GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 The Ideal Patriot. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. EDWARD M. TAYLOR, D. D. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION BY 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D. D. 
 
 CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS. 
 
 NEW YORK : EATON & MAINS. 
 
 1897.
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 BY CURTS & JENNINGS 
 
 1897.
 
 <J 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BOSTON, MASS., 
 
 I AM most glad that my friends of the 
 Epworth League propose to study 
 
 with some care the life and character 
 of Washington, and have so good a 
 chance to do so. 
 
 No American boy or girl, man or 
 woman, is equipped for life, who has not 
 a fair acquaintance with the man Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 , 
 
 Do not make of him an idol, but think 
 
 of him as a man. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 
 3 
 
 973630
 
 FOREWORD. 
 
 THERE ^axfe-^early five hundred 
 .Biographies of George Washing- 
 ton written; they are published in 
 almost^rvery modern language. The 
 story of his life has also been set in the 
 classic forms of the Greek and Latin 
 tongues. 
 
 f" His portraits adorn our Legislative 
 Malls, and hang upon the walls of our 
 public schools and libraries. 
 
 More than two hundred places in the 
 United States of America bear his name. 
 The facts of his life have all been gath- 
 ered, and woven by genius into enduring 
 forms. 
 
 Why write another book about Wash- 
 ington? The answer. lies close at hand. 
 Because' the people .da.-not know George 
 Washington. 
 4
 
 FOREWORD. 5 
 
 His noble, human life is not so much 
 "first in the hearts of his. countrymen" as 
 one might suppose. 
 
 The only right this book has to exist- 
 ence, is the sincere desire on the part of 
 the author to enlist the interest of the ris- 
 ing generation in a thoughtful study of 
 the character of George Washington. 
 
 "I am a man; I consider none of the 
 incidents which befall my fellow-creatures 
 to be matters of unconcern to me." These 
 words of the Roman poet, Terence, fit- 
 tingly describe the straightforward, mag- 
 nanimous, and manly character of George 
 Washington. Circumstances decreed that 
 he should learn the lessons of life from 
 men, rather than books. His early train- 
 ing was of such a nature as to put him in 
 the closest sympathy with men and affairs. 
 In character-study he was a master. In 
 his long and trying career as general and 
 President, he made but one mistake in 
 his estimate qfjnea-. Washington was de- 
 ceived in Benedict Arnold.
 
 6 FOREWORD. 
 
 No man in the history of our country 
 has left such wealth of materials from 
 which to draw the true picture of his life 
 as George Washington. He began the 
 keeping of a diary in his sixteenth year, 
 and kept it up, with but few breaks, to 
 the end of his life, covering a period of 
 fifty-one years. His position laid upon 
 him the burden of a large correspondence. 
 He has been called "the most felicitous 
 letter-writer of the ages." He scrupu- 
 lously preserved copies of his letters dur- 
 ing his public career. Careful students 
 of these manuscripts truthfully declare 
 they are his most complete biography." 
 
 Notwithstanding these fac^-ttSe mdrT\ 
 
 fnn lint; hppn^srKtriprg-pH in the I 
 
 ome eulogies of the hero Washington/ 
 This practical man of affairs, in whosfe 
 moral and intellectual make-up there was) 
 no moonshine, has been placed upon thy 
 lonely height of flawless greatness, 4^ r 
 above the contemplation of the commoji 
 tide of humanity. The satiric tempera-
 
 FOREWORD. 7 
 
 ment finds in this picture of Washington 
 abundant materials for work; while to or- 
 dinary mortals it reveals Washington as 
 a character 
 
 "Too bright and good 
 For human nature's daily food." 
 
 It must be said in this connection that of 
 late an earnest effort is being put forth 
 to present Washington in his true char- 
 acter as a man. Dr. Edward Everett 
 Hale * and Mr. Paul Leicester Ford f 
 have performed a worthy and lasting serv- 
 ice for posterity in the careful studies they 
 have made of the Washington manu- 
 scripts, presenting the results in such a 
 manner that the greatest American is per- 
 mitted to speak for himself. 
 
 An English artist was commissioned to 
 paint the portrait of one of the Georges 
 when he was the occupant of the British 
 throne. In the finished picture the king 
 was so profusely surrounded by sun- 
 
 * " Oeorge Washington Studied Anew." 
 f " The True George Washington."
 
 8 FOREWORD. 
 
 flowers and tulips that very little of the 
 royal personage could be seen by the ob- 
 server. In some such fashion the char- 
 acter of the man George Washington has 
 been obscured by those who have sought 
 to do him honor by their services. We 
 have the "traditional Washington," the 
 "idealized Washington," the "poetic 
 Washington;" and the pious myth-mak- 
 ers, headed by the Rev. Mason Weems, 
 Washington's first biographer, have even 
 dared to starch and stiffen this plain, hon- 
 est Virginia planter and statesman with 
 their priggish man-millinery, until among 
 certain classes his name awakens no en- 
 thusiasm, but rather calls forth the cheap 
 jests so common in the "funny column" 
 of our newspapers. ^ "^ <^ 
 
 The '^chejTy-tree" myth has possessed 
 such remarkablevitality that even to-day 
 it is a favorite proof-text quoted to_cJiilz_ 
 ,tlren when the natural heart is disposed 
 to let truth live on debatable ground, and 
 our enterprising confectioners ornament
 
 FOREWORD. g 
 
 their lion=bon--baxes with embossed im^ 
 agp.s of that mythical "little, hairnet." as 
 a guaj^mteefoj^mgxandy- within. Little 
 wonder that in our childhood we found 
 it difficult to ]Tke this juvenile Yicgmia 
 prig-as he was represented to us in his 
 faultless, moral make-up. Our sympa- 
 thies go out toward the precocious little 
 girl who, when taken to task by her 
 mother for telling an untruth, after re- 
 ceiving the information that "no liars ever 
 go to heaven, George Washington-rie-ver 
 toW-a-4i," made this deliberate answer: 
 "Mamma, how lonesome it must be in 
 heaven with only God and George Wash-, 
 ington!" 
 
 From another point of view, Wash- 
 ington has been shut off from the sym- 
 pathies of the common people. This 
 wrong has also been done in the house 
 of his friends. The grandiloquent 
 logics of Fourth of July orations, and the 
 overstrained rhetoric of many of his early 
 biographers, have placed him upon the
 
 io FOREWORD. 
 
 pedestal of a demigod. Some one has 
 said that "four generations of statesmen 
 have enshrouded him in mummy clothes." 
 It is very easy to have our sense of 
 brotherhood blunted, and our feeling of 
 companionship obliterated, when we are 
 forced to look at a human b^in^r tl-irnngrh 
 thjs__gkuidy^... rhetorical wrappage. The 
 real George Washington is but dimly seen 
 standing in the background obscured by 
 shadows. 
 
 There is a legend among the New 
 York Indians, setting forth in dramatic 
 form this idea of the traditional Washing- 
 ton. He alone of all white men, they sa 
 has been admitted to the Indian heaven., 
 [e lives in a great palace built like a fort. 
 All the Indians as they go to heaven pass 4. 
 by, and Washington himself is in his uni- \ 
 form, a sword at his side, walking to and 
 fperr""*rhey bow reverently with great hu- 
 (niility. He returns the salute, but says 
 /nothing. He is too much lifted up to 
 
 speak. 
 \L
 
 FOREWORD. n 
 
 By such methods has the "Father of 
 his Country" been treated through the 
 well-meaning intentions of his friends, 
 tha.t practical, serious men now write: 
 /Washington is likely to become a mere 
 nest;" "George Washington is now only a 
 Weel-engraving." In this year of grace, 
 1897, the governor of one of our great 
 States was politely requested to furnish 
 a sentiment on Washington's birthday. 
 In answer to that request, he deliberately 
 wrote these words: "We 're living at the 
 end of the nineteenth century, and we are 
 too busy to write sentiments about men 
 who have been dead a hundred years." 
 It will be a sorry day for America when 
 the leaders in national affairs have come 
 to the point of regarding George Wash- 
 ington as a "back number." 
 
 "As stands the pyramid a mystery, 
 Cleaving wedge-like the misty realm of time, 
 And hides within its depth the unknown king 
 'T was built to memorize, -^so^ommon 
 Covers with cloudy fiction all the real man, 
 And leaves a shadow to the worshiper.*
 
 12 FOREWORD. 
 
 In an atmosphere composed of such 
 trifling and traditional ingredients many 
 of us received our first impressions of 
 George Washington, "the noblest figure 
 standing in the forefront of our Nation's 
 history." The words of our latest his- 
 torian, -Mr. MrMasfpjv l jirp_vynrthy pfnnr 
 attention at this point: "General Was! 
 ington is known to us, and President 
 Washington; but George Washington is 
 an unknown man." 
 
 In the study I have been commissioned 
 to make of this imperial man, the principal 
 end to be attained is to tell the story of 
 Washington's life so that the reader may 
 be in constant touch with him as a man. 
 To lay bare the fact, if possible, that all 
 that General Washington and President 
 Washington did for our country came out 
 of the character of George Washington 
 the man. The significance of his life is, in 
 a measure, lost to posterity if we ignore 
 the truth that what Washington did for 
 his country is a like possibility for every
 
 FOREWORD. 13 
 
 American citizen, according to the meas- 
 ure of the stewardship committed to his 
 care. 
 
 All that George Washington s xvef\b'e- 
 came was brought about through me/iis- 
 cipline and development of his better self. 
 He was a great master of affairs, but his 
 greatest victory was the mastery he ob- 
 tained over himself. Out of such disci- 
 pline came the clear-headed, clean^- 
 hearted man, the successful planter, the 
 genial neighbor, the devoted husband, the 
 ideal patriot, the brave soldier, and 
 incorruptible statesman. ''"We must Re- 
 member that when Washington received 
 his commission as commander-in-chief of 
 the Continental army he was forty-three 
 years of age. In the stirring scenes of the 
 Revolution he seems to have sprung sud- 
 denly into world-wide notoriety, like Mi- 
 nerva into "full-orbed life from the head 
 of Jupiter." But behind this general on 
 horseback were the formative periods and 
 processes of his manhood. All the ele-
 
 14 FOREWORD. 
 
 merits entering into that character of im- 
 perial leadership and organizing skill had 
 hardened into moral muscle and intellect- 
 ual fiber before he received his commis- 
 sion. This work was accomplished be- 
 tween the years 1732 and 1775, amid 
 scenes and surroundings of Colonial Vir- 
 ginia. Botanists tell us that in studying 
 the life of a plant we should enter the zone 
 of its natural abode. To push our inves- 
 tigations of its nature amid the artificial 
 surroundings of the conservatory is to do 
 the plant a wrong, and obtain for our- 
 selves only partial knowledge. It is cer- 
 tainly a wise method in the study of men. 
 Clothing this truth in another form, we 
 might say, as the water of certain rivers 
 derives its coloring matter from the rocks 
 and soils through which it percolates far 
 away in the mountain gorges, so the man 
 Washington assimilated certain elements 
 found in the social, intellectual, and po- 
 litical life of the Old Dominion.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE . 
 THE OLD DOMINION, 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN, 28 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH, 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE, 56 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 SCHOOL DAYS, 71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST, 88 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER, 104 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 UNDER FIRE, 121 
 
 15
 
 1 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. PAGE. 
 MARRIAGE AND MOUNT VERNON, 145 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST 165 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND PRESIDENT, . . . 184 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 WASHINGTON'S VISION OF THE WEST, ... 213 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 WORDS OK WASHINGTON, 230 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 SAYINGS OF WASHINGTON, 261
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 
 
 THE social and political institutions 
 of America, founded by English 
 Colonists in the New World, are the 
 joint products of two distinct centers of 
 population New England and the Old 
 Dominion. Plymouth in Massachusetts, 
 and Jamestown in Viriginia, are the two 
 memorable spots in the Western Hemi- 
 sphere, where were planted and nurture^ 
 the men and principles which have pro- 
 duced the American Commonwealth. 
 
 The history of New England and of 
 her principles has been fully and ably writ- 
 
 17
 
 i& GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ten. Nobly has the scholarship of New 
 England paid its debt of gratitude to the 
 land of the Pilgrim and the Puritan. Her 
 literary sons and daughters have pro- 
 duced an historic literature, in which the 
 story of her development has been faith- 
 fully recorded from her Colonial days to 
 the present hour. The history of the Old 
 Dominion has been unworthily written. 
 The one hundred and two Cavalier Colo- 
 nists, who planted the Jamestown Settle- 
 ment in 1607, have had scant justice 
 from the pen of the historian. The de- 
 velopment of this colony of Royalists into 
 the staunch democracy of Revolutionary 
 times is an interesting and suggestive 
 study, and it is to be hoped that Virginia, 
 the great historic Commonwealth of the 
 South, which stood as the companion of 
 Massachusetts in the Colonial, Revolu- 
 tionary, and Constitutional periods of our
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 
 
 country's development, shall yet have her 
 story told by as able pens and sympathetic 
 hearts, as those who have done a like 
 service for New England. 
 
 The cause of this neglect is easily dis- 
 covered, when we carefully contrast the 
 conditions existing in those primitive 
 days of Virginia life with the existing 
 conditions in New England life. The 
 two Colonies were alike only in their com- 
 mon heritage of suffering; both were 
 nearly destroyed through epidemic, dis- 
 aster, and massacre. 
 
 The Cavaliers were intense Royalists, 
 while the New Englanders were turbu- 
 lent yet pious Roundheads. In religion, 
 the Virginians were Episcopalians, and 
 zealous advocates of the union of Church 
 and State; while the New England Colo- 
 nists were Congregationalists, whose 
 slogan was "a Church without a bishop,
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and a State without a king." In social 
 life the Cavalier was a patrician. In New 
 England the Pilgrim was a plebeian. In 
 
 i 
 
 Virginia the almighty dollar was the 
 potent factor in the scheme of coloniza- 
 tion. In New England it was religious 
 enthusiasm and liberty of conscience. 
 * The settlement at Jamestown was the 
 earliest English colony on the American 
 continent. Its roots were planted in the 
 New World's soil thirteen years before 
 the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to 
 Plymouth Rock. These Virginia Colo- 
 nists set sail from London on December 
 19, 1606. The fleet consisted of three 
 vessels, bearing the names of the Discov- 
 ery, the Goodspeed, and the Susan Content. 
 The entire passenger list numbered one 
 hundred and two souls. As they moved 
 down the Thames and arched their sails 
 for the far-off shores of the New World,
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. - 21 
 
 all London turned out to wish them God- 
 speed. Special prayer services were held 
 in the churches on their behalf, and many 
 of the poets eulogized in song their ad- 
 venturous enterprise. Here is a sample 
 from the pen of Drayton: 
 
 "You brave heroic minds, 
 
 Worthy your country's name, 
 
 That honor still pursue; 
 Whilst loitering hinds 
 
 Lurk here at home with shame, 
 Go and subdue. 
 
 " And cheerfully at sea 
 
 Success you still entice 
 To get the pearls and gold, 
 And ours to hold 
 
 Virginia, 
 Earth's only paradise." 
 
 After a five-months' voyage over the 
 Atlantic, the three ships dropped their 
 anchors in James River, on the I3th of 
 May, 1607. True to their Cavalier tra- 
 ditions, they named the port of their land-
 
 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ing Jamestown, after King James I, the 
 then reigning king of England. 
 
