Читать книгу The Life of George Washington - Henry Cabot Lodge - Страница 10

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Mary Cary

Lewis Willis, of Fredericksburg, who was at school with Washington, used to speak of him as an unusually studious and industrious boy, but recalled one occasion when he distinguished himself and surprised his schoolmates by "romping with one of the largest girls."¹ Half a century later, when the days of romping were long over and gone, a gentleman writing of a Mrs. Hartley, whom Washington much admired, said that the general always liked a fine woman.² It is certain that from romping he passed rapidly to more serious forms of expressing regard, for by the time he was fourteen he had fallen deeply in love with Mary Bland of Westmoreland, whom he calls his "Lowland Beauty," and to whom he wrote various copies of verses, preserved amid the notes of surveys, in his diary for 1747–48. The old tradition identified the "Lowland Beauty" with Miss Lucy Grymes, perhaps correctly, and there are drafts of letters addressed to "Dear Sally," which suggest that the mistake in identification might have arisen from the fact that there were several ladies who answered to that description. In the following sentence from the draft of a letter to a masculine sympathizer, also preserved in the tell-tale diary of 1748, there is certainly an indication that the constancy of the lover was not perfect. "Dear Friend Robin," he wrote: "My place of residence at present is at his Lordship's, where I might, were my heart disengaged, pass my time very pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young lady in the same house, Colonel George Fairfax's wife's sister. But that only adds fuel to the fire, as being often and unavoidably in company with her revives my former passion for your Lowland Beauty; whereas were I to live more retired from young women, I might in some measure alleviate my sorrow by burying that chaste and troublesome passion in oblivion; I am very well assured that this will be the only antidote or remedy." Our gloomy young gentleman, however, did not take to solitude to cure the pangs of despised love, but preceded to calm his spirits by the society of this same sister-in-law of George Fairfax, Miss Mary Cary. One "Lowland Beauty," Lucy Grymes, married Henry Lee, and became the mother of "Legion Harry," a favorite officer and friend of Washington in the Revolution, and the grandmother of Robert E. Lee, the great soldier of the Southern Confederacy. The affair with Miss Cary went on apparently for some years, fitfully pursued in the intervals of war and Indian fighting, and interrupted also by matters of a more tender nature. The first diversion occurred about 1752, when we find Washington writing to William Fauntleroy, at Richmond, that he proposed to come to his house to see his sister, Miss Betsy, and that he hoped for a revocation of her former cruel sentence.³ Miss Betsy, however, seems to have been obdurate, and we hear no more of love affairs until much later, and then in connection with matters of a graver sort.

When Captain Dagworthy, commanding thirty men in the Maryland service, undertook in virtue of a king's commission to outrank the commander-in-chief of the Virginian forces, Washington made up his mind that he would have this question at least finally and properly settled. So, as has been said, he went to Boston, saw Governor Shirley, and had the dispute determined in his own favor. He made the journey on horseback, and had with him two of his aides and two servants. An old letter, luckily preserved, tells us how he looked, for it contains orders to his London agents for various articles, sent for perhaps in anticipation of this very expedition. In Braddock's campaign the young surveyor and frontier soldier had been thrown among a party of dashing, handsomely equipped officers fresh from London, and their appearance had engaged his careful attention. Washington was a thoroughly simple man in all ways, but he was also a man of taste and a lover of military discipline. He had a keen sense of appropriateness, a valuable faculty which stood him in good stead in grave as well as trivial matters all through his career, and which in his youth came out most strongly in the matter of manners and personal appearance. He was a handsome man, and liked to be well dressed and to have everything about himself or his servants of the best. Yet he was not a mere imitator of fashions or devoted to fine clothes. The American leggins and fringed hunting-shirt had a strong hold on his affections, and he introduced them into Forbes's army, and again into the army of the Revolution, as the best uniform for the backwoods fighters. But he learned with Braddock that the dress of parade has as real military value as that of service, and when he traveled northward to settle about Captain Dagworthy, he felt justly that he now was going on parade for the first time as the representative of his troops and his colony. Therefore with excellent sense he dressed as befitted the occasion, and at the same time gratified his own taste.

Thanks to these precautions, the little cavalcade that left Virginia on February 4, 1756, must have looked brilliant enough as they rode away through the dark woods. First came the colonel, mounted of course on the finest of animals, for he loved and understood horses from the time when he rode bareback in the pasture to those later days when he acted as judge at a horse-race and saw his own pet colt "Magnolia" beaten. In this expedition he wore, of course, his uniform of buff and blue, with a white and scarlet cloak over his shoulders, and a sword-knot of red and gold. His "horse furniture" was of the best London make, trimmed with "livery lace," and the Washington arms were engraved upon the housings. Close by his side rode his two aides, likewise in buff and blue, and behind came his servants, dressed in the Washington colors of white and scarlet and wearing hats laced with silver. Thus accoutred, they all rode on together to the North.

