bridge, 184; at Valley Forge, 190.

Washington, Mary, courtship and
marriage of, 47 ; keeps George
from going to sea, 51 ; attends
ball with Washington, 228 ;
Washington's deference to, 229 ;
Washington bids farewell to,
265.

Washingtons, the, fortunes of, in
the Northern Neck, 39-40.

Wentworth, commander of land
forces at Cartagena, 47.

INDEX

333

West Point, Arnold tries to be
tray, 207.

Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsyl
vania and Virginia, 303.

Whitehall Ferry, Washington at,
226.

White House, Washington's stay
at. 102.

White Plains, skirmish at, 190.

William and Mary, College of, 30 ;
chiefly founded by James Blair,
36.

Williamsburg, Virginia's chief
town, 6 ; Washington belated
at, by courting, 100 ; Washing
ton and wife at, 102 ; Dunmore
lands troops at, 171.

Will's Creek, Ohio Company's
post at, 62; Captain Innes builds
Fort Cumberland at, 78.

Wilson, James, appointed to Su
preme Court, 281.

Winchester, Washington on busi
ness concerning General Forbes
at, 100.

Wolfe, General, takes command
against Quebec, 93 ; takes Que
bec, 95.

Worcester, Colonel Henry Wash
ington at, 14, 48-49.

Wythe, George, referred to, in
connection with debate of Stamp
Act, 130 ; referred to, 135 ; ap
pointed delegate to Philadelphia
conference, 257.

YORKTOWN, Virginia, Cornwallis
arrives at, 208; Cornwallis's sur
render at, 209.

You n ir, Arthur, correspondence
of, with Washington, 260.

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Book Slip-15m-8,'52(A2573s4)458

Wilson, W.

George Washington

Call Number:
E312

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108456