 In imagination let us bridge the chasm 
 of time that yawns between the present 
 hour and that far-away bright May-day 
 of 1607. An Indian will take us in his 
 canoe out to these vessels as they swing 
 at their anchor-chains in the tide currents 
 of the great river. We are permitted to 
 go on board each vessel, and make our 
 tour of inspection. Some interesting and 
 suggestive revelations are in store for us. 
 In the sailing list we find a strange classi- 
 fication of passengers. It reads as fol- 
 lows: "Gentlemen, carpenters, laborers, 
 gold-refiners, jewelers, and one per- 
 fumer." A closer analysis of the list re- 
 veals the fact that more than one-half of 
 the entire number are listed as "gentle- 
 men" that term in those times indicat-
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 23 
 
 ing a man who thought it degrading to 
 engage in manual labor. 
 
 As we look shoreward, we see the 
 trackless forest pressing to the very edge 
 of tide-water, portions of which must be 
 cleared away; a virgin soil to be broken 
 for purposes of agriculture; wharves to 
 be constructed, and houses to be built 
 with timber from the stump; the endur- 
 ance of hardships and deprivations pecu- 
 liar to frontier life; and, hanging over all, 
 the serious dangers from the prowling 
 savage. Are these "gentlemen" Colo- 
 nists equal to the herculean task? The 
 outlook is full of the omens of failure. 
 
 There is another discovery to be made 
 in relation to this Virginia Colony a 
 discovery which is little short of startling, 
 in view of all it portends. There is not a 
 woman to be found in the whole com-
 
 24 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 pany. By all laws governing human de- 
 velopment in any department of our 
 world's life, this band of Colonists is 
 doomed to failure, unless the ennobling 
 influence of woman is brought into co- 
 operation with their efforts. Of all men in 
 the world, how could an Englishman hope 
 to attain any success without the nucleus 
 of his home life? That has been the chief 
 secret of his invincible colonizing power. 
 His march to victory has been secured by 
 the fact that he carried his home with 
 him wherever he went. Very early in the 
 history of our race the Almighty pro- 
 nounced a bachelor a failure, and hast- 
 ened to relieve the situation by creating 
 a woman as "an helpmeet" for him in the 
 serious work of life. A discriminating 
 writer puts the whole matter in these 
 forceful words: "What could we expect 
 from a hundred and two old bachelors
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 25 
 
 a community of bachelors? It is as much 
 as society can do to get along with one 
 here and there in the community; a col- 
 ony of bachelors never carried any cause 
 on earth to a successful conclusion, and 
 never will." 
 
 Events in the Colony soon began to 
 shape themselves according to existing 
 conditions; the process of disintegration 
 set in, and the men were rapidly taking on 
 the nature of savages in their treatment 
 of each other. Through the influence of 
 the beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the 
 Colony was saved from extinction. The 
 lax condition of affairs became known in 
 England, and wise measures were sug- 
 gested and carried out by men upon 
 whose hearts the interests of the scheme 
 lay heavily. Virginia must be looked 
 upon as home by the adventurers. If the 
 plantation were ever to become a success-
 
 26 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ful enterprise, the double magnet of wife 
 and child must hold these discouraged 
 emigrants to the arduous work of coloni- 
 zation. Sir Edwin Sandys, in a wise 
 stroke of statemanship, devised a plan 
 whereby one hundred fair daughters, with 
 irreproachable characters, should volun- 
 teer to go out to Virginia from the 
 Mother Country, with the distinct under- 
 standing that they were to become the 
 wives of the struggling Colonists. The 
 expense of their voyage and outfit was 
 considerable, and this was to be met by 
 those who selected them for wedlock, the 
 price being fixed at one hundred and 
 twenty pounds of tobacco about eighty 
 dollars in American money. 
 
 The scheme is apt to strike the mind 
 of the humorist as furnishing material for 
 a new "Comedy of Errors." To the con- 
 servative mind of to-day it is highly sea-
 
 THE OLD DOMINION. 27 
 
 soned with the commercial view of mar- 
 riage. It, however, saved the Colony of 
 Virginia from extinction, giving it a new 
 lease of life, and starting it upon a pros- 
 perous career. 
 
 This shipload of English "maids," as 
 they are called by the old chronicler, ar- 
 rived in Jamestown twelve years after the 
 landing of the original Colonists. The 
 record of the time states that within 
 twenty-four hours after their landing the 
 majority of these maidens had become the 
 wives of the Colonists; the minister of the 
 Colony, it is said, making a "snug little 
 fortune." It is, I believe, the only day 
 in the history of America in which the 
 office of a parson may be said to have been 
 tempting to the candidate in the matter of 
 dimes and dollars.
 
 CHAPTEH II. 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 THE statement has already been made 
 that the history of New England has 
 been fully written, while that of Vir- 
 ginia has been but partially depicted. The 
 cause of this is easily explained by the 
 scientific doctrine of conformity to type. 
 It will serve our purpose to compare the 
 manners and laws of our Colonial fore- 
 fathers, as represented by these Cavalier 
 and Puritan communities. Their social 
 and political ideas were entirely different 
 before they united in the general round-up 
 to secure American Independence. 
 
 At no point in their history is the con- 
 trast greater than in their respective 
 opinion^ concerning popular education.
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 29 
 
 In New England the school-house stood 
 side by side with the Church; they were 
 the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, of Puri- 
 tan institutions. In 1640, just twenty 
 years after the landing at Plymouth Rock, 
 the New England Colony had created a 
 university. In 1647 we find an established 
 system of education throughout her bor- 
 ders. A touching picture presents itself 
 as we look backward to those early years 
 of New England life, where the Pilgrims, 
 impoverished as to resources and igno- 
 rant of New World conditions, with 
 "short allowance of victual and plenty of 
 nothing but gospel," were forced to take 
 lessons in agriculture from the Indian 
 brave, Tisquantum, who tells them that 
 Indian corn, which was to be their main 
 dependence, "should be sown when the 
 leaves of the oak were as big as the ears 
 of a mouse/' This sorely-tried and over-
 
 30 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 taxed Colonist reveals the force of his 
 convictions when we see him part with 
 his last cent, paying it to his township as 
 a school-tax; formulating his conscience 
 into a simple yet severe law, reading as 
 follows: "Every township, after the Lord 
 hath increased them to the number of fifty 
 households, shall appoint one to teach all 
 children to read and write, and when any 
 town shall increase to the number of a 
 hundred families, they shall set up a com- 
 mon school; the masters thereof being 
 able to instruct youth, so far as they may- 
 be fitted for the university." Here we 
 uncover the springs of New England's 
 literary fountains. 
 
 In the early life of the Old Dominion 
 a different condition of affairs existed. 
 There is little indication that the planters 
 of Virginia had any sympathy with the 
 cause of popular edvication. Few of the
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 31 
 
 people thought that "becoming a^mere 
 scholar" was "a desirable education for 
 a gentleman." The gentleman was to 
 "become acquainted with men and things, 
 rather than books." In 1671, when the 
 white population of Virginia numbered 
 forty thousand souls, the Colonial gov- 
 ernor, Berkeley; was willing to thank God 
 that they had "no free schools nor print- 
 ing," and hoped that "we shall not have 
 any these hundred years, for learning has 
 brought disobedience, heresy, and sects 
 into the world, and printing has divulged 
 them with libels against the best govern- 
 ment. God keep us from both!" ^Dur- 
 ing the first fifty years of Virginia's his- 
 tory there were no public schools, and at 
 the breaking out of the Revolution, in 
 1775, there was scarcely any system of 
 public education within the borders of the 
 Colony. When the Virginia Commis-
 
 32 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 sioners interviewed the attorney-general 
 of Charles II in reference to an appropri- 
 ation for the cause of learning and relig- 
 ion in Virginia, they were answered with 
 an oath: "Go home and grow tobacco." 
 This was popular sentiment in Virginia 
 for more than a hundred years. 
 
 It will best serve our purpose at this 
 point to take into consideration the 
 Royalist inclinations of these Virginia 
 Colonists. There is no doubt that at heart 
 the great body of the population of Vir- 
 ginia were in full sympathy with the king 
 at the time of the English Revolution 
 under Cromwell. The origin of the term 
 "Old Dominion," by which Virginia is 
 known to this day, indicates that the sen- 
 timent of Virginia was decidedly on the 
 side of royalty in those stormy times. The 
 execution of Charles I was treason ac- 
 cording to the vote of the Virginia Bur-
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 33 
 
 gesses in 1649. This vote fixed a penalty 
 upon those who should, "by words or 
 speeches, endeavor to insinuate any 
 doubt, scruple, or question concerning 
 the right of His Majesty that now is to 
 the Colony of Virginia." The king the 
 Virginians thus recognized was the ex- 
 iled son of the beheaded Charles I, who 
 had sought refuge on the Continent, but 
 these Virginians recognized him as the 
 ruler, Charles II, by "Divine right" King 
 of England and of all other of His Maj- 
 esty's dominions the moment his father's 
 head rolled from the scaffold. 
 
 It was dangerous work thus to deal 
 with Cromwell; for the great ruler had a 
 strong arm, and he could reach very far 
 even across the Atlantic. His power he 
 soon put into operation, and sent one of 
 his warships to Virginia, forcing the Cav- 
 alier Colonists into tranquillity during his 
 3
 
 34 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 protectorate. The great Oliver subdued 
 them, but he did not extinguish the flame 
 of devotion to royalty burning in the Cav- 
 alier heart. 
 
 Sir William Berkeley, the governor of 
 the Colony at this time, sent Colonel 
 Richard Lee, a rich planter, to visit 
 Charles II on the Continent, and offered 
 him the Colony of Virginia as his king- 
 dom, requesting that he come and set up 
 his standard on Virginian soil. Charles 
 did not look with favor upon the offer, 
 but he ever afterwards held the kindness 
 of the Virginians in grateful remem- 
 brance. Tradition says that after his res- 
 toration, he recognized the fidelity of his 
 Virginia subjects by wearing a coat of 
 Virginia silk on the day of his corona- 
 tion. Afterwards, when coins were 
 minted under the reign of Charles II, they 
 bore the inscription: "England, Scotland,
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 35 
 
 Ireland, and Virginia." One of these 
 coins is now in the possession of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society in Bos- 
 ton, and may be seen by the lover of 
 American antiquities. 
 
 The term "Old Dominion" is said to 
 have originated in this incident in the life 
 of the exiled king, indicating the fact that 
 he might have had a throne and dominion 
 in Virginia before he was crowned King 
 of the British Empire. 
 
 A few words descriptive of the social 
 and political life of Virginia previous to 
 the Revolution will close this chapter. A 
 glance at the map of Eastern Virginia 
 shows it to be a highly-favored land as 
 to natural resources. Blessed with an ex- 
 tensive coast-line, it is also favored with 
 that fan-like river system, made up of the 
 Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and 
 James Rivers. The fertile valleys and up-
 
 36 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 lands lying along these river courses in- 
 vited the planters to settle and develop 
 the natural resources of the country. 
 
 It is interesting to note the way in 
 which the seductive narcotic found in the 
 tobacco-leaf played such an important 
 part in the development of plantation-life 
 in Old Virginia. About the time of the 
 settlement of the Colony, Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh introduced the custom of tobacco- 
 smoking among the fashionable people of 
 England, and as early as 1610 tobacco 
 was in general use throughout England. 
 The rich land lying along the shores of 
 these great rivers soon became famous for 
 the quality and quantity of tobacco it 
 would produce. Out of this condition the 
 great plantation-life of Virginia was de- 
 veloped. During the year 1619 England 
 imported twenty thousand pounds of Vir- 
 ginia tobacco. Tobacco was the medium
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 37 
 
 of exchange; the planter ordered his 
 goods from England, and paid for them 
 in tobacco. Taxes were paid in tobacco, 
 and so was even the salary of the minister 
 of the gospel. A Colonial officer was ap- 
 pointed in every plantation to collect the 
 parson's portion out of the "first and best 
 tobacco." It was their way of presenting 
 the first-fruits of their increase unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 This ready market required a great 
 number of laborers on the plantations to 
 supply the increasing demand. English 
 farmers could not be induced to leave 
 their homes in England, and' come to 
 America as laborers on the great planta- 
 tions. They were much needed at home, 
 and did not care to exchange a sure thing 
 for the hardships and uncertainties of 
 frontier life. The social condition of the 
 poorer classes in English cities was then
 
 38 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 very much as it is now. Every large city 
 was crowded with poor people, who could 
 not find employment. Many of these 
 were sent to America as servants and 
 laborers, the plantation owners of Vir- 
 ginia paying the expenses of the voyage, 
 and the emigrant in return binding him- 
 self to his employer for a certain number 
 of years. 
 
 There was much trial and difficulty 
 connected with this system of "indentured 
 servants," as it was called. The experi- 
 ment was not a success from the view- 
 point of the planter. Many of these serv- 
 ants were habitual idlers; others had been 
 criminals in the Old World, and brought 
 over with them nothing in the shape of 
 trustworthy characters. In some cases 
 the work of a plantation overseer was 
 much like that of a prison warden. 
 
 In all such moments of trial, the old-
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 39 
 
 time enemy, the devil, is found to be near 
 at hand with suggestions and flattering 
 propositions. On this occasion he sailed 
 up the James River on board a Dutch 
 man-of-war with twenty captive Negroes 
 from the coast of Africa. The Virginia 
 planters in the neighborhood thought 
 they saw a way out of the difficulties oc- 
 casioned by the shipment of laborers from 
 the slums of English cities. They pur- 
 chased the Negroes, and held them as 
 slaves in a life of perpetual bondage. 
 
 This took place in the month of Au- 
 gust, 1619, the year before the Pilgrims 
 landed at Plymouth Rock. This same 
 year Virginia had been granted what was 
 substantially free government. A "Gen- 
 eral Assembly" was to be called, the mem- 
 bers thereof being elected by the votes -of 
 the free men in Virginia. This legislative 
 body held its first meeting, July 3Oth, at
 
 40 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Jamestown. It was the first body repre- 
 senting free government that ever sat in 
 America. Thus, within one month of each 
 other, free government and African slav- 
 ery were introduced upon the American 
 continent. A strange combination! Yet 
 from that hour it produced a storm center 
 in America's political life, growing darker 
 and darker, until it finally broke in the 
 terrible cyclone of our Civil War. 
 
 We have here the materials out of 
 which were framed the social life of Old 
 Virginia in her most prosperous days. 
 One-half of the population were slaves. A 
 step upward in the social scale, we have the 
 middle class, whites composed of "inden- 
 tured servants," who had served out their 
 contracts with the great planters, and in 
 many cases had become small landhold- 
 ers, locating upon the shores of the tribu- 
 taries to the great rivers above the points
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 41 
 
 of navigation, floating their produce of 
 wheat and tobacco in flatboats down the 
 streams to the wharves of the great plant- 
 ers. This class included also the hunters, 
 pioneers, traders, merchants, and me- 
 chanics, scattered here and there through- 
 out the country. Another step upward in 
 the social scale, and we reach the highest 
 point of Virginia social life, composed of 
 professional men and the great plantation 
 owners, modeled after the manner of the 
 English landholder. These were the men 
 "who owned, ruled, and guided Virginia." 
 They had plenty of leisure, and the sport- 
 ing proclivities for which Virginia gentle- 
 men were renowned had their origin with 
 this class. 
 
 These conditions of life were not favor- 
 able to the development of towns and 
 cities representing centers of population, 
 a,s in New England. As a result, the
 
 42 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 country became the unit of political 
 power in Virginia, and the township, rep- 
 resented by the town-meeting, formed the 
 political unit in New England. 
 