The colonel's fame had gone before him, for the hero of Braddock's stricken field and the commander of the Virginian forces was known by reputation throughout the colonies. Every door flew open to him as he passed, and every one was delighted to welcome the young soldier. He was dined and wined and fêted in Philadelphia, and again in New York, where he fell in love at apparently short notice with the heiress Mary Philipse, the sister-in-law of his friend Beverly Robinson. Tearing himself away from these attractions he pushed on to Boston, then the most important city on the continent, and the head-quarters of Shirley, the commander-in-chief. The little New England capital had at that time a society which, rich for those days, was relieved from its Puritan sombreness by the gayety and life brought in by the royal officers. Here Washington lingered ten days, talking war and politics with the governor, visiting in state the "great and general court," dancing every night at some ball, dining with and being fêted by the magnates of the town. His business done, he returned to New York, tarried there awhile for the sake of the fair dame, but came to no conclusions, and then, like the soldier in the song, he gave his bridle-rein a shake and rode away again to the South, and to the harassed and ravaged frontier of Virginia.

How much this little interlude, pushed into a corner as it has been by the dignity of history—how much it tells of the real man! How the statuesque myth and the priggish myth and the dull and solemn myth melt away before it! Wise and strong, a bearer of heavy responsibility beyond his years, daring in fight and sober in judgment, we have here the other and the more human side of Washington. One loves to picture that gallant, generous, youthful figure, brilliant in color and manly in form, riding gayly on from one little colonial town to another, feasting, dancing, courting, and making merry. For him the myrtle and ivy were entwined with the laurel, and fame was sweetened by youth. He was righteously ready to draw from life all the good things which fate and fortune then smiling upon him could offer, and he took his pleasure frankly, with an honest heart.

We know that he succeeded in his mission and put the captain of thirty men in his proper place, but no one now can tell how deeply he was affected by the charms of Miss Philipse. The only certain fact is that he was able not long after to console himself very effectually. Riding away from Mount Vernon once more, in the spring of 1758, this time to Williamsburg with dispatches, he stopped at William's Ferry to dine with his friend Major Chamberlayne, and there he met Martha Dandridge, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis. She was young, pretty, intelligent, and an heiress, and her society seemed to attract the young soldier. The afternoon wore away, the horses came to the door at the appointed time, and after being walked back and forth for some hours were returned to the stable. The sun went down, and still the colonel lingered. The next morning he rode away with his dispatches, but on his return he paused at the White House, the home of Mrs. Custis, and then and there plighted his troth with the charming widow. The wooing was brief and decisive, and the successful lover departed for the camp, to feel more keenly than ever the delays of the British officers and the shortcomings of the colonial government. As soon as Fort Duquesne had fallen he hurried home, resigned his commission in the last week of December, and was married on January 6, 1759. It was a brilliant wedding party which assembled on that winter day in the little church near the White House. There were gathered Francis Fauquier, the gay, free-thinking, high-living governor, gorgeous in scarlet and gold; British officers, redcoated and gold-laced, and all the neighboring gentry in the handsomest clothes that London credit could furnish. The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears; while the bridegroom appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold buckles at his knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony the bride was taken home in a coach and six, her husband riding beside her, mounted on a splendid horse and followed by all the gentlemen of the party.

Mary Morris born Mary Philipse

The sunshine and glitter of the wedding-day must have appeared to Washington deeply appropriate, for he certainly seemed to have all that heart of man could desire. Just twenty-seven, in the first flush of young manhood, keen of sense and yet wise in experience, life must have looked very fair and smiling. He had left the army with a well-earned fame, and had come home to take the wife of his choice and enjoy the good-will and respect of all men. While away on his last campaign he had been elected a member of the House of Burgesses, and when he took his seat on removing to Williamsburg, three months after his marriage, Mr. Robinson, the speaker, thanked him publicly in eloquent words for his services to the country. Washington rose to reply, but he was so utterly unable to talk about himself that he stood before the House stammering and blushing, until the speaker said, "Sit down, Mr. Washington; your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess." It is an old story, and as graceful as it is old, but it was all very grateful to Washington, especially as the words of the speaker bodied forth the feelings of Virginia. Such an atmosphere, filled with deserved respect and praise, was pleasant to begin with, and then he had everything else too.

He not only continued to sit in the House year after year and help to rule Virginia, but he served on the church vestry, and so held in his hands the reins of local government. He had married a charming woman, simple, straightforward, and sympathetic, free from gossip or pretense, and as capable in practical matters as he was himself. By right of birth a member of the Virginian aristocracy, he had widened and strengthened his connections through his wife. A man of handsome property by the death of Lawrence Washington's daughter, he had become by his marriage one of the richest men of the country. Acknowledged to be the first soldier on the continent, respected and trusted in public, successful and happy in private life, he had attained before he was thirty to all that Virginia could give of wealth, prosperity, and honor, a fact of which he was well aware, for there never breathed a man more wisely contented than George Washington at this period.

He made his home at Mount Vernon, adding many acres to the estate, and giving to it his best attention. It is needless to say that he was successful, for that was the ease with everything he undertook. He loved country life, and he was the best and most prosperous planter in Virginia, which was really a more difficult achievement than the mere statement implies. Genuinely profitable farming in Virginia was not common, for the general system was a bad one. A single great staple, easily produced by the reckless exhaustion of land, and varying widely in the annual value of crops, bred improvidence and speculation. Everything was bought upon long credits, given by the London merchants, and this, too, contributed largely to carelessness and waste. The chronic state of a planter in a business way was one of debt, and the lack of capital made his conduct of affairs extravagant and loose. With all his care and method Washington himself was often pinched for ready money, and it was only by his thoroughness and foresight that he prospered and made money while so many of his neighbors struggled with debt and lived on in easy luxury, not knowing what the morrow might bring forth.

A far more serious trouble than bad business methods was one which was little heeded at the moment, but which really lay at the foundation of the whole system of society and business. This was the character of the labor by which the plantations were worked. Slave labor is well known now to be the most expensive and the worst form of labor that can be employed. In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, its evils were not appreciated, either from an economical or a moral point of view. This is not the place to discuss the subject of African slavery in America. But it is important to know Washington's opinions in regard to an institution which was destined to have such a powerful influence upon the country, and it seems most appropriate to consider those opinions at the moment when slaves became a practical factor in his life as a Virginian planter.

Washington accepted the system as he found it, as most men accept the social arrangements to which they are born. He grew up in a world where slavery had always existed, and where its rightfulness had never been questioned. Being on the frontier, occupied with surveying and with war, he never had occasion to really consider the matter at all until he found himself at the head of large estates, with his own prosperity dependent on the labor of slaves. The first practical question, therefore, was how to employ this labor to the best advantage. A man of his clear perceptions soon discovered the defects of the system, and he gave great attention to feeding and clothing his slaves, and to their general management. Parkinson⁴ says in a general way that Washington treated his slaves harshly, spoke to them sharply, and maintained a military discipline, to which he attributed the General's rare success as a planter. There can be no doubt of the success, and the military discipline is probably true, but the statement as to harshness is unsupported by any other authority. Indeed, Parkinson even contradicts it himself, for he says elsewhere that Washington never bought or sold a slave, a proof of the highest and most intelligent humanity; and he adds in his final sketch of the General's character, that he "was incapable of wrong-doing, but did to all men as he would they should do to him. Therefore it is not to be supposed that he would injure the negro." This agrees with what we learn from all other sources. Humane by nature, he conceived a great interest and pity for these helpless beings, and treated them with kindness and forethought. In a word, he was a wise and good master, as well as a successful one, and the condition of his slaves was as happy, and their labor as profitable, as was possible to such a system.