 These squire landholders, as they were 
 called, formed the aristocracy of Virginia. 
 They were men with a genius for govern- 
 ment ; they knew how to rule. They were 
 not an aristocracy of idlers. The cares 
 and labors peculiar to overseeing their 
 great plantations kept them in touch with 
 practical affairs, and it is not surprising to 
 find the legislative assemblies made up of 
 this -class of men. There was little incli- 
 nation among these "First Families of 
 Virginia" to become scholars; but there 
 was something in their habits and dispo- 
 sitions that made practical and thoughtful 
 men of them, qualifying them for that 
 leadership in public affairs for which the
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 43 
 
 Old Dominion was so renowned in the 
 period of our Revolution. 
 
 New England produced the agitators 
 and forced into existence popular insti- 
 tutions. Virginia furnished the great 
 leaders, and formulated the methods by 
 which popular institutions were placed 
 upon enduring foundations. This is one 
 of the paradoxes of history, and yet the 
 cold facts of the record force us to the 
 statement. Could a more hopeless seed- 
 plot be found in which to grow the mate- 
 rial for democratic institutions than this 
 very Virginia, into whose early life we 
 have been looking? And yet what hap- 
 pened? A hotbed of Puritan-hating 
 Cavaliers, modeled on the plan of Eng- 
 lish aristocracy, was transformed into a 
 revolutionary democracy. Rising above 
 ancestral tradition, selfish pride, and prej-
 
 44 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 udice, they proved themselves able to dis- 
 card their past, and rise with an intense 
 yet well-balanced devotion to the vision 
 of justice as presented in the equal rights 
 of all men. These contradictions, like the 
 struggling and conflicting influences of 
 breeze and rudder, contended against 
 each other only to secure the sure prog- 
 ress of the ship. It was a Virginian, 
 Patrick Henry, whose fiery eloquence 
 kindled the flames of the Revolution, 
 whose words, "Give me liberty, or give me 
 death," were emblazoned upon the battle- 
 flags of Colonial troops, and carried as 
 their slogan into the contest. It was 
 Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, called the 
 "Apostle of Democracy," who penned our 
 sacred document, the Declaration of In- 
 dependence. James Madison, a Virgin- 
 ian, drafted the Constitution of the United 
 States. It was Virginia who gave us her
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 45 
 
 imperial son, George Washington, at the 
 call of John Adams, to lead the destinies 
 of the Continental armies from the siege 
 of Boston to the surrender of Cornwallis 
 at Yorktown. 
 
 "Virginia gave us this imperial man, 
 Cast in the massive mold 
 Of those high-statured ages old, 
 Which into grander forms our mortal metal 
 
 ran ; 
 
 She gave us this unblemished gentleman, 
 What shall we give her back but love and 
 praise?" Lowell.
 
 III. 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. 
 
 IT is a coincidence worthy of note, that 
 George Washington, the Father of his 
 Country, and Abraham Lincoln, the 
 Savior of his Country, were alike indiffer- 
 ent to ancestral connections. "My early 
 history," said Lincoln, "is perfectly char- 
 acterized by a single line of Gray's 
 Elegy: The short and simple annals of 
 the poor.' ' After Washington had be- 
 come famous, when the eyes of the world 
 were upon him, and his family history was 
 under investigation, he wrote to one who 
 was interested in his pedigree: "It is of 
 very little moment; a subject to which, I 
 confess, I have paid very little attention." 
 
 They were both men of such sterling char- 
 46
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. 47 
 
 acter, taking such practical views of life, 
 that they regarded the development of 
 personal virtues of more consequence 
 than an inherited pedigree. Tennyson's 
 lines are suitable in their application to 
 each of these choice products of Ameri- 
 can manhood: 
 
 " Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
 'T is only noble to be good ; 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 And simple faith than Norman blood." 
 
 In looking over Washington's letters 
 pertaining to family matters, it would 
 seem that he had sufficient care and ex- 
 pense in looking after the children of his 
 brothers and sisters to excuse him from 
 any investigations along the line of his 
 ancestors. "God left him childless, that 
 he might be the father of his country," 
 is a very beautiful poetic conception; but 
 Washington turned his childless condi-
 
 48 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 tion into innumerable fatherly benefits 
 among the more prolific households of 
 his brothers and his sister Betty. The ele- 
 ments of thrift, honesty, and greatness, 
 were unsparingly bestowed upon George 
 Washington; but among his own broth- 
 ers, and in many cases in their children, 
 there was very little capacity for doing 
 anything but making care and trouble for 
 their illustrious relative. 
 
 His favorite brother, John, who was 
 his junior by four years, must here be 
 mentioned as an exception. Washington 
 describes him as "the intimate companion 
 of my youth, and the friend of my ripened 
 age." 
 
 His brother Samuel, two years his jun- 
 ior, was a man of expensive habits and 
 prodigal with his money a tendency he 
 carried into his matrimonial affairs, hav- 
 ing been married five times. Of him,
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. 49 
 
 Washington wrote to another brother: 
 "In God's name, how did my brother 
 Samuel get himself so enormously in 
 debt?" 
 
 Yet George Washington had whereof 
 to boast in the line of his ancestry. The 
 Washington family appears with honor- 
 able mention on the pages of English his- 
 tory in the early days of the civil war, 
 where the Washingtons of Sulgrave are 
 represented as strong supporters of the 
 king. One, Sir Henry by name, "fought 
 gallantly under Rupert at the storming of 
 Bristol, in 1643," and "in 1646 defended 
 Worcester against Fairfax." The Wash- 
 ington family in England were a race of 
 thrifty people, owning lands, holding po- 
 sitions as magistrates, possessing the 
 qualities of good soldiers, with a dominat- 
 ing tendency to make good marriages. 
 
 The family first made its appearance
 
 50 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 in Virginia in 1658, when two brothers, 
 John and Lawrence Washington, bought 
 lands at Bridges Creek, in Westmoreland 
 County. This John Washington was the 
 first paternal ancestor of George Wash- 
 ington on the American continent, and 
 in the line of family ascent stands related 
 to our Washington as great-grandfather. 
 Soon after his arrival in America, his Eng- 
 lish wife and two children died. Shortly 
 after this bereavement, he married a sec- 
 ond time, selecting as his companion a 
 woman of good family by the name of 
 Anne Pope, by whom he had three chil- 
 dren Lawrence, John, and Anne. Judg- 
 ing from the positions he held in the Col- 
 ony, he was a man of character and influ- 
 ence, having been elected to the House of 
 Burgesses in 1667, just ten years after his 
 arrival in the Colony. Eight years later
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. 51 
 
 we find him holding the office of .colonel 
 in the Virginia militia. 
 
 At his death, according to the English 
 law, whereby the right of inheritance be- 
 longs to the eldest son, Lawrence Wash- 
 ington became the head of the family. 
 Lawrence married Mildred Warner, a 
 woman from one of the "gentry families" 
 of Virginia. This union was blessed with 
 three children John, Augustine, and 
 Mildred Washington. 
 
 This second son, Augustine, was the 
 father of George Washington. Early in 
 life he was sent to England, and received 
 his education at Appleby school. During 
 his early manhood he followed the sea for 
 a time, and then settled down on the Vir- 
 ginia plantation as an industrious and 
 prosperous planter, raising "corn, horned 
 beasts, swine, and tobacco." At twenty-
 
 52 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 one years of age he was first married to 
 Jane Butler, by whom he had three sons 
 and a daughter Butler, Lawrence, Au- 
 gustine, and Jane Butler and Jane dying 
 in childhood. Fifteen months after the 
 death of his first wife, Augustine Wash- 
 ington, -the father, was married a second 
 time to Mary Ball, a woman of striking 
 beauty, and one of the belles of the neigh- 
 borhood. She bore him four sons and 
 two daughters George, Elizabeth (called 
 Betty), Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, 
 and Mildred. In the quaint language of 
 the time, Augustine Washington de- 
 scribes these marriages in his will as "sev- 
 eral ventures." 
 
 George, the first-born of this second 
 marriage, came into this world Saturday, 
 February 22, 1732. At the time of his 
 birth, his father was thirty-eight years old, 
 his mother was twenty-eight, He was the
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. . 53 
 
 fifth child of ten children by his father, 
 and the first child of six children borne 
 by his mother. The old Family Bible 
 bears this record concerning this fate- 
 marked babe: "George Washington, son 
 of Augustine and Mary, his wife, was born 
 ye eleventh day of February, 173 ,* 
 about ten in the morning, and was bap- 
 tized the 3d of April following." 
 
 The house in which the family lived at 
 this time stood near the Potomac River, 
 at a place called Bridges Creek, in Wash- 
 ington Parish, Westmoreland County. It 
 had been the home of the Washingtons 
 
 * "Double dating of the year, as is done here, was an 
 old custom observed between January ist and the 25th 
 of March. For all other porti<ns of the year a single 
 date was used. Although January ist had been gener- 
 ally accepted as the beginning of the historical year in 
 Christian countries, yet March 25th was held by some 
 as the beginning of the civil or legal year. The Gre- 
 gorian Chronology, or new style, had not, at the time of 
 Washington's birth, been adopted by England, and, 
 indeed, was not until September 2, 1752." 
 
 By the adoption of Pope Gregory's Calendar, eleven 
 days were added to the reckoning, thus bringing 
 Washington's birthday on the date of February 22d, 
 the day now observed.
 
 54 . GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 since the landing of the first ancestor in 
 1657. The old house has been frequently 
 described. Its counterpart may be seen 
 to-day in certain parts of Old Virginia 
 and in rural New England. It was a 
 plain, wooden farm-house, with four 
 rooms on the ground floor; above these 
 was an attic story, a long roof sloping 
 nearly to the ground on the rear side; 
 with great brick chimneys at each end, 
 affording abundant space for Mie targe, 
 open fireplaces within. Three years after 
 Washington was born, the house was 
 burned to the ground. Not a trace of the 
 old house is in existence to-day, and the 
 only way of identifying the spot where 
 the great leader of Democratic America 
 was born, is by a stone slab, weather- 
 beaten and overgrown with briers, rest- 
 ing upon a foundation of bricks taken
 
 ANCESTRY AND BIRTH. 55 
 
 from the ruins of the old chimneys. The 
 little monument bears this inscription: 
 
 HERE, 
 
 The nth of Febuary, 1732, (old style,) 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 WAS BORN. 
 
 " Honored and loved the patriot and the sage 
 Born for thine own and every coming age; 
 Thy country's champion, Freedom's chosen son, 
 We hail thy birthday glorious Washington." 
 
 S. F. Smith, D. D., 
 (Author of "My Country, 'tis of Thee.")
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 
 
 THE burning of the house on Bridges 
 Creek left the family without a 
 home. Augustine Washington hav- 
 ing business interests in some iron-works 
 in another part of the Colony, and wishing 
 to bring up his children with other sur- 
 roundings than those furnished by the 
 lonely neighborhood of Bridges Creek, de- 
 cided to rebuild his home in another local- 
 ity. He was the owner of an estate in Staf- 
 ford County, on the east side of the 
 Rappahannock River, and to this estate he 
 removed his family, locating at a point on 
 the river opposite the village of Fred- 
 ericksburg. The second house in which 
 
 the family lived is not now in existence, 
 56
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 57 
 
 but an accurate picture was made of it 
 before it was destroyed. It was very 
 much after the style of the old house at 
 Bridges Creek. It stood on the slope of 
 a gradually rising hill, with a stretcli of 
 meadow-land between it and the Rappa- 
 hannock, in full view of Fredericksburg, 
 just across the river. This home was 
 called "Pine Grove" by the Washington 
 family, but in the neighborhood it was 
 known as "Ferry Farm." 
 
 In this picturesque spot George Wash- 
 ington spent his childhood, surrounded 
 by such wholesome and vigorous life as 
 the well-kept plantation and grandly-flow- 
 ing river presented. It must have been 
 a very happy childhood. Here were de- 
 veloped that intense love for athletic 
 sports and the delight in outdoor life for 
 which Washington showed such passion- 
 ate fondness through all the years of his
 
 58 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 mature manhood. Here the great mother. 
 Nature, took the boy into her arms, and 
 nursed him into loving fellowship with 
 her mighty forests, fruitful fields, and ma- 
 jestic rivers. 
 
 Mr. B. J. Lossing, in "The Home of 
 Washington," gives us a glance into the 
 childhood period of Washington's life at 
 this time. Among his early boy com- 
 panions was Richard Henry Lee, a mem- 
 ber of one of the famous families of Vir- 
 ginia. In after years they had much to 
 do with each other, when serious matters 
 of the Revolution pressed upon them. 
 Here is a sample of their first letter-writ- 
 ing at nine years of age : 
 
 " Richard Henry Lee to George Washington : 
 
 "Pa brought me two pretty books full of pic- 
 tures he got them in Alexandria they have pictures 
 of dogs and cats and tigers and elefants and ever 
 so many pretty things cousin bids me send you 
 one of them it has a picture of an elefant and a
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 59 
 
 little Indian boy on his back like uncle jo's sam 
 pa says if I learn my tasks good he will let uncle 
 jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let 
 you come to see me. RICHARD HENRY LEE." 
 
 "George Washington to Richard Henry Lee: 
 
 " DEAR DICKEY I thank you very much for the 
 pretty picture-book you gave me. Sam asked me 
 to show him the pictures and I showed him all the 
 pictures in it ; and I read to him how the tame 
 elephant took care of the master's little boy, and 
 put him on his back and would not let any body 
 touch his master's little son. I can read three or 
 four pages sometimes without missing a word. 
 Ma says I may go to see you, and stay all day with 
 you next week if it be not rainy. She says I may 
 ride my pony Hero if Uncle Ben will go with me 
 and lead Hero. I have a little piece of poetry 
 about the picture book you gave me, but I mustn't 
 tell you who wrote the poetry. 
 
 " ' G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L. 
 And likes his book full well, 
 Henceforth will count him his friend, 
 And hopes many happy days he may spend.' 
 "Your good friend, 
 
 * " GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "I am going to get a whip top soon, and you 
 may see and whip it." 
 
 Washington has the general reputa- 
 tion of being a "nonconformist in the use
 
 60 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 of the king's English." He certainly does 
 well in this letter for a boy of nine years. 
 If he wrote the poetry with which he 
 closes the letter, posterity has occasion to 
 rejoice that the Muse deserted him very 
 early in life. 
 
 A dark shadow now falls across the 
 threshold of this prosperous and happy 
 home. The family had lived nine years 
 in the new home on the Rappahannock 
 when Augustine Washington was taken 
 sick as the result of exposure in a severe 
 rainstorm, and on the I2th day of April, 
 1743, he died, being forty-nine years of 
 age. His body was taken to Bridges 
 Creek, and placed in the family tomb. 
 
 George Washington, was eleven years 
 old at the time of his father's death. The 
 boy had early shown signs of future prom- 
 ise, and the father dearly loved the lad, 
 taking him into a close companionship
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE, 61 
 
 with himself; doing that which sturdy, 
 energetic business men so seldom find 
 congenial making a chum out of his 
 boy. 
 