So the years rolled by; the war came and then the making of the government, and Washington's thoughts were turned more and more, as was the case with all the men of his time in that era of change and of new ideas, to the consideration of human slavery in its moral, political, and social aspects. To trace the course of his opinions in detail is needless. It is sufficient to summarize them, for the results of his reflection and observation are more important than the processes by which they were reached. Washington became convinced that the whole system was thoroughly bad, as well as utterly repugnant to the ideas upon which the Revolution was fought and the government of the United States founded. With a prescience wonderful for those days and on that subject, he saw that slavery meant the up-growth in the United States of two systems so radically hostile, both socially and economically, that they could lead only to a struggle for political supremacy, which in its course he feared would imperil the Union. For this reason he deprecated the introduction of the slavery question into the debates of the first Congress, because he realized its character, and he did not believe that the Union or the government at that early day could bear the strain which in this way would be produced. At the same time he felt that a right solution must be found or inconceivable evils would ensue. The inherent and everlasting wrong of the system made its continuance, to his mind, impossible. While it existed, he believed that the laws which surrounded it should be maintained, because he thought that to violate these only added one wrong to another. He also doubted, as will be seen in a later chapter, where his conversation with John Bernard is quoted, whether the negroes could be immediately emancipated with safety either to themselves or to the whites, in their actual condition of ignorance, illiteracy, and helplessness. The plan which he favored, and which, it would seem, was his hope and reliance, was first the checking of importation, followed by a gradual emancipation, with proper compensation to the owners and suitable preparation and education for the slaves. He told the clergymen Asbury and Coke, when they visited him for that purpose, that he was in favor of emancipation, and was ready to write a letter to the assembly to that effect.⁵ He wished fervently that such a spirit might take possession of the people of the country, but he wrote to Lafayette that he despaired of seeing it. When he died he did all that lay within his power to impress his views upon his countrymen by directing that all his slaves should be set free on the death of his wife. His precepts and his example in this grave matter went unheeded for many years by the generations which came after him. But now that slavery is dead, to the joy of all men, it is well to remember that on this terrible question Washington's opinions were those of a humane man, impatient of wrong, and of a noble and far-seeing statesman, watchful of the evils that threatened his country.⁶

After this digression let us return to the Virginian farmer, whose mind was not disturbed as yet by thoughts of the destiny of the United States, or considerations of the rights of man, but who was much exercised by the task of making an honest income out of his estates. To do this he grappled with details as firmly as he did with the general system under which all plantations in that day were carried on. He understood every branch of farming; he was on the alert for every improvement; he rose early, worked steadily, gave to everything his personal supervision, kept his own accounts with wonderful exactness, and naturally enough his brands of flour went unquestioned everywhere, his credit was high, and he made money—so far as it was possible under existing conditions. Like Shakespeare, as Bishop Blougram has it, he

"Saved money, spent it, owned the worth of things."

He had no fine and senseless disregard for money or the good things of this world, but on the contrary saw in them not the value attached to them by vulgar minds, but their true worth. He was a solid, square, evenly-balanced man in those days, believing that whatever he did was worth doing well. So he farmed, as he fought and governed, better than anybody else.

While thus looking after his own estates at home, he went further afield in search of investments, keeping a shrewd eye on the western lands, and buying wisely and judiciously whenever he had the opportunity. He also constituted himself now, as in a later time, the champion of the soldiers, for whom he had the truest sympathy and affection, and a large part of the correspondence of this period is devoted to their claims for the lands granted them by the assembly. He distinguished carefully among them, however, those who were undeserving, and to the major of the regiment, who had been excluded from the public thanks on account of cowardice at the Great Meadows, he wrote as follows: "Your impertinent letter was delivered to me yesterday. As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally without letting you feel some marks of my resentment, I would advise you to be cautious in writing me a second of the same tenor. But for your stupidity and sottishness you might have known, by attending to the public gazette, that you had your full quantity of ten thousand acres of land allowed you. But suppose you had really fallen short, do you think your superlative merit entitles you to greater indulgence than others? … All my concern is that I ever engaged in behalf of so ungrateful a fellow as you are." The writer of this letter, be it said in passing, was the man whom Mr. Weems and others tell us was knocked down before his soldiers, and then apologized to his assailant. It may be suspected that it was well for the recipient of this letter that he did not have a personal interview with its author, and it may be doubted if he ever sought one subsequently. Just, generous, and magnanimous to an extraordinary degree, Washington had a dangerous temper, held well under control, but blazing out now and again against injustice, insolence, or oppression. He was a peaceful man, leading a peaceful life, but the fighting spirit only slumbered, and it would break out at wrong of any sort, in a way which was extremely unpleasant and threatening to those who aroused it.

Apart from lands and money and the management of affairs, public and private, there were many other interests of varied nature which all had their share of Washington's time and thought. He was a devoted husband, and gave to his stepchildren the most affectionate care. He watched over and protected them, and when the daughter died, after a long and wasting illness, in 1773, he mourned for her as if she had been his own, with all the tenderness of a deep and reserved affection. The boy, John Custis, he made his friend and companion from the beginning, and his letters to the lad and about him are wise and judicious in the highest degree. He spent much time and thought on the question of education, and after securing the best instructors took the boy to New York and entered him at Columbia College in 1773. Young Custis, however, did not remain there long, for he had fallen in love, and the following year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not without some misgivings on the part of Washington, who had observed his ward's somewhat flighty disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious thought to his future. At home as abroad he was an undemonstrative man, but he had abundance of that real affection which labors for those to whom it goes out more unselfishly and far more effectually than that which bubbles and boils upon the surface like a shallow, noisy brook.