 After the death of Augustine Wash- 
 ington the family numbered eight souls 
 Lawrence and Augustine, Jr., the two 
 sons of the former marriage; the widowed 
 mother; George, the first-born of the 
 second marriage, and four younger chil- 
 dren. The estate of the father at the time 
 of his death consisted of five thousand 
 acres of land lying in four counties, sev- 
 eral town lots in Fredericksburg, and one- 
 twelfth of the shares in the Principio Iron 
 Company. To Lawrence, the eldest son, 
 fell the lion's share two thousand five 
 hundred acres of land near Hunting 
 Creek, now Mount Vernon; also other 
 lands and the iron-works shares. To Au- 
 gustine, the rich lands in Westmoreland
 
 62 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 County, the first home of the Washington 
 family in America. To George he willed 
 the plantation and mansion on the Rappa- 
 hannock, where the family were living at 
 the time of his death. To the wife and 
 younger children were given the residue 
 of the estate. Augustine Washington's 
 confidence in the ability and prudence of 
 his wife is indicated by a clause in his 
 will, where he directs that all the proceeds 
 of the property given to the minor chil- 
 dren should be administered by her until 
 they became of age. George Washing- 
 ton's tender regard for the comfort of his 
 mother finds generous expression in that 
 he never claimed from her the part of the 
 estate left to him by his father. 
 
 In many of the efforts to describe the 
 character of "Mary, the mother of Wash- 
 ington," much use has been made of senti- 
 mental imagination plus the process of
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 63 
 
 going beyond the truth. She has been 
 represented as a prodigy of motherhood, 
 as a personality fabulous in womanly re- 
 sources. Other delineators of her char- 
 acter swing to the opposite extreme, pro- 
 ceeding upon the principle of human 
 frailty, that milk spilled from one side of 
 the pan must also be spilled from the other 
 side in the act of readjustment. Accord- 
 ing to this estimate of Mother Washing- 
 ton, she possessed some of the character- 
 istics of a common scold. Her intense 
 solicitude for her son George has been 
 described as "fond and unthinking." She 
 lived to be eighty-three years of age, her 
 death preceding that of her son by ten 
 years. In the last years of her life she 
 was a great sufferer from a cancer. Under 
 the pressure of this disease and the weight 
 of years, a querulous discontent, so fre- 
 quently the heritage of old age grew
 
 64 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 upon her. This tendency to petulance, 
 growing out of these abnormal con- 
 ditions, has been worked in some quarters 
 into the belief that it was a constituent 
 element of her character when left as a 
 healthy, sagacious, young widow in 
 charge of a large plantation with five 
 young children under her care. 
 
 In each of these representations a 
 wrong is done to the memory of Mary 
 Washington. Her real character is suffi- 
 ciently strong and noble to stand alone 
 without the aid of fulsome eulogy, and 
 posterity will tolerate no attempt to mini- 
 mize her influence upon the character of 
 her son by dragging into the light certain 
 frailties so common to humanity "when 
 age steals on." 
 
 Sir Matthew Hale's "Contemplations 
 Moral and Divine" was Mary Washing- 
 ton's hand-book of duty. This precious
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 65 
 
 volume, bearing his mother's name, writ- 
 ten by her own hand, Washington pre- 
 served with filial care till the day of his 
 death. It may still be seen in the archives 
 of Mount Vernon. If she had performed 
 for him no other service than that of 
 teaching him to venerate the contents of 
 this book, she would have done enough 
 to lay the foundations of his noble char- 
 acter. Here is the closing paragraph of 
 a selection from these Contemplations, 
 used by Mary Washington as a memory 
 lesson for her children: "When Thy honor 
 or the good of my country was concerned, 
 I then thought it was a seasonable time 
 to lay out my reputation for the advan- 
 tage of either, and to act with it, and by 
 it, and upon it, to the highest, in the use 
 of all lawful means, and upon such an oc- 
 casion, the counsel of Mordecai to Esther 
 was my encouragement: 'Who knoweth
 
 66 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 whether God hath not given thcc this repu- 
 tation and esteem for such a time as this.' ' 
 One feels as if he were in the council 
 chambers of the Almighty as he reads 
 these words, and then thinks of Wash- 
 ington during the struggle for liberty. 
 
 Few facts are known concerning the 
 life of Mary Washington after the death 
 of her husband. Combining these with 
 the sidelights that fall across the pathway 
 of her widowhood, we discover a woman- 
 hood intensely human. Her character is 
 revealed as being neither above nor be- 
 neath that of hundreds of other Ameri- 
 can mothers, who have been called to pass 
 through similar experiences. 
 
 Returning to her home from the fu- 
 neral of her husband, she is confronted by 
 the serious problems of administering her 
 husband's estate, caring for and training 
 five fatherless children. She was a sensi-
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LTFE. 67 
 
 ble, high-minded woman, with much oi 
 the old Roman matron in her make-up, 
 and having small store of polite accom- 
 plishments. To a woman of conscience, 
 life is a terribly serious affair from such 
 a point of view. 
 
 To the tasks of administering her busi- 
 ness matters and training her children for 
 their future destiny, this mother, now 
 thirty-seven years of age, addresses her- 
 self. She took up with earnest heart and 
 helping hands the responsibilities before 
 her, setting' herself with steadfast pur- 
 pose to hear and obey the calls of duty. 
 
 To a woman of Madam Washington's 
 temperament there belonged a settled 
 conviction that a home must do some- 
 thing more for a boy than to give him 
 shelter by night and food by day, with the 
 opportunity of groiuing up to man's es-
 
 68 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 tate. She was a contender for home 
 training. 
 
 She very early recognized in her shy, 
 grave, full-blooded first-born a dynamo 
 of tremedous energy. She had given him 
 much of her own strong nature, and there- 
 fore knew his possibilities under the sway 
 of strong passion. Virginia at this time 
 had her share of young rakes, recruited 
 from the first families, and even her boy 
 might be tempted beyond the point of 
 endurance. Madam Washington set her- 
 self the task of avoiding such'disaster by 
 administering the affairs of her home ac- 
 cording to strict discipline. She "trained 
 the children in manners and morals, in 
 ideas and in faith, day and night, morn- 
 ing and evening." Her word was law. 
 Generally it was tenderly administered; 
 but if necessity required it, sterner meth-
 
 BOYHOOD AND HOME LIFE. 69 
 
 ods were adopted, from which there was 
 no appeal. 
 
 Lawrence Washington, of Chotank a 
 cousin of George Washington writes 
 these words concerning Mary Washing- 
 ton and her family life: "I was often here 
 [at Pine Grove] with George, his play- 
 mate, schoolmate, and young man's com- 
 panion. Of the mother, I was more afraid 
 than of my own parents. She awed me 
 in the midst of her kindness; and even 
 now, when time has whitened my locks 
 and I am the grandfather of a second 
 generation, I could not behold that ma- 
 jestic woman without feelings it is impos- 
 sible to describe." 
 
 No doubt this would be called heroic 
 treatment in the light of modern senti- 
 ment; but it put iron into the blood, and 
 taught with no uncertain sound the two 
 great principles of modern civilization,
 
 yo GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 self-restraint and obedience to law. In 
 after years, when the fame of George 
 Washington was world-wide, he often re- 
 peated these words of tribute to his moth- 
 er's care: "All that I am, I owe to my 
 mother."
 
 V. 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 WHILE the public-school system re- 
 ceived little sympathy and less 
 support in the early days of Vir- 
 ginia life, we are not to infer that there 
 were no educated men in Virginia. The 
 "first families," very early in the history of 
 the Colony, sent their sons to English uni- 
 versities. At the period of Washington's 
 boyhood, Virginia was well supplied with 
 men who had received their degrees from 
 Oxford and Edinburgh. There was a 
 students' club in the University of Edin- 
 burgh, whose membership conditions re- 
 quired one "to have been born in Vir- 
 ginia." 
 
 George Washington's father had re-
 
 72 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ceived his education at Appleby School 
 in England, and, true to his English in- 
 stincts, he sent Lawrence and Augustine, 
 the two sons by his first marriage, to the 
 Mother Country to complete their edu- 
 cation. Shortly before the father's death 
 Lawrence returned from England, an edu- 
 cated and finished gentleman, according 
 to the standards of that day. He was a 
 man of noble, generous character, the sen- 
 ior of his half-brother George by fourteen 
 years, and from the hour of his father's 
 death he took his little step-brother upon 
 his heart, loving him with a double affec- 
 tion, and aiding him in every possible 
 way. "Big brother Lawrence was the 
 hero of George's youth." 
 
 Had Augustine Washington lived, 
 doubtless George would have shared with 
 his older half-brothers the advantages of 
 a thorough scholastic training. What ef-
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS. 73 
 
 feet an English university education might 
 have wrought on the future life and serv- 
 fce of George Washington, no one has the 
 right to say. But this may be said, backed 
 by the sober facts of experience, three 
 times in the early life of Washington did 
 the genius of American destiny shut her 
 iron door against him, forbidding him to 
 come into any closer relations with Eng- 
 lish official life than those of a colonel of 
 Virginia Militia. 
 
 When the family removed from their 
 home at Bridges Creek to "Pine Grove" 
 on the Rappahannock, George was sent 
 to the old -"Field School," taught by a 
 Mr. Hobly, pedagogue, and sexton of the 
 parish. Tradition says this schoolmaster 
 carried about with him more English con- 
 ceit than any man in three parishes. Here 
 our hero, a strong, healthy country boy, 
 learned the alphabet and the first prin-
 
 74" GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ciples of writing. Soon after his father's 
 death, when just entering his twelfth year, 
 he was sent back to Bridges Creek, the 
 home of his half-brother, Augustine, 
 where there was a higher grade school 
 kept by a Mr. Williams. Here he re- 
 mained several years, receiving what 
 would be called to-day a grammar-school 
 education. After this sojourn with the 
 folks at Bridges Creek, he returned home 
 and attended a school in Fredericksburg, 
 kept by the Rev. James Marye. There 
 was no bridge over the river, and young 
 Washington rowed his boat to and from 
 school morning and evening in the rough- 
 est weather. 
 
 The copy and exercise books of Wash- 
 ington's school-days are fortunately pre- 
 served. In looking them over, one sees 
 something of the talent and merit of the 
 boy. They bear the marks of industry
 
 SCHOOL-DA rs. 7 5 
 
 and care. His handwriting indicates a 
 well-poised character, being "round, fair, 
 and bold," the lines running straight and 
 even. In these books much space is given 
 to legal forms, receipts, bills, leases, deeds, 
 wills, and such other matters required by 
 a business man in a community where 
 lawyers were few. Then we come to 
 pages of mathematical problems, with 
 well-drawn geometrical figures. Here is 
 a page where the lad has broken away 
 from his task, and the real boy nature 
 shows itself in crude drawings of birds, 
 human faces, and other indications of 
 school-boy pranks. Where is the boy who 
 but feels this "touch of nature," making 
 him akin with this Virginia youngster at 
 Ferry Farm? 
 
 Some one has said that the art of spell- 
 ing, like the use of the fork at table, must 
 be learned before one is fifteen, or it will
 
 76 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 never be learned. Washington's class 
 grade in the spelling-book was near the 
 lower end of the list, but he led all in the 
 department of mathematics, having a spe- 
 cial talent and liking for this branch of 
 learning. His ability, coupled with the 
 influence of Lord Fairfax, secured for 
 him, a few years later, the position of 
 public land surveyor. 
 
 There was quite a stir in the home-nest 
 of Madam Washington one day, just after 
 George had turned his fourteenth year. 
 It happened on this wise: The boy had 
 been thinking about his future. He 
 wanted a chance to try his wings, and 
 finally decided that he would go to sea. 
 His mother was startled when he made 
 known to her his desire, and withheld her 
 consent for some time. The request was, 
 however, renewed, backed by the hearty 
 indorsement of Lawrence Washington, in
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS. 77 
 
 whom George's mother had the utmost 
 confidence. 
 
 It is not strange that the boy became 
 possessed with this idea. He was a fre- 
 quent visitor at Mount Vernon, now the 
 home of Lawrence Washington and his 
 charming wife. Lawrence himself had 
 served as a captain in a Virginia regiment 
 under Admiral Vernon in the attack of 
 naval and land forces upon Cartagena, 
 South America, in 1741. Doubtless 
 stories of this fight had been told many 
 times around the fireside at Mount Ver- 
 non. George had often watched the load- 
 ing of merchant ships at the river 
 wharves, and had looked longingly after 
 them as they swung into the current of 
 the river, and set their sails for the far- 
 distant ports of the Old World. There 
 was some of the blood of the old sea-kings 
 in him, and it was stirred by these sights
 
 78 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and sounds. More than this, there was a 
 military streak running all through the 
 Washington family, and George had in- 
 herited a double portion. 
 
 What was more natural to this strong, 
 manly boy, with a life-record to make, 
 than the determination to enter the Brit- 
 ish navy? His mother reluctantly gave 
 her consent, and in 1746 Lawrence Wash- 
 ington obtained for George a midship- 
 man's warrant in the British navy. 
 
 George was delighted with the out- 
 look. Preparations for his leaving home 
 were hurried along. His midshipman's 
 uniform had been sent to him, and it is 
 said the young sailor's luggage was on 
 board a British man-of-war anchored in 
 the Potomac. Look at the young hero 
 as he stands dressed in his first uniform! 
 The natty cap is very becoming, the 
 enameled dagger-belt adds to his soldier
 
 SCHOOL-DA YS. 79 
 
 bearing. With well-polished shoes, he is 
 every inch a sailor. 
 
 Now comes in the demon of the play. 
 Madam Washington had a lawyer brother 
 by the name of Joseph Ball, living in 
 London, who, hearing of the intention to 
 send George to sea, wrote a strong letter 
 to his sister opposing the scheme. The 
 story goes on to say that this letter was 
 received by Madam Washington the day 
 before George was to sail. She had never 
 lost her aversion to the plan, and now her 
 brother's letter fixed her determination. 
 At the last moment she entered her pro- 
 test, carried her point, and saved her first- 
 born from His Majesty's service, turning 
 his life purpose in another direction. The 
 familiar name George Washington means 
 more to the world to-day than if it were 
 listed among the names of Britain's 
 greatest admirals! It was a sore trial
 
 8o GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 to the boy; but he took it without sulk- 
 ing, and went back to school for another 
 year, applying himself diligently to his 
 studies, giving special attention to land 
 surveying. 
 
 When he was fifteen years old, George 
 Washington passed through his first love 
 experience. As boy and man, he was very 
 susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. 
 Good-looking women were attractive to 
 him. There is something wrong in a man 
 when he is made up otherwise. But 
 Washington's juvenile love emotions 
 were set on the hair-trigger, and went off 
 very easily under the influence of a grace- 
 ful form and pretty face. As a school lad, 
 he was one day found "romping with one 
 of the largest girls." The tell-tale pages 
 of his journal inform us that, at the age of 
 fourteen he met a girl, while visiting his 
 half-brother Augustine, in Westmore-
 
 SCHOOL-DA YS. 8 1 
 
 land, with whom he fell deeply in love. 
 In the crude efforts of a young lover to 
 write poetry, he calls her his "Low Land 
 Beauty." For some reason this lo've affair 
 did not prosper. Either George was 
 jilted, or his shyness prevented him from 
 declaring his passion. He has told the 
 world of his flame in the pages of his jour- 
 nal. Here are a few lines of this boy 
 lover's lament: 
 
 " O ye gods, why should my poor, resistless heart 
 
 Stand to oppose thy might and power 
 At last surrender to Cupid's feather'd dart 
 
 And now lays bleeding every hour 
 For her that 's pitiless of my grief and woes, 
 And will not on me pity take." 
 
 Who or what this "Low Land Beauty" 
 was, no one is able to say. 
 
 Our young spark did not mope around 
 in gloomy solitude. He became more 
 diligent in study, and began some prac- 
 tical work in land surveying. Very soon
 
 82 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 after the above lament we find him deeply 
 interested in another "very agreeable 
 young lady," whose charms, in a meas- 
 ure, offset those of the "Low Land 
 Beauty." 
 
 Although this boy lover describes 
 some of these heart experiences in a motto 
 poem 
 
 " 'T was perfect love before, 
 But now I do adore," 
 
 it is stretching language to call them seri- 
 ous affairs; they were such as any suscep- 
 tible young fellow may pass through two 
 or three times before the age of twenty 
 years. 
 
 There is a very important feature of 
 Washington's school life left for the clos- 
 ing of this chapter. In one of his manu- 
 script books we find this heading: "Rules 
 of Civility and Decent Behavior in Com- 
 pany and Conversation." Then follows
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS. 83 
 
 a list of one hundred and ten rules in 
 Washington's handwriting. His biog- 
 raphers have puzzled much over their ori- 
 gin, some insisting that he wrote them 
 himself, others that he compiled them. 
 Still others are of the opinion that he 
 composed some of them, some of them 
 he copied, and some he wrote down from 
 the lips of his teachers and learned friends. 
 Mr. Lodge, in his "Life of Washington," 
 throws the latest light upon the subject, 
 in the following words: "It has always 
 been supposed that these rules were 
 copied, but it was reserved apparently for 
 the storms of a mighty Civil War to lay 
 bare what may have been, if not the 
 source of these rules themselves, the ori- 
 gin and suggestion of their compilation. 
 At that time a little volume was found in 
 Virginia, bearing the name of George 
 Washington in a boyish hand on the fly-
 
 84 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 leaf, and the date 1742. The book was 
 entitled, 'The Young Man's Compan- 
 ion.' It was an English work, and had 
 passed through thirteen editions. . . . 
 It was written by W. Mather, in a plain 
 and easy style, and treated of arithmetic, 
 surveying, forms for legal documents, the 
 measuring of land and lumber, gardening, 
 and many other useful topics, and it con- 
 tained general precepts, which, with the 
 aid of Hale's 'Contemplations,' may 
 readily have furnished the hints for the 
 rules found in manuscript among Wash- 
 ington's papers/' 
 
 Whatever may have been their origin, 
 we need only call attention to the rare 
 moral insight of a fifteen-year-old boy, 
 who would select such a code as the basis 
 of his character and the guide of his life. 
 Here are a few of them: 
 
 "Every action in company ought to be
 
 SCHOOL-DA YS. 85 
 
 with some sign of respect to those 
 present." 
 
 "When you meet with one of greater 
 quality than yourself, stop and retire, es- 
 pecially if it be at a door or any strait 
 place, to give way for him to pass." 
 
 "Strive not with your superiors in ar- 
 gument, but always submit your judg- 
 ment to others with modesty." 
 
 "Be not hasty to believe flying reports 
 to the disparagement of any." 
 
 "Take all admonitions thankfully, in 
 what time or place soever given ; but after- 
 wards, not being culpable, take a time or 
 place convenient to let him know it that 
 gave them." 
 
 "Think before you speak; pronounce 
 not imperfectly, nor bring out your words 
 too hastily, but orderly and distinctly." 
 
 "Speak not evil of the absent, for it is 
 unjust."
 
 86 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "Make no show of taking great delight 
 in your victuals; feed not with greediness; 
 cut your bread with a knife; lerm not on 
 the table; neither find fault with what you 
 eat." 
 
 "Be not angry at table, whatever hap- 
 pens, and if you have reason to be so, 
 show it not; put on a cheerful counte- 
 nance, especially if there be strangers, for 
 good humor makes one dish of meat a 
 feast." 
 
 "Let your recreations be manful, not 
 sinful." 
 
 "Show not yourself glad at the mis- 
 fortune of another, though he were your 
 enemy." 
 
 "Wherein you reprove another, be un- 
 blamable yourself, for example is more 
 prevalent than precept." 
 
 "Associate yourself with men of good 
 quality, if you esteem your own reputa-
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS, 87 
 
 tion, for it is better to be alone than in 
 bad company." 
 
 "Be not curious to know the affairs of 
 others; neither approach to those that 
 speak in private." 
 
 "Undertake not what you can not per- 
 form, but be careful to keep your prom- 
 ises." 
 
 "When you speak of God, or his attri- 
 butes, let it be seriously in reverence." 
 
 "Honor and obey your natural parents, 
 although they be poor." 
 
 "Labor to keep alive in your breast that 
 little spark of celestial fire, called conscience."
 
 VI. 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 
 
 IN the year 1747 George Washington 
 finished his formal school-training, and 
 
 in the atumun of the same year he went 
 to live with his brother Lawrence, at his 
 country seat on the Potomac. Lawrence 
 had named his home Mount Vernon, in 
 honor of Admiral Vernon, under whom 
 he had served as captain in the siege of 
 Cartagena. 
 
 Happy is the youth who is favored with 
 the privilege of companionship with a 
 small group of well-poised, refined, and 
 intelligent people! The circumstances of 
 Washington's boyhood were especially 
 favorable in this respect. No study of the 
 formative period of his life is complete
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 89 
 
 which passes Over in silence the school- 
 ing he received from the companionships 
 of men and women who were much older 
 than himself. 
 
 Lawrence Washington was an Oxford 
 graduate, and a finished gentleman. He 
 had married Anne Fairfax, daughter of 
 William Fairfax, who was the owner of 
 a plantation named Belvoir, a few miles 
 below Mount Vernon. William Fairfax 
 had been an officer in the English army, 
 and at one time governor of one of the 
 Bahama Islands. His home was the cen- 
 
 * 
 
 ter of a social life renowned through the 
 neighborhood. The master of Belvoir 
 was a wealthy gentleman, of refined tastes 
 and educated mind. Between these two 
 homes there existed the closest social re- 
 lations, and George Washington, viciting 
 Mount Vernon, found himself also among 
 the guests at Belvoir.
 
 90 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 This acquaintance with the Fairfax 
 family was a fortunate episode in the life 
 of young Washington. One year pre- 
 vious to the autumn when George went to 
 live with his brother Lawrence, Thomas 
 Lord Fairfax, a cousin to William Fair- 
 fax, came to Virginia, and was staying for 
 the time being at Belvoir. .He was a peer 
 of the realm, an Oxford graduate, a mem- 
 ber of the famous Spectator Club, and the 
 owner of vast estates on the Northern 
 Neck of Virginia. This distinguished 
 Englishman was well on to sixty years of 
 age when he first met the Virginia coun- 
 try boy, George Washington. They were 
 mutually attracted to each other. 
 
 We can easily see how a boy of Wash- 
 ington's parts would become interested 
 in such a man. Lord Fairfax was a past 
 master of all the graces of fashionable 
 high-bred English society, an instructive
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 91 
 
 conversationalist, a friend of Addison, and 
 at one time contributor to the Spectator. 
 There were two experiences in his life 
 which explain his presence in Virginia at 
 this time: First, his ancestral estates in 
 Yorkshire, England, had been sold to 
 make good the debts of his spendthrift 
 father; and, secondly, the titled gentleman 
 had been jilted by a London belle, who 
 suddenly found out that she could marry a 
 duke, and therefore cast off her allegiance 
 to his lordship. The Low Land Beauty 
 and the London Belle may have had some 
 part in forming those tender ties which 
 bound these two souls into a lifelong 
 friendship. 
 
 It is perfectly natural that the fancy 
 of Lord Fairfax should be greatly smitten 
 by the character of young Washington. 
 Fairfax was a great lover of field sports, 
 and in that phase of Virginia life Wash-
 
 92 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ington was to the manor born. Hunting, 
 fishing, riding to the hounds, mountain 
 climbing, fencing, boxing, swimming, 
 these were the recreations of Virginia 
 boys in Washington's day. He could out- 
 run any boy in the neighborhood ; he had 
 no peer for his age in horsemanship; he 
 could throw a stone farther than any boy 
 in Fredericksburg. A point on the Rap- 
 pahannock is shown to the visitor where 
 Washington once threw a silver dollar 
 from one shore to the other. The quick- 
 witted Yankee may say that a dollar went 
 farther in those days than it does now, 
 but the bright sally does not overthrow 
 Washington's prowess as an athlete. He 
 found pleasure in taking certain risks in- 
 variably connected with a sportsman's life. 
 
 " No game was ever yet worth a rap 
 
 For a rational man to play, 
 
 In which no disaster or mishap 
 
 Could possibly find its way."
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 93 
 
 Some pages of his diary fairly quiver 
 with the sportsman's enthusiasm, a fox- 
 hunt, with the hounds in full cry, fleet 
 horses carrying their riders over ditches 
 and brambles and fences in hot pursuit 
 of the "little red rascal" racing for his 
 life. The picture is full of the strength, 
 vigor, and adventure of outdoor life. In 
 thinking of it one seems to catch some 
 of the strains of the old fox hunter's 
 songs: 
 
 " The fox jumped over the parson's gate 
 We '11 all go a-huntiug to-day." 
 
 Boys, under such conditions, may be 
 the companions of men old enough to be 
 their grandfathers. The sportsman's de- 
 mocracy brings all sorts and conditions 
 of people together upon common ground. 
 
 Washington possessed a native prim- 
 ness, which acted as a counterpoise to his 
 love for field sports, and his self-control
 
 94 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 prevented his love of adventure from laps- 
 ing into recklessness. He knew how to 
 use the world without abusing it. His 
 manly, courageous, straightforward na- 
 ture highly recommended him to the es- 
 teem and affection of Thomas Lord Fair- 
 fax. 
 
 Through this friendship with the Eng- 
 lish lord, George Washington passed to 
 his first practical work of self-support in 
 life. The immense land estates of Lord 
 Fairfax lying beyond the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains comprised 5,700,000 acres. 
 The eccentric bachelor had not come to 
 Virginia simply to get rid of London life. 
 He had much of the spirit of a true Colo- 
 nist, and his mind was big with the pur- 
 pose of opening up and settling the vast 
 acres of rich land lying in the lovely val- 
 ley of the Shenandoah, "the daughter of 
 the stars." This great tract of country
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 95 
 
 was unexplored; its resources were un- 
 known, except to a few wandering hunt- 
 ers and trappers, who had pushed west- 
 ward into its solitudes, stimulated by the 
 demands of the fur-trade. It was known 
 among the Eastern settlements as the 
 "Great Woods." "Across it ran the great 
 war-trail of the Five Nations, passing- 
 northeast and southwest." Lord Fairfax 
 had received information from the wan- 
 dering trappers that pioneers from the 
 North were coming into the rich valley, 
 building their cabins, making settlements, 
 and maintaining a squatter sovereignty, 
 without troubling themselves about title- 
 deeds from the owner. The first thing to 
 be done was to obtain a survey of the 
 estate, thus enabling the owner to locate 
 special tracts of land, define their boun- 
 daries, and give legal titles. In the spring 
 of 1748, when Washington had just
 
 96 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 passed his sixteenth birthday, Lord Fair- 
 fax appointed him as surveyor of the lands 
 beyond the mountains, lying in the "Great 
 Woods." 
 
 In March, 1748, George Washington 
 and George Fairfax, a son of William 
 Fairfax, with a few assistants, rode 
 through Ashby's Gap to the wild lands 
 where they began their work. Washing- 
 ton's diary records many of their experi- 
 ences. Below we give a few quotations, 
 in which Washington speaks for himself: 
 
 "Friday, March nth. Began my 
 journey in company with George Fairfax, 
 Esq. We traveled this day forty miles, to 
 Mr. George Neavel's, in Prince William 
 County." 
 
 "Sunday, March I3th. Rode to his 
 lordship's (Lord Fairfax's) quarter. 
 About four miles higher up the river, we 
 went through most beautiful groves of
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 97 
 
 sugar-trees, and spent the best part of the 
 day in admiring the trees and richness of 
 the land." 
 
 "Monday, I4th. We sent our bag- 
 gage to Captain Hites's, near Frederick- 
 town (afterwards Winchester), and went 
 ourselves down the river sixteen miles 
 (the land exceedingly rich all the way, 
 producing abundance of grain, hemp, and 
 tobacco), in order to lay off some land on 
 Gate's Marsh and Long Marsh." 
 
 Here is an account of his first night in 
 a squatter's cabin: 
 
 "Tuesday, I5th. Worked hard till 
 night, and then returned. After supper 
 we were lighted into a room, and I, not 
 being so good a woodsman as the rest, 
 stripped myself very orderly, and went 
 into the bed, as they called it, when, to 
 my surprise, I found it to be nothing but 
 
 a little straw matted together, without 
 7
 
 98 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 sheet or anything else, but only a thread- 
 bare blanket, with double its weight of 
 vermin. I was glad to get up and put 
 on my clothes, and lie as my companions 
 did. Had we not have been very tired, I 
 am sure we should not have slept much 
 that night. I made a promise to sleep 
 so no more, choosing rather to sleep in 
 the open air before a fire." 
 
 "Friday, i8th. We traveled up about 
 thirty-five miles to Thomas Berwick's on 
 the Potomac, where we found the river 
 exceedingly high, by reason of the great 
 rains that had fallen among the Allegha- 
 nies. They told us it would not be ford- 
 able for several days, it being now six 
 feet higher than usual, and rising. We 
 agreed to stay till Monday. We this day 
 called to see the famed Warm Springs. 
 We camped out in the field this night." 
 
 "Sunday, 2Oth. Finding the river not
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. ,99 
 
 much abated, we, in the evening, swam 
 our horses over to the Maryland side." 
 
 "Monday, 2ist. We went over in a 
 canoe, and traveled up the Maryland side 
 all day, in a continued rain, to Colonel 
 Cresap's, over against the mouth of the 
 South Branch, about forty miles from the 
 place of starting in the morning, and over 
 the worst road, I believe, that ever was 
 trod by man or beast." 
 
 This man Cresap was quite a character 
 in that backwoods settlement. He car- 
 ried on an extensive trade with the In- 
 dians, and was old-fashioned enough to 
 believe that cheating them was wrong. 
 Through his honesty he became one of the 
 most influential frontiersmen of his time. 
 His home was a backwoods hotel to all 
 travelers. "He kept a big kettle ready, 
 suspended to place a fire under, near a 
 spring, for the use of the Indians, who
 
 ioo GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 often passed his place, and for that reason 
 they called him the 'Big Spoon.' ' 
 
 Washington's diary for Wednesday, 
 March 23d, contains this record of a scene 
 witnessed while a guest at Colonel Cre- 
 sap's: "Rained till about two o'clock, and 
 then cleared up, when we were greatly 
 suprised at the sight of more than thirty 
 Indians coming from war with only one 
 scalp. We had some liquor with us, of 
 which we gave them a part. This ele- 
 vated their spirits; put them in the humor 
 of dancing. We then had a war-dance. 
 After clearing a large scape, and making 
 a great fire in the middle, the men seated 
 themselves around it, and the speaker 
 made a grand speech, telling them in what 
 manner they were to dance. After he had 
 finished, the best dancer jumped up, as 
 one awakened from sleep, and ran and 
 jumped about the ring in a most comical
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. iot 
 
 manner. He was followed by the rest. 
 Then began their music, which was per- 
 formed with a pot half-full of water, and 
 a deerskin stretched tight over it, and a 
 gourd with some shot in it to rattle, and' 
 a piece of horse's tail tied to it to make it 
 look fine. One person kept rattling, and 
 another drumming all the while they were 
 dancing." 
 