From the suggestions that he made in regard to young Custis, it is evident that Washington valued and respected education, and that he had that regard for learning for its own sake which always exists in large measure in every thoughtful man. He read well, even if his active life prevented his reading much, as we can see by his vigorous English, and by his occasional allusions to history. From his London orders we see, too, that everything about his house must have denoted that its possessor had refinement and taste. His intense sense of propriety and unfailing instinct for what was appropriate are everywhere apparent. His dress, his furniture, his harnesses, the things for the children, all show the same fondness for simplicity, and yet a constant insistence that everything should be the best of its kind. We can learn a good deal about any man by the ornaments of his house, and by the portraits which hang on his walls; for these dumb things tell us whom among the great men of earth the owner admires, and indicate the tastes he best loves to gratify. When Washington first settled with his wife at Mount Vernon, he ordered from Europe the busts of Alexander the Great, Charles XII. of Sweden, Julius Cæsar, Frederick of Prussia, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, and in addition he asked for statuettes of "two wild beasts." The combination of soldier and statesman is the predominant admiration, then comes the reckless and splendid military adventurer, and lastly wild life and the chase. There is no mistaking the ideas and fancies of the man who penned this order which has drifted down to us from the past.

But as Washington's active life was largely out of doors, so too were his pleasures. He loved the fresh open-air existence of the woods and fields, and there he found his one great amusement. He shot and fished, but did not care much for these pursuits, for his hobby was hunting, which gratified at once his passion for horses and dogs and his love for the strong excitement of the chase, when dashed with just enough danger to make it really fascinating. He showed in his sport the same thoroughness and love of perfection that he displayed in everything else. His stables were filled with the best horses that Virginia could furnish. There were the "blooded coach-horses" for Mrs. Washington's carriage, "Magnolia," a full-blooded Arabian, used by his owner for the road, the ponies for the children, and finally, the high-bred hunters Chinkling and Valiant, Ajax and Blueskin, and the rest, all duly set down in the register in the handwriting of the master himself. His first visit in the morning was to the stables; the next to the kennels to inspect and criticise the hounds, also methodically registered and described, so that we can read the names of Vulcan and Ringwood, Singer and Truelove, Music and Sweetlips, to which the Virginian woods once echoed nearly a century and a half ago. His hounds were the subject of much thought, and were so constantly and critically drafted as to speed, keenness, and bottom, that when in full cry they ran so closely bunched that tradition says, in classic phrase, they could have been covered with a blanket. The hounds met three times a week in the season, usually at Mount Vernon, sometimes at Belvoir. They would get off at daybreak, Washington in the midst of his hounds, splendidly mounted, generally on his favorite Blueskin, a powerful iron-gray horse of great speed and endurance. He wore a blue coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, and a velvet cap. Closely followed by his huntsman and the neighboring gentlemen, with the ladies, headed, very likely, by Mrs. Washington in a scarlet habit, he would ride to the appointed covert and throw in. There was no difficulty in finding, and then away they would go, usually after a gray fox, sometimes after a big black fox, rarely to be caught. Most of the country was wild and unfenced, rough in footing, and offering hard and dangerous going for the horses, but Washington always made it a rule to stay with his hounds. Cautious or timid riders, if they were so minded, could gallop along the wood roads with the ladies, and content themselves with glimpses of the hunt, but the master rode at the front. The fields, it is to be feared, were sometimes small, but Washington hunted even if he had only his stepson or was quite alone.

His diaries abound with allusions to the sport. "Went a-hunting with Jacky Custis, and catched a fox after three hours chase; found it in the creek." "Mr. Bryan Fairfax, Mr. Grayson, and Phil. Alexander came home by sunrise. Hunted and catched a fox with these. Lord Fairfax, his brother, and Colonel Fairfax, all of whom, with Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Wilson of England, dined here." Again, November 26 and 29, "Hunted again with the same party." "1768, Jan. 8th. Hunting again with same company. Started a fox and run him 4 hours. Took the hounds off at night." "Jan. 15. Shooting." "16. At home all day with cards; it snowing." "23. Rid to Muddy Hole and directed paths to be cut for foxhunting." "Feb. 12. Catched 2 foxes." "Feb. 13. Catched 2 more foxes." "Mar. 2. Catched fox with bob'd tail and cut ears after 7 hours chase, in which most of the dogs were worsted." "Dec. 5. Fox-hunting with Lord Fairfax and his brother and Colonel Fairfax. Started a fox and lost it. Dined at Belvoir and returned in the evening."⁷