 Washington was away from home just 
 four weeks on this first outing trip as a 
 surveyor. Lord Fairfax was so well 
 pleased with his work, that he went at 
 once to his estates in the Shenandoah, and 
 built a lodge in the wilderness, naming it 
 "Greenway Court." His intention was to 
 build a great manor-house at this point, 
 and live after the manner of an English 
 earl. This intention, however, was never 
 carried out. He lived to see his young 
 friend famous, and to hear of the sur-
 
 102 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 render of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. 
 He died December 12, 1781, at the age of 
 ninety years. 
 
 Washington's success as a surveyor 
 'soon won for him a wide reputation in his 
 profession. Lord Fairfax was so well 
 pleased with the painstaking work of the 
 young man, that he obtained for him the 
 appointment of public surveyor, thus se- 
 curing for him steady employment. 
 
 For three years he devoted himself to 
 the work of his profession. He was paid 
 according to the amount of work per- 
 formed, earning from three to twenty dol- 
 lars a day. He had a keen instinct for 
 business, and with his wages he purchased 
 rich tracts of land here and there in the 
 neighborhood, laying the foundation of 
 the great estates owned by him in after 
 years. It was a hardy, outdoor life he 
 lived during these years. Rough, hard-
 
 LEAVING THE HOME NEST. 103 
 
 headed men were his companions. It 
 was a life beset with dangers, for there 
 was scarcely, a man on the frontier who 
 had not been shot at by an Indian. Sharp 
 ears and quick hands were required by 
 the men who pushed through the forests, 
 and marked the plantation boundaries for 
 the coming civilization. Englishmen are 
 proud of Wellington, and love to point 
 to the days when, on the playing-fields 
 of Eton, the young duke received the 
 training which made Waterloo possible. 
 Surveying in the "Great Woods" of Vir- 
 ginia, Washington developed the patience, 
 the courage, the perseverance, the zeal 
 shown by him in the terrible ordeals 
 through which he passed in the War for 
 Independence. The Revolution did not 
 produce George Washington: it simply 
 found him.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 
 
 IN the year 1751 the current of Wash- 
 ington's life was turned in another 
 direction from that of land surveyor. 
 Lawrence Washington was seriously ill 
 with consumption. His physician di- 
 rected him to spend the coming winter 
 in the Bahamas. Lawrence selected his 
 brother George to go with him as nurse 
 and companion. In September they set 
 sail for the Sunny South. The trip was of 
 no benefit to Lawrence, and George took 
 the small-pox during his stay in the isl- 
 ands. It may have been a fortunate cir- 
 cumstance that he took the disease at this 
 time, as he was thus delivered from the 
 
 danger at a future period, when it was so 
 104
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 105 
 
 prevalent in the armies over which he was 
 commander. This is the first and only 
 time that the foot of George Washington 
 ever touched any soil other than his native 
 America. 
 
 The two brothers returned to Mount 
 Vernon the next spring, and in July, 1752, 
 Lawrence died, at the age of thirty-four 
 years. His entire estate was left to his 
 infant daughter, with the provision, in 
 case of her death without issue, that it 
 should revert to George, who was also 
 appointed guardian of the child, and one 
 of the five executors of the will. At this 
 time he was twenty years old. The little 
 girl died a few years after, and George 
 Washington became the owner of Mount 
 Vernon. 
 
 Before leaving for the Bahamas, Law- 
 rence had secured for George the com- 
 mission of major in the Virginia militia.
 
 io6 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 One year after this, Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Dinwiddie, the king's representa- 
 tive in Virginia, divided the Colony into 
 four military districts, giving Washington 
 charge of one, with the rank of major and 
 adjutant-general. This position required 
 him to inspect, organize, drill, and disci- 
 pline the militia of the entire district, and 
 be ready at any time for war on the fron- 
 tier. It was a position of great respon- 
 sibility for a mere youth of nineteen, and 
 shows the high esteem in which his self- 
 possession, judgment, and ability were 
 held by the older men in the Colony. 
 
 This was a wise move on the part of 
 the Colonial governor, for affairs on the 
 western border looked threatening, and 
 it became Virginia to gird herself for con- 
 flict. 
 
 At this period the French and English 
 were the contesting parties for the posses-
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 107 
 
 sion of the New World. The English 
 Colonial possessions were along the At- 
 lantic Coast. The Crown Charters of 
 these Colonies gave them possessions run- 
 ning west as far as the Pacific Ocean. 
 (No one at that time knew just how far 
 that was.) The English method of colo- 
 nization was that of cutting away the 
 forest, planting farms, founding homes, 
 and building towns. As yet, these settle- 
 ments had not gone beyond the Alle- 
 ghany Mountains. Like Englishmen 
 everywhere, they wanted more elbow- 
 room, and a company of enterprising Vir- 
 ginians formed a corporation, known as 
 the "Ohio Company," for the purpose of 
 colonizing the fertile lands lying along the 
 Ohio River. 
 
 The French had entered the New 
 World through the two great waterways, 
 the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers,
 
 io8 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 with military posts at New Orleans and 
 
 
 Quebec. Their methods of colonization 
 
 were chiefly by forts and trading-posts. 
 They had determined to establish a great 
 "despotic Catholic Empire" in the central 
 portion of North America, and had made 
 up their minds that the English, their old- 
 time enemies, should not extend their do- 
 mains west of the Alleghany Mountains. 
 They had carried out their plan so far as 
 to project a line of French forts and trad- 
 ing-posts, touching the modern sites of 
 New Orleans, Natchez, Vincennes, Fort 
 Wayne, Toledo, Detroit, Ogdensburg, 
 and Montreal. 
 
 The French governor of Canada had 
 sent his agents to take possession of the 
 district claimed by the Ohio Company. 
 They buried plates of lead at the junctions 
 of the tributaries to the Ohio River, thus 
 claiming authority over these regions, and
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 109 
 
 warned the Indians riot to trade with the 
 English Colonists. It was a defiant chal- 
 lenge. Reduced to its simplest terms, it 
 meant: "There are the Alleghany Moun- 
 tains; beyond are the French possessions; 
 thus far shalt thoti come, and no farther." 
 It requires something more than bra- 
 vado to cow an Englishman. He will 
 claim his rights, even if he is to be shot at 
 in the process. So the agents of the Ohio 
 Company pushed westward over the 
 mountains, and the French were very 
 busy making the life of the English miser- 
 able all along the border. The French 
 governor of Canada, Duquesne, had sent 
 a military force into the debatable terri- 
 tory, charged with the twofold work of 
 driving off English traders, and making 
 alliances with the neighboring Indian 
 tribes. They had taken possession of an 
 English trader's quarters, raised the
 
 no GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 French flag, and sent the occupants, as 
 prisoners, to Canada. 
 
 Governor Dinwiddie, a brusque old 
 Scotchman, combined private interests 
 with official duties in his relations to the 
 frontier. He was one of the twenty share- 
 holders in the Ohio Company. He was 
 also the king's representative as Colonial 
 governor of Virginia. He sensed the sit- 
 uation in all its serious consequences. 
 French supremacy on the frontier meant 
 financial ruin to the Ohio Company, and 
 blocked the progress of the English Colo- 
 nies on the American continent. Very 
 early in the history of the affair, Dinwid- 
 die had communicated with the authori- 
 ties in England, requesting them to out- 
 line a policy for his administration. The 
 answer was prompt and direct. He was 
 instructed to keep his hold upon the val- 
 ley of the Ohio. Should the French con-
 
 'TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. Ill 
 
 tinue trespassing in that quarter, he was 
 "to require of them peaceably to depart." 
 If they refused, "we do hereby strictly 
 charge and command you to drive them 
 off by force of arms." 
 
 The Colonial governor, acting accord- 
 ing to instructions, put the stage in order 
 for the play of diplomacy. He commis- 
 sioned Major George Washington to be 
 the bearer of a letter to the French officer 
 on the disputed territory, requesting the 
 French military forces to withdraw from 
 the Valley of the Ohio. It was a task be- 
 set with many dangers. The route led 
 through a trackless wilderness of five hun- 
 dred miles. Streams swollen by early 
 winter rains were to be forded, snow- 
 covered mountains were to be crossed, 
 wandering tribes of savage Indians were 
 to be encountered and conciliated. More 
 than this, the diplomatic work, after
 
 ii2 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 reaching the wily French authorities, was 
 of a delicate nature, requiring a cool head, 
 patient forbearance, and accurate judg- 
 ment. It is a weighty testimony to the 
 prudence, patience, courage, and judg- 
 ment of young Major Washington, now 
 twenty-one years of age, that he was se- 
 lected as the Virginia envoy for this im- 
 portant mission. 
 
 On the 3Oth day of October, 1753, 
 Washington received his commission 
 from the governor, and on the same day 
 set out on his journey from Williamsburg, 
 the capital of Virginia. At Fredericks- 
 burg he stopped to say good-bye to his 
 mother, and secure the services of Van 
 Braam, his old fencing-master, as French 
 interpreter. From thence he passed 
 through Alexander and Winchester. In 
 the latter he obtained the horses, tents, 
 and other equipments needed for his jour-
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 113 
 
 ney. The real start on this mission was 
 to be made from Willis Creek, the present 
 site of the city of Cumberland, then the 
 outpost of civilization. 
 
 Washington arrived at Willis Creek on 
 November I4th, and made further selec- 
 tion of his companions for the journey 
 Christopher Gist, an experienced fron- 
 tiersman; Davidson, an Indian interpre- 
 ter; and four other men versed in the 
 knowledge of the "Great Woods." Chris- 
 topher Gist knew the way to an Indian 
 village, called Logstown, on the Ohio 
 River, seventeen miles below the present 
 city of Pittsburg. After a week's travel, 
 averaging ten miles a day, they arrived 
 at the Monongahela River, striking it at 
 a place called Turtle Creek. Here Wash- 
 ington divided his party, sending his bag- 
 gage down the river in a boat under the 
 care of two men. The other division
 
 ii4 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 swam their horses over the swollen river, 
 and made their way across the country to 
 the point where the Monongahela and 
 Alleghany Rivers form the Ohio. The 
 overland company reached the forks of 
 the Ohio some time before the arrival of 
 the party in charge of the boat, and Wash- 
 ington employed the time in reconnoiter- 
 ing the country in the neighborhood. He 
 saw at once the importance of the point 
 where the two rivers joined to form the 
 Ohio, noting it as a strategic position for 
 future operations. 
 
 At the request of Washington, a coun- 
 cil of Indian chiefs had been called at 
 Logstown by Shingis, the Sachem of the 
 Delawares. It was delicate work to 
 handle these Indians. The French agents 
 had been among them making alliances, 
 and had presented three of the chiefs with 
 ''speech-belts," as tokens of friendship.
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER, 115 
 
 Washington explained to the council- the 
 orders which he had received from the 
 governor of Virginia, and so conducted 
 the interview that the Indians declared 
 their preference for the English, and as- 
 sured him that they would send back the 
 ''speech-belts" received from the French. 
 After a delay of five days with these 
 adroit savages, Washington secured three 
 chiefs and an old Indian hunter to accom- 
 pany his party to Venango (now Frank- 
 lin, Pennsylvania), the outpost of the 
 French forces. On the 4th of December 
 Washington arrived at Venango. His 
 first view of this outpost must have stirred 
 his blood. He there caught sight of the 
 French flag floating over the captured 
 quarters of an English trader. Captain 
 Joncaire was the officer in charge of the 
 post, to whom Washington presented 
 himself, and made known his mission.
 
 n6 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Joncaire informed him that his superior 
 officer was stationed at Fort Le Bceuf, 
 a point fourteen miles south of Lake Erie. 
 He, however, strenuously endeavored to 
 prevent Washington from going forward. 
 He was lavish in his hospitality, but did 
 all that diplomacy and whisky could do 
 to alienate the Indians from the service 
 of the English. There was every indica- 
 tion that the French had come into the 
 Valley of the Ohio to stay. Joncaire, 
 somewhat flushed over his wine, said in 
 the presence of Washington: "It was their 
 absolute design to take possession of the 
 Ohio, and they would do it." 
 
 On the 7th of December, Washington 
 left Venango, and pressed forward 
 through sleet and snow sixty miles far- 
 ther to Fort Le Bceuf, where he met 
 the French commandant, M. de Sainte 
 Pierre. Here again he was received with
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 117 
 
 great hospitality, offset by the best work 
 the Frenchmen could put in to induce the 
 Indian chiefs to renounce their friendship 
 for the English. Washington presented 
 the letter from Governor Dinwiddie, and 
 received from the French commandant 
 his sealed reply. 
 
 The journey homeward was full of ad- 
 venture and peril. The pack-horses gave 
 out, and Washington, full of desire to re- 
 port to his governor as quickly as possi- 
 ble, left the horses in charge of the other 
 members of the company, while he and 
 Gist, in Indian dress, pushed forward on 
 foot through the woods. 
 
 On this return journey Washington 
 was shot at by a treacherous Indian, who 
 was acting as their guide. The trials and 
 sufferings in getting across the Ohio 
 River may be best told in Washington's 
 own words: "There was no way of getting
 
 n8 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 over but on a raft, which we set about, 
 with but one poor hatchet, and finished 
 just after sunsetting. This was a whole 
 day's work ; we next got it launched, then 
 went on board of it, and set off ; but before 
 we were half-way over, we were jammed 
 in the ice in such a manner that we ex- 
 pected every moment our raft to sink and 
 ourselves perish. I put out my setting- 
 pole to try to stop the raft, that the ice 
 might pass by, when the rapidity of the 
 stream threw it with so much violence 
 against the pole that it jerked me out into 
 ten feet of water, but I fortunately saved 
 myself by catching hold of one of the raft- 
 logs. 
 
 "Notwithstanding all our efforts, we 
 could not get to either shore; but were 
 obliged, as we were near an island, to quit 
 our raft, and make to it. The cold was so 
 extremely severe that Mr. Gist had all his
 
 TROUBLE ON THE FRONTIER. 119 
 
 fingers and some of his toes frozen, and 
 the water was shut up so hard that we 
 found no difficulty in getting off the isl- 
 and on the ice in the morning, and went 
 to Mr. Frazier's." 
 
 Here Washington hired horses, and 
 pushed eastward over the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains, and in a few days arrived in 
 Williamsburg, presenting the letter of the 
 French commandant to the governor. 
 The letter was couched in diplomatic 
 form, but its meaning was easily under- 
 stood. The French refused to withdraw 
 from the Ohio. 
 
 Washington's journal, kept while on 
 this trip, was considered of such impor- 
 tance, that the governor requested it for 
 publication, sending a copy to each of the 
 Colonial governors, and calling the atten- 
 tion of the home authorities to the con- 
 tents of the book.
 
 120 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 This journey was a failure, so far as the 
 request of Governor Dinwiddie was con- 
 cerned. It was a success in the revelation 
 it made of the ability and character of 
 Major Washington. He was known now 
 as a wise organizer, a skillful reconnoi- 
 terer of military positions, a judicious 
 treaty-maker with the Indians, and of 
 dauntless pluck and courage in the pres- 
 ence of danger. He was Virginia's rising 
 man.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 UNDER FIRE. 
 