So the entries run on, for he hunted almost every day in the season, usually with success, but always with persistence. Like all true sportsmen Washington had a horror of illicit sport of any kind, and although he shot comparatively little, he was much annoyed by a vagabond who lurked in the creeks and inlets on his estate, and slaughtered his canvas-back ducks. Hearing the report of a gun one morning, he rode through the bushes and saw his poaching friend just shoving off in a canoe. The rascal raised his gun and covered his pursuer, whereupon Washington, the cold-blooded and patient person so familiar in the myths, dashed his horse headlong into the water, seized the gun, grasped the canoe, and dragging it ashore pulled the man out of the boat and beat him soundly. If the man had yielded at once he would probably have got off easily enough, but when he put Washington's life in imminent peril, the wild fighting spirit flared up as usual.

The hunting season was of course that of the most lavish hospitality. There was always a great deal of dining about, but Mount Vernon was the chief resort, and its doors, ever open, were flung far back when people came for a meet, or gathered to talk over the events of a good run. Company was the rule and solitude the exception. When only the family were at dinner, the fact was written down in the diary with great care as an unusual event, for Washington was the soul of hospitality, and although he kept early hours, he loved society and a houseful of people. Profoundly reserved and silent as to himself, a lover of solitude so far as his own thoughts and feelings were concerned, he was far from being a solitary man in the ordinary acceptation of the word. He liked life and gayety and conversation, he liked music and dancing or a game of cards when the weather was bad, and he enjoyed heartily the presence of young people and of his own friends. So Mount Vernon was always full of guests, and the master noted in his diary that although he owned more than a hundred cows he was obliged, nevertheless, to buy butter, which suggests an experience not unknown to gentlemen farmers of any period, and also that company was never lacking in that generous, open house overlooking the Potomac.

Beyond the bounds of his own estate he had also many occupations and pleasures. He was a member of the House of Burgesses, diligent in his attention to the work of governing the colony. He was diligent also in church affairs, and very active in the vestry, which was the seat of local government in Virginia. We hear of him also as the manager of lotteries, which were a common form of raising money for local purposes, in preference to direct taxation. In a word, he was thoroughly public-spirited, and performed all the small duties which his position demanded in the same spirit that he afterwards brought to the command of armies and to the government of the nation. He had pleasure too, as well as business, away from Mount Vernon. He liked to go to his neighbors' houses and enjoy their hospitality as they enjoyed his. We hear of him at the courthouse on court days, where all the country-side gathered to talk and listen to the lawyers and hear the news, and when he went to Williamsburg his diary tells us of a round of dinners, beginning with the governor, of visits to the club, and of a regular attendance at the theatre whenever actors came to the little capital. Whether at home or abroad, he took part in all the serious pursuits, in all the interests, and in every reasonable pleasure offered by the colony.

Take it for all in all, it was a manly, wholesome, many-sided life. It kept Washington young and strong, both mentally and physically. When he was forty he flung the iron bar, at some village sports, to a point which no competitor could approach. There was no man in all Virginia who could ride a horse with such a powerful and assured seat. There was no one who could journey farther on foot, and no man at Williamsburg who showed at the governor's receptions such a commanding presence, or who walked with such a strong and elastic step. As with the body so with the mind. He never rusted. A practical carpenter and smith, he brought the same quiet intelligence and firm will to the forging of iron or the felling and sawing of trees that he had displayed in fighting France. The life of a country gentleman did not dull or stupefy him, or lead him to gross indulgences. He remained well-made and athletic, strong and enduring, keen in perception and in sense, and warm in his feelings and affections. Many men would have become heavy and useless in these years of quiet country life, but Washington simply ripened, and, like all slowly maturing men, grew stronger, abler, and wiser in the happy years of rest and waiting which intervened between youth and middle age.

Meantime, while the current of daily life flowed on thus gently at Mount Vernon, the great stream of public events poured by outside. It ran very calmly at first, after the war, and then with a quickening murmur, which increased to an ominous roar when the passage of the Stamp Act became known in America. Washington was always a constant attendant at the assembly, in which by sheer force of character, and despite his lack of the talking and debating faculty, he carried more weight than any other member. He was present on May 29, 1765, when Patrick Henry introduced his famous resolutions and menaced the king's government in words which rang through the continent. The resolutions were adopted, and Washington went home, with many anxious thoughts, to discuss the political outlook with his friend and neighbor George Mason, one of the keenest and ablest men in Virginia. The utter folly of the policy embodied in the Stamp Act struck Washington very forcibly. With that foresight for which he was so remarkable, he perceived what scarcely any one else even dreamt of, that persistence in this course must surely lead to a violent separation from the mother-country, and it is interesting to note in this, the first instance when he was called upon to consider a political question of great magnitude, his clearness of vision and grasp of mind. In what he wrote there is no trace of the ambitious schemer, no threatening nor blustering, no undue despondency nor excited hopes. But there is a calm understanding of all the conditions, an entire freedom from self-deception, and the power of seeing facts exactly as they were, which were all characteristic of his intellectual strength, and to which we shall need to recur again and again.

The repeal of the Stamp Act was received by Washington with sober but sincere pleasure. He had anticipated "direful" results and "unhappy consequences" from its enforcement, and he freely said that those who were instrumental in its repeal had his cordial thanks. He was no agitator, and had not come forward in this affair, so he now retired again to Mount Vernon, to his farming and hunting, where he remained, watching very closely the progress of events. He had marked the dangerous reservation of the principle in the very act of repeal; he observed at Boston the gathering strength of what the wise ministers of George III. called sedition; he noted the arrival of British troops in the rebellious Puritan town; and he saw plainly enough, looming in the background, the final appeal to arms. He wrote to Mason (April 5, 1769), that "at a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question. That no man should scruple or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource, the dernier ressort." He then urged the adoption of the only middle course, non-importation, but he had not much hope in this expedient, although an honest desire is evident that it may prove effectual.

When the assembly met in May, they received the new governor, Lord Botetourt, with much cordiality, and then fell to passing spirited and sharp-spoken resolutions declaring their own rights and defending Massachusetts. The result was a dissolution. Thereupon the burgesses repaired to the Raleigh tavern, where they adopted a set of non-importation resolutions and formed an association. The resolutions were offered by Washington, and were the result of his quiet country talks with Mason. When the moment for action arrived, Washington came naturally to the front, and then returned quietly to Mount Vernon, once more to go about his business and watch the threatening political horizon. Virginia did not live up to this first non-importation agreement, and formed another a year later. But Washington was not in the habit of presenting resolutions merely for effect, and there was nothing of the actor in his composition. His resolutions meant business, and he lived up to them rigidly himself. Neither tea nor any of the proscribed articles were allowed in his house. Most of the leaders did not realize the seriousness of the situation, but Washington, looking forward with clear and sober gaze, was in grim earnest, and was fully conscious that when he offered his resolutions the colony was trying the last peaceful remedy, and that the next step would be war.

Still he went calmly about his many affairs as usual, and gratified the old passion for the frontier by a journey to Pittsburgh for the sake of lands and soldiers' claims, and thence down the Ohio and into the wilderness with his old friends the trappers and pioneers. He visited the Indian villages as in the days of the French mission, and noted in the savages an ominous restlessness, which seemed, like the flight of birds, to express the dumb instinct of an approaching storm. The clouds broke away somewhat under the kindly management of Lord Botetourt, and then gathered again more thickly on the accession of his successor, Lord Dunmore. With both these gentlemen Washington was on the most friendly terms. He visited them often, and was consulted by them, as it behooved them to consult the strongest man within the limits of their government. Still he waited and watched, and scanned carefully the news from the North. Before long he heard that tea-chests were floating in Boston harbor, and then from across the water came intelligence of the passage of the Port Bill and other measures destined to crush to earth the little rebel town.

When the Virginia assembly met again, they proceeded to congratulate the governor on the arrival of Lady Dunmore, and then suddenly, as all was flowing smoothly along, there came a letter through the corresponding committee which Washington had helped to establish, telling of the measures against Boston. Everything else was thrown aside at once, a vigorous protest was entered on the journal of the House, and June 1, when the Port Bill was to go into operation, was appointed a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The first result was prompt dissolution of the assembly. The next was another meeting in the long room of the Raleigh tavern, where the Boston bill was denounced, non-importation renewed, and the committee of correspondence instructed to take steps for calling a general congress. Events were beginning to move at last with perilous rapidity. Washington dined with Lord Dunmore on the evening of that day, rode with him, and appeared at her ladyship's ball the next night, for it was not his way to bite his thumb at men from whom he differed politically, nor to call the motives of his opponents in question. But when the 1st of June arrived, he noted in his diary that he fasted all day and attended the appointed services. He always meant what he said, being of a simple nature, and when he fasted and prayed there was something ominously earnest about it, something that his excellency the governor, who liked the society of this agreeable man and wise counselor, would have done well to consider and draw conclusions from, and which he probably did not heed at all. He might well have reflected, as he undoubtedly failed to do, that when men of the George Washington type fast and pray on account of political misdoings, it is well for their opponents to look to it carefully.