 THE news of Washington's return, 
 and the contents of Saint Pierre's 
 letter, caused much excitement in 
 Virginia. The authorities were brought 
 face to face with war. The governor called 
 for volunteers, enlisting officers were put 
 at work, and war-drums were beating in 
 many portions of the Old Dominion. The 
 House of Burgesses presented much op- 
 position to the governor's plans, and shied 
 away from their responsibility of voting 
 military supplies, by doubting the king's 
 right to take possession of the Ohio Val- 
 ley. By shrewd political management, the 
 governor secured a grant of ten thousand 
 pounds for the purpose of protecting set-
 
 122 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 tiers on the borders. He and his council 
 issued orders to erect at once a fort at 
 the junction of the Monongahela and Al- 
 leghany Rivers, the point selected by 
 Washington during his trip as envoy to 
 the French officer. Captain Trent, a 
 trader and frontiersman, was sent for- 
 ward, with such men as would enlist from 
 the back settlements, to begin the con- 
 struction of the fort. 
 
 A woodchopper and his ax awoke the 
 echoes for quite a distance in the primitive 
 forest; in fact, any sound made by a hu- 
 man being traveled quite easily on the 
 Ohio at this time. This band of tree- 
 cutters and log-hewers soon attracted at- 
 tention by their work. Indian scouts 
 brought the news to a French fort up the 
 Alleghany River, and a bright, young offi- 
 cer quietly slipped one thousand French 
 and Indians into canoes and boats, floated
 
 UNDER FIRE. 123 
 
 down the Alleghany, seized the point, and 
 marched the Virginians out of their quar- 
 ters, telling them he wanted to see no man 
 of them for a year. The French officer 
 then set to work enlarging and complet- 
 ing the captured fort, renaming it Fort 
 Duquesne. 
 
 As a reward for services rendered in 
 the expedition to the Ohio, Washington 
 was promoted to the position of lieuten- 
 ant-colonel of a Virginia regiment, Col- 
 onel Fry commanding. There was a de- 
 sire prevalent in high quarters to place 
 Washington first in command, but he pro- 
 tested, saying, "I have too sincere a love 
 for my country to undertake that which 
 may tend to the prejudice of it." 
 
 Through the winter months Washing- 
 ton was actively engaged in raising re- 
 cruits, drilling and disciplining them for 
 service. In this preparation for his first
 
 i24 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 military campaign, he found himself in 
 the midst of perplexities and hindrances, 
 which annoyed and embarrassed him all 
 through his military career petty wran- 
 glings between the Colonial governor and 
 the House of Burgesses; sectional jealous- 
 ies and narrow provincialism of the indi- 
 vidual Colonies; prejudices between the 
 army officers who bore the king's com- 
 mission and those who held their rank by 
 Colonial appointment; and the shiftless, 
 mutinous dispositions of many of the com- 
 mon soldiers. 
 
 In the midst of these exasperating diffi- 
 culties, Washington left Alexandria on 
 the 2(1 day of April, 1754, with two com- 
 panies of soldiers destined to support the 
 fort-building party on the Ohio. He 
 reached Willis Creek on April 2Oth, and 
 there learned of the capture of the fort by 
 the French. He immediately communi-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 125 
 
 cated the news to Governor Dinwiddie, 
 and wrote letters to the governors of 
 Maryland and Pennsylvania, asking them 
 to send forward troops. He did not wait 
 for orders concerning his movements, but 
 pushed on with his troops and military 
 stores to Redstone Creek, a point on the 
 Monongahela, about half-way to Fort 
 Duquesne. By this plan he found em- 
 ployment for his men, and constructed a 
 road over which the reserved troops could 
 march more easily. By the latter part of 
 May they had crossed the Alleghany 
 Mountains, and had gone into camp at a 
 place called Great Meadows. Washing- 
 ton described this place as "a charming 
 field for an encounter." 
 
 The French and English had their 
 scouts out in the direction of danger, and 
 kept their respective headquarters well 
 informed as to the movements of the
 
 126 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 enemy that is the word now to be used 
 in describing the relations between the 
 English and French in America. It was 
 the act of an enemy when the French took 
 possession of the fort on the Ohio. 
 
 Washington had scarcely settled his 
 camp at Great Meadows when he was in- 
 formed by his Indian scouts that a party 
 of French soldiers were on the march 
 from Fort Duquesne, with the intention 
 of giving battle to the English forces. 
 Fearing a surprise, he did not wait for 
 their arrival. His righting blood was 
 stirred, and he proposed now to do his 
 duty as a soldier. Taking forty of his 
 men, he pressed forward on a night march 
 to surprise the enemy. He joined his In- 
 dian friends at sunrise on the morning of 
 the 28th of May. He found the French 
 concealed in a rocky ravine. The mo- 
 ment they saw Washington and his sol-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 127 
 
 cliers they sprang to arms. Washington 
 gave the command to fire, and a brisk 
 fight followed. The French commander, 
 Jumonville, was killed, with nine of his 
 followers, and twenty-two French were 
 taken prisoners, and sent to Virginia. On 
 the English side, one man was killed and 
 two wounded. 
 
 After the engagement Washington 
 marched back to Great Meadows, to await 
 the arrival of re-enforcements, and erect 
 fortifications for defensive action. Here 
 an "independent company" from South 
 Carolina joined him, and Colonel Fry's 
 company of Virginia Volunteers came up 
 without their colonel, Fry having died on 
 the march. Washington was now com- 
 mander of the whole military force, num- 
 bering something over three hundred 
 men. 
 
 This skirmish in the backwoods of
 
 128 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Pennsylvania was a small affair consid- 
 ered in itself. Regarded in the light of 
 issues involved, it was of momentous im- 
 portance. It was the opening of a world- 
 wide war drama. Two flags met that 
 May-day on the field of Mars, the one 
 bearing the Lilies of France and the other 
 the Cross of St. George. By the order of 
 Colonel Washington the war-dogs were 
 unleashed, and their fierce yelping was 
 heard on the continent of Europe for sixty 
 years. In the fortunes of that long war 
 France lost her possessions in America, 
 England her "most nourishing Colonies," 
 and America won her independence under 
 the illustrious Washington. The war 
 drama opened by the killing of Ensign 
 Jumonville in a backwoods skirmish; it 
 closed by paralyzing the arm of Napoleon 
 at Waterloo. 
 
 Washington knew full well what devel-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 129 
 
 opments would follow this first engage- 
 ment with the French. He was in a dan- 
 gerous position, far removed from the 
 base of supplies, and confronted by an 
 opposing force outnumbering his army 
 four to one. His victory in the first fight 
 was only a sugar-coating to the drastic 
 medicine the French commander had pre- 
 pared for him. He kept strenuously at 
 work on the fortifications at Great Mead- 
 ows, giving it the suggestive name of Fort 
 Necessity. 
 
 On the 3d of July, nine hundred 
 Frenchmen, besides many Indians, were 
 drawn up in battle line along the border 
 of the neighboring woods. Skirmishing 
 went on all day, with more or less loss on 
 both sides. In the evening Washington 
 found his men exhausted. It had been 
 raining all day. The rifle-pits were pools 
 of water, and their powder was wet and
 
 130 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 useless. The barb of battle must have 
 been somewhat dull on the part of the 
 French also. In the early evening the 
 French commander requested the privi- 
 lege of coming into the fort under a flag 
 of truce, to present the terms upon which 
 he would receive the surrender of Wash- 
 ington. This was declined by Washing- 
 ton. Later, however, the terms of sur- 
 render were accepted, and at midnight 
 under a pelting rain, by the light of flick- 
 ering camp torches, the articles of sur- 
 render were signed by both parties. The 
 English were to march out of the fort the 
 next morning with the honors of war. It 
 must have been a humiliating experience 
 on that 4th of July morning, 1754, when 
 George Washington marched his surren- 
 dered forces out of Fort Necessity with 
 drums beating and colors flying. It is 
 worthy of note in this connection that
 
 UNDER FIRE. 131 
 
 this is the first and only time George 
 Washington ever surrendered. 
 
 Washington's reputation at home did 
 not suffer from this humiliating experi- 
 ence. His friends and neighbors looked 
 upon him as an experienced soldier. The 
 young colonel had been tested in his first 
 campaign; he had stood under fire. The 
 fortunes of war had brought him both the 
 experience of victory and defeat. The 
 House of Burgesses tendered to him and 
 his officers a vote of thanks "for their 
 brave and gallant defense of their coun- 
 try," and voted a bounty of four dollars 
 to each of the soldiers under his com- 
 mand. The powder-stains on his face 
 gave new dignity to his presence in offi- 
 cial quarters, and emboldened him to talk 
 some solid, common sense to the gov- 
 ernor concerning military operations on 
 the frontier.
 
 132 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 After reporting to the governor at 
 Williamsburg, Washington returned to 
 his somewhat demoralized regiment sta- 
 tioned at Alexandria, where, with a cheer- 
 ful spirit, he set about the work of drill- 
 ing and recruiting the troops under his 
 command, believing, with Hosea Biglow, 
 
 "That civlyzation 
 
 Doos git forrid, 
 Sometimes upon a powder-cart," 
 
 although at that particular moment it did 
 not seem to be coming George Washing- 
 ton's way. 
 
 The young colonel had a supreme re- 
 gard for his personal dignity. There was 
 nothing uppish connected with this ele- 
 ment of his character, but it was a serious 
 matter to trifle with Washington's man- 
 hood. This sensitive nerve in the young 
 Virginian had been touched by an order 
 issued from the Home Government,
 
 UNDER FIRE. 133 
 
 whereby army officers holding the king's 
 commission should rank above provincial 
 officers. It further stipulated that "pro- 
 vincial generals and field officers should 
 have no rank where a general or field offi- 
 cer holding a royal commission was 
 present." This order occasioned endless 
 jealousies among various military officers 
 of the Colonial period, and threatened 
 serious trouble in a campaign where regu- 
 lars and provincial troops were engaged. 
 Governor Dinwiddie hit upon a plan 
 whereby he thought to obviate these diffi- 
 culties. He divided the military forces 
 of Virginia into ten independent com- 
 panies of one hundred men each, placing 
 over each company an officer ranking as 
 captain. He offered the command of one 
 of these companies to Colonel Washing- 
 ton. It was a stupid blunder; the Scotch- 
 man had reckoned without his host. No
 
 134 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 doubt the governor's intentions were 
 good. He longed for harmony and peace 
 among his army officers. But his action 
 shows that he was deficient in that fine 
 sense and pose of judgment requisite to 
 appreciate the spirit and estimate the 
 ability of such a man as Washington. To 
 have accepted this proposition would have 
 required Washington to resign his com- 
 mission as colonel, and accept the lower 
 rank of captain, rendering him liable to 
 be commanded by any young ensign who 
 perchance held the king's commission. 
 There was not a drop of craven blood in 
 the veins of Washington. He could not, 
 in justice to his manhood, submit to this 
 unmerited degradation, and men think 
 the better of him for acting as he did. He 
 therefore resigned his commission, and 
 quietly retired to Mount Vernon. 
 
 In the meantime the English Govern-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 135 
 
 ment became more deeply interested in 
 American affairs. "Carthage must be de- 
 stroyed!" was Rome's cry when her Scipio 
 drove Hannibal from the fields of Italy. 
 The home Government had much of the 
 same spirit in relation to the French in 
 America. Two campaigns were organ- 
 ized against the French, one to proceed 
 from New York and attack Nova Scotia; 
 the other moving from Virginia against 
 the French on the Ohio. The Colonies 
 were to see fighting on the scale of Eng- 
 lish regulars. 
 
 Early in the spring of 1755 transports 
 bearing two English regiments sailed up 
 the Potomac River, and put the red- 
 coated soldiers ashore at Alexandria. 
 These troops were under the command 
 of Major-General Edward Braddock, a 
 brave, dashing, reckless Irishman. 
 
 One can easily imagine the thoughts
 
 136 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and feelings of Washington, as he stood 
 on the piazza, at Mount Vernon, and 
 watched these military transports make 
 their way slowly up the Potomac. He 
 knew better than any military man in Vir- 
 ginia the route over which these troops 
 must march to the scene of action. His 
 knowledge of the country lying about the 
 forks of the Ohio would be invaluable to 
 a general proposing a military attack on 
 the French at Fort Dtiquesne. Further- 
 more, His Majesty's regulars were to be 
 accompanied on the expedition by Vir- 
 ginia militia, with a mixture of carpenters 
 and teamsters thrown in. It was a natu- 
 ral presumption on the part of Washing- 
 ton, mingled with no element of conceit, 
 that his knowledge and experience gained 
 in those regions should be placed at the 
 disposal of General Braddock. His in- 
 terest in military affairs would also natu-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 137 
 
 rally lead him to become a close student 
 of such a campaign as the one now in 
 preparation. He had read military books, 
 he had commanded provincial soldiers, 
 and he had seen some righting, but he had 
 never seen military operations conducted 
 on such an extensive plan by soldiers 
 skHled in the military discipline of the 
 Old World. Upon Braddock's arrival in 
 America, he wrote him a letter of wel- 
 come, and during all the days of prepara- 
 tion at Alexandria he was a frequent vis- 
 itor at the British headquarters. 
 
 General Braddock and his officers set 
 small store upon the lean, bony Virginia 
 militiamen, and on many occasions were 
 open in their demonstrations of contempt. 
 Washington was, however, exempt from 
 such treatment. This well-mounted 
 horseman, riding through the British 
 camp, attracted their attention, and called
 
 138 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 forth their admiration. He combined the 
 strength of a backwoodsman with the 
 grace and dignity of an aristocrat. Six 
 feet two inches of such manhood com- 
 mands respect and attention anywhere. 
 Braddock took to the young Virginian, 
 and the outcome was iust what George 
 Washington desired. General Braddock 
 invited him to join his military family as 
 aide-de-camp. Washington accepted the 
 position, becoming the most valuable 
 officer on the general's staff. 
 
 The story of Braddock's campaign and 
 defeat is known to every school-child. 
 The Qth day of July, 1755, is one of the 
 saddest in early American history. Two 
 thousand soldiers, with all their military 
 equipage, supplies, and artillery, form- 
 ing a procession four miles long, were to 
 march five hundred miles through vir- 
 gin forests and over trackless moun-
 
 UNDER FIRE. 139 
 
 tains. After the outposts of civilization 
 were passed, they were likely to be har- 
 assed by ambushed Indians and French 
 enemies. The order had gone forth from 
 the headstrong, quick-tempered com- 
 mander that the campaign was to be con- 
 ducted after the style of maneuvering 
 armies in the open fields of Europe. It 
 was an enterprise freighted with such 
 hazard that even a Napoleon might have 
 trembled at the undertaking. He spurned 
 the advice of the experienced Washing- 
 ton and the sagacious Franklin concern- 
 ing Indian ambuscades. "These sav- 
 ages," said Braddock, with a smile, ''may 
 indeed be a formidable enemy to raw 
 American militia, but upon the king's 
 regulars and disciplined troops, sir, it is 
 impossible that they should make any im- 
 pression." 
 
 At last the army began its march west-
 
 140 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ward. Its progress was slow. Elaborate 
 roads were to be made, and every delay 
 incident to transporting such a force by 
 such methods. At some places in the 
 march they occupied four days in getting 
 twelve miles. Braddock snubbed Wash- 
 ington for suggesting that pack-horses 
 would serve their purposes better than 
 army wagons. 
 