Meantime Boston had sent forth appeals to form a league among the colonies, and thereupon another meeting was held in the Raleigh tavern, and a letter was dispatched advising the burgesses to consider this matter of a general league and take the sense of their respective counties. Virginia and Massachusetts had joined hands now, and they were sweeping the rest of the continent irresistibly forward with them. As for Washington, he returned to Mount Vernon and at once set about taking the sense of his county, as he had agreed. Before doing so he had some correspondence with his old friend Bryan Fairfax. The Fairfaxes naturally sided with the mother-country, and Bryan was much distressed by the course of Virginia, and remonstrated strongly, and at length by letter, against violent measures. Washington replied to him: "Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation on us? Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this? Do not all the debates, especially those just brought to us in the House of Commons, on the side of government expressly declare that America must be taxed in aid of the British funds, and that she has no longer resources within herself? Is there anything to be expected from petitioning after this? Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts) for depriving the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into other colonies, or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible from the nature of the thing that justice can be obtained, convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest test?" He was prepared, he continued, for anything except confiscating British debts, which struck him as dishonorable. These were plain but pregnant questions, but what we mark in them, and in all his letters of this time, is the absence of constitutional discussion, of which America was then full. They are confined to a direct presentation of the broad political question, which underlay everything. Washington always went straight to the mark, and he now saw, through all the dust of legal and constitutional strife, that the only real issue was whether America was to be allowed to govern herself in her own way or not. In the acts of the ministry he perceived a policy which aimed at substantial power, and he believed that such a policy, if insisted on, could have but one result.

The meeting of Fairfax County was held in due course, and Washington presided. The usual resolutions for self-government and against the vindictive Massachusetts measures were adopted. Union and non-importation were urged; and then the congress, which they advocated, was recommended to address a petition and remonstrance to the king, and ask him to reflect that "from our sovereign there can be but one appeal." Everything was to be tried, everything was to be done, but the ultimate appeal was never lost sight of where Washington appeared, and the final sentence of these Fairfax County resolves is very characteristic of the leader in the meeting. Two days later he wrote to the worthy and still remonstrating Bryan Fairfax, repeating and enlarging his former questions, and adding: "Has not General Gage's conduct since his arrival, in stopping the address of his council, and publishing a proclamation more becoming a Turkish bashaw than an English governor, declaring it treason to associate in any manner by which the commerce of Great Britain is to be affected—has not this exhibited an unexampled testimony of the most despotic system of tyranny that ever was practiced in a free government? … Shall we after this whine and cry for relief, when we have already tried it in vain? Or shall we supinely sit and see one province after another fall a sacrifice to despotism?" The fighting spirit of the man was rising. There was no rash rushing forward, no ignorant shouting for war, no blinking of the real issue, but a foresight that nothing could dim, and a perception of facts which nothing could confuse. On August 1 Washington was at Williamsburg, to represent his county in the meeting of representatives from all Virginia. The convention passed resolutions like the Fairfax resolves, and chose delegates to a general congress. The silent man was now warming into action. He "made the most eloquent speech that ever was made," and said, "I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march them to the relief of Boston." He was capable, it would seem, of talking to the purpose with some fire and force, for all he was so quiet and so retiring. When there was anything to say, he could say it so that it stirred all who listened, because they felt that there was a mastering strength behind the words. He faced the terrible issue solemnly and firmly, but his blood was up, the fighting spirit in him was aroused, and the convention chose him as one of Virginia's six delegates to the Continental Congress. He lingered long enough to make a few preparations at Mount Vernon. He wrote another letter to Fairfax, interesting to us as showing the keenness with which he read in the meagre news-reports the character of Gage and of the opposing people of Massachusetts. Then he started for the North to take the first step on the long and difficult path that lay before him.

[Footnote 1: (return) Quoted from the Willis MS. by Mr. Conway, in Magazine of American History, March, 1887, p. 196.]

[Footnote 2: (return) Magazine of American History, i. 324.]

[Footnote 3: (return) Historical Magazine, 3d series, 1873. Letter communicated by Fitzhugh Lee.]

[Footnote 4: (return) Tour in America, 1798–1800.]

[Footnote 5: (return) Magazine of American History, 1880, p. 158.]

[Footnote 6: (return) For some expressions of Washington's opinions on slavery, see Sparks, viii. 414, ix. 159–163, and x. 224.]

[Footnote 7: (return) MS. Diaries in State Department.]