 At the ford of the Youghiogheny 
 Washington was taken sick with fever. 
 Braddock assigned him a guard, and left 
 him behind for rest and recovery, promis- 
 ing him, with his word of honor, that he 
 should be present and witness the battle. 
 Washington's recovery was speedy, and 
 he rejoined Braddock at the first ford of 
 the Monongahela, fifteen miles from Fort 
 Duquesne. The army must cross the river 
 again five miles below. They now began 
 to see traces of Indians and French scouts
 
 UNDER FIRE. 141 
 
 in the neighborhood, and lost a picket 
 here and there by sharpshooters. Wash- 
 ington politely suggested the sending 
 ahead of the Virginia rangers, who knew 
 something about woods-fighting and In- 
 dian surprises. Braddock refused, and 
 set about awing the enemy by causing 
 his troops to go through the ceremony 
 of a military parade. On the 9th of July, 
 about noon, the order was given to cross 
 the ford. Washington was very much 
 impressed by the splendid appearance of 
 the army as it crossed the river. The 
 dark green of the forest contrasting with 
 the bright scarlet uniforms of the soldiers, 
 the midday sunlight flashing from the 
 bright bayonets and sword-hilts, the army 
 moving forward to the strains of the 
 Grenadier's March, all these features of 
 that dreadful day were so firmly set in 
 the memory of Washington that he fre-
 
 142 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 quently recalled them in the days when 
 he commanded the half-starved, poorly- 
 clad American patriots, who helped him 
 win our independence. 
 
 The army was scarcely across the river 
 when a man dressed in buckskin uniform 
 and wearing the badge of a French officer 
 came out of the woods. He looked at 
 the advancing army for a moment, then 
 turned his face towards the forest, and 
 waved his hat high over his head. It was 
 the signal for the concealed French and 
 Indians to open fire. The ambushed 
 enemy poured volley after volley into the 
 compact English ranks at point-blank 
 range. It was terrible carnage. The 
 officers stood to their posts like brave 
 men, General Braddock and Washington 
 bravest among them. Dead men were all 
 about them, and yet the English could 
 see no living enemy against whom to
 
 UNDER FIRE, 143 
 
 direct their .fire, so they shot wildly into 
 the woods. General Braddock was learn- 
 ing at sad cost that trees and boulders 
 could be utilized in battle with more tell- 
 ing results than orderly battle-lines firing 
 in platoons. Five horses were shot under 
 Braddock in quick succession, and finally 
 a bullet pierced his lungs, and he fell. 
 After that event the army broke in con- 
 fusion and fled. Sixty-three officers out 
 of eighty-five were either killed or 
 wounded, and out of thirteen hundred 
 men engaged, five hundred were killed or 
 wounded. During the fight Washington 
 did his utmost to carry out the plans of 
 General Braddock. With furious energy 
 and courage he threw himself into the 
 midst of the slaughter. Three horses 
 were shot under him, and his clothes were 
 cut in many places by bullets. By his 
 skillful management of the Virginia forces
 
 144 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 he saved what was left of the shattered 
 army. 
 
 Aided by some of the officers, Wash- 
 ington carried Braddock to a place of 
 safety, and watched with his wounded 
 general until he died four days afterward. 
 They buried the body near the scene of 
 the encounter. The chaplain being 
 wounded, Washington read the funeral 
 service over his grave. The spot selected 
 for the burial was in the roadway of the 
 wilderness, where the wagons would ob- 
 literate every trace, thus preventing its 
 discovery by the savage foes. After this 
 sad ceremony, Washington turned his 
 face homeward, arriving at Mount Ver- 
 n on July 26th.
 
 IX. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 B 
 
 RADDOCK'S defeat was an evil 
 omen to the frontier settlements of 
 Virginia. Savage Indians were now 
 likely to press forward into the settle- 
 ments, doing dreadful work with fire and 
 tomahawk. With a few hundred militia, 
 Virginia must protect her three hundred 
 and fifty miles of frontier from the incur- 
 sions of these savages. Washington was 
 called to this task, and appointed com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Virginia forces. It 
 was a trying service, freighted with hard- 
 ships and' discouragements. Raising 
 money by personal appeal, enlisting men 
 through recreant recruiting officers, and 
 enforcing discipline among ignorant and 
 
 10 145
 
 146 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 trouble-making men these were some of 
 the difficulties to be encountered in the 
 undertaking. He complains to the gov- 
 ernor: "No order is obeyed but such as a 
 party of soldiers or my own drawn sword 
 enforces." In the midst of these draw- 
 backs, he went on with coolness and cour- 
 age doing his duty "making an empty 
 bag stand upright," which Franklin says 
 is "hard." 
 
 The question of rank between king's 
 and provincial officers was still a bone of 
 contention. At Fort Cumberland there 
 was a little fellow by the name of Dag- 
 worth, who, having held a king's com- 
 mission, refused to obey Washington. 
 This disagreement as to official rank re- 
 sulted in a quarrel between Virginia and 
 Maryland. Washington now determined 
 to have this matter settled, and early in 
 1756 he set out for Boston on horseback.
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 147 
 
 The purpose of this journey was an inter- 
 view with Governor Shirley, who was the 
 English commander-in-chief since the 
 death of General Braddock. Washing- 
 ton's desire was to obtain a king's com- 
 mission as an officer in the army. In this 
 he failed. Governor Shirley, however, 
 gave him a written letter, stating that 
 each provincial officer must obey his su- 
 perior in rank, even if that superior were 
 commissioned by another Colony. 
 
 Washington certainly intended to se- 
 cure respect by the dignity of his personal 
 appearance on this seven-weeks' trip. 
 He was mounted upon one of his best 
 horses, his person was adorned with the 
 buff and blue uniform, a scarlet and white 
 cape was thrown over his shoulders, and 
 a gold-mounted sword swung at his side. 
 The trappings of his horse bore the Wash- 
 ington arms, in the style of the best
 
 148 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 don saddlers. He was attended by two 
 aides dressed in full uniform, and two 
 servants clad in white and scarlet livery. 
 The handsome, young colonel, thus at- 
 tended, must have attracted the admiring 
 attention of the people dwelling in the 
 Colonial towns and rural districts through 
 which he rode. 
 
 One of the marked traits in Washing- 
 ton's character was his fondness for fine 
 clothes. He was punctilious in his atten- 
 tion to fashionable garments. Wherever 
 he chanced to abide, the laundress and 
 barber were in great demand. The barber 
 found employment simply as a hair- 
 dresser, for Washington either shaved 
 himself or placed his person in the hands 
 of his valet for that service. It must not, 
 however, be understood that there was 
 any of the dandy about Washington. Far 
 from that. He selected and wore his
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 149 
 
 clothes on principle. He was a great ob- 
 server of facts, and it is a fact that a man 
 carries about with him a superior degree 
 of self-respect and wins a great measure 
 of respect from others by being well 
 dressed. It is an old saying that good 
 clothes have much to do with courtship. 
 Washington believed, other things being 
 equal, that good clothes went a great way 
 in accomplishing one's purposes in deal- 
 ing with one's fellow-men. 
 
 On his return journey he stopped in 
 New York, and received marked social 
 attention from the original "Four Hun- 
 dred." He seems never to have taken to 
 New England, making no mention of Ply- 
 mouth Rock or the Pilgrims. He did, 
 however, attend the meeting of the Gen- 
 eral Court held in the Old State House. 
 He does better by New York, bestowing 
 upon one of her fair daughters a deathless
 
 150 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 memory through association with his 
 name. During the round of social festivi- 
 ties given in his honor by the leaders of 
 Knickerbocker society, his heart was cap- 
 tured, for the time, by Miss Mary Philipse, 
 a young woman of great beauty and much 
 wealth. Serious matters on the Virginia 
 frontier demanded his presence, and he 
 pressed hastily homeward, leaving the 
 New York beauty to be won and wedded 
 by Captain Morris, one of his fellow aides 
 on Braddock's staff. 
 
 For three years Washington had a try- 
 ing position at the head of the Virginia 
 militia. In 1758 an overturn in the Eng- 
 lish ministry brought the reins of govern- 
 ment into the hands of the great states- 
 man, William Pitt. One of the Prime 
 Minister's first acts in Virginia was to re- 
 call Governor Dimviddie. This circum- 
 stance, in its effect upon George Washing-
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 151 
 
 ton, was like a breeze of fresh mountain 
 air coming into a ballroom. The new 
 ministry set in motion a greater scheme, 
 manned by abler men, to attack the 
 French in their American strongholds. 
 Another expedition was set in motion 
 against Fort Duquesne under General 
 Forbes. Washington was at the head of 
 one of the Virginia regiments, still hold- 
 ing his commission as commander-in- 
 chief of Virginia militia. Pitt's policy 
 had broken the power of the French in 
 the North, and the French occupants of 
 Fort Duquesne had withdrawn to meet a 
 need elsewhere, burning the fort upon 
 leaving. All that remained for the Vir- 
 ginia expedition to do was to take pos- 
 session. They erected a new fort, and 
 raised over it the English flag, renaming 
 the spot Fort Pitt. 
 
 The English were now in possession of
 
 152 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 the Valley of the Ohio. Washington led 
 his regiment back to Winchester, resigned 
 his commission, and returned to Mount 
 Vernon. This was in the latter part of 
 December, 1758, and from that time until 
 June 15, 1775, when the war-drums of the 
 Revolution called him to a mighty task, 
 Washington had no direct connection 
 with military affairs. 
 
 In the early part of the last campaign 
 against the French at Fort Duquesne 
 there was an order placed in the hands of 
 Washington by the quartermaster-gen- 
 eral of the British army, instructing him 
 to ride posthaste from Winchester to 
 Williamsburg, and present before the gov- 
 ernor and Council the humiliating con- 
 dition of the Virginia troops as to their 
 clothing and equipments. In the latter 
 part of May, 1758, Washington and Billy 
 Bishop, General Braddock's esteemed
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 153 
 
 servant, set out on horseback for this 
 journey. It was in Virginia springtide, 
 and even the war-god must stand uncov- 
 ered in the presence of his sweet sister, 
 the love-goddess, in such rare days. 
 
 "In the spring a livelier iris changes on the bur- 
 nished dove; 
 
 In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns 
 to thoughts of love." 
 
 No man was ever more cautious in 
 avoiding covert attacks than George 
 Washington, and no victim ever rode 
 more unconsciously into ambush than did 
 this same George Washington that May- 
 day about the hour of noon. The two 
 horsemen had made their way through 
 the country, passing the large estates and 
 hospitable homes of the Virginia planters, 
 and had arrived at a point on the Pamun- 
 key River called Williams Ferry. Tra- 
 dition says Washington was riding a
 
 154 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 splendid chestnut-brown horse, once 
 owned by General Braddock. Scarcely 
 had the ferry-boat touched the opposite 
 shore when Major Chamberlayne, the 
 hospitable proprietor of the grounds, rec- 
 ognized Washington, and insisted that he 
 should come to his home and dine with 
 him. Colonel Washington declined the 
 invitation, stating that he was the. bearer 
 of an important military message to the 
 governor at Williamsburg. His friend 
 pressed the invitation, saying that they 
 were within a few hours' ride of the capi- 
 tal, and a good dinner would give zest to 
 the remainder of their journey, closing 
 his appeal with the assertion that there 
 was a charming, young widow now visit- 
 ing his home, whose company Washing- 
 ton would find entertaining. Virginia 
 gallantry could no longer resist. Wash- 
 ington accepted the invitation, on the con-
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 155 
 
 dition that after dinner his host* would let 
 him depart immediately. The charming 
 woman proved to be Martha Dandridge, 
 the widow of Daniel Park Custis, a gra- 
 cious, intelligent, beautiful, and wealthy 
 lady, living in a stately mansion near by, 
 called the White House. She had married 
 Mr. Custis when she was seventeen years 
 of age, he being more than twenty years 
 her senior. At the time of this meeting 
 with Washington she was twenty-six 
 years of age, his junior by three months, 
 the mother of two children, a boy of six 
 and a girl of four years. She had been one 
 year a widow. 
 
 So much for background. The filling 
 up of the foreground is alike interesting. 
 Washington dismounted before the door 
 of Major Chamberlayne's mansion, plac- 
 ing his horse under Bishop's care, strictly 
 charging him to be ready for their further
 
 156 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 journey immediately after dinner. We 
 will not stop over introductions and what 
 took place during the pleasant hour at the 
 table. Dinner over, the faithful Bishop 
 was promptly on time with the horses, 
 but Colonel Washington did not appear. 
 Billy Bishop is a little nervous, and leads 
 the horses up and down the green before 
 the house, looking now and then askant 
 at the windows, as if he would remind his 
 master that time was up. Half the after- 
 noon passes, and Washington still lingers 
 within. "For once Washington loitered 
 in the path of duty." We have uttered all 
 that can be said of the impression Martha 
 Custis made upon George Washington, 
 when we state that the remainder of the 
 day was spent in her company. It was 
 sunset before he arose to depart, when 
 Major Chamberlayne entered his protest 
 by saying, "No guest ever leaves my
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 157 
 
 house after sunset." There is no record 
 of Washington uttering a word of com- 
 plaint. He ordered Bishop to put the 
 horses back into the stable, and the night 
 was spent in the house of his host. Those 
 who ought to know say that the fair 
 widow and the handsome colonel lingered 
 "after the other guests had retired." 
 
 "A ruddy drop of manly blood 
 The surging sea outweighs ; 
 The world uncertain comes and goes, 
 The lover rooted stays." 
 
 The next morning the sun was well up 
 towards the zenith before he was in the 
 saddle on his way to Williamsburg. 
 
 With soldier-like promptness Wash- 
 ington pressed his suit. On his return to 
 the frontier, he stopped at the White 
 House, obtained an interview with the 
 mistress, and, before they parted, Martha 
 Custis had promised George Washington
 
 158 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 to become his wife. They were married 
 January 6, 1759. All the world knows 
 about that marriage. She satisfied Wash- 
 ington. She was the true mistress of his 
 heart till the day of his death. During 
 his life he wore a miniature portrait of 
 his wife hung from his neck by a golden 
 chain. In his letters he calls her "My 
 dear Patsy." In after years, when the 
 storm of battle roared about him, he spoke 
 ' of her as "the partner of all my domestic 
 enjoyments." His happiest days were 
 spent with her amid the home scenes of 
 Mount Vernon. 
 
 Soon after his marriage, Washington 
 took his wife to Mount Vernon, where he 
 set up housekeeping in a style commen- 
 surate with his social standing. He turned 
 his back upon war, but with the true in- 
 stinct of a Virginian set his face towajds 
 politics.
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 159 
 
 Six months before his marriage he had 
 been elected a member of the House of 
 Burgesses from Frederick County. His 
 services here were so satisfactory to his 
 constituency that he held this position for 
 fifteen years, receiving each year a large 
 majority of the votes cast. Upon taking 
 his seat in the House for the first time, 
 he received a hearty welcome, the Speaker 
 making an address in which he presented 
 to Washington the thanks of the House 
 in honor of his military service. The sen- 
 timent was greeted with hearty applause 
 from all present. The well-built colonel, 
 measuring six feet in height, rose to re- 
 spond. That was all he could do for that 
 occasion. He was so confused that he 
 simply stood there, blushing, and stam- 
 mering, unable to utter an intelligent 
 sentence. It took the House, however, 
 better than any speech he might have
 
 160 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 made. The Speaker came to his rescue 
 in the famous words: "Sit down, Mr. 
 Washington; your modesty equals your 
 valor, and that surpasses the power of any 
 language I possess." 
 
 Washington's effective service was not 
 in the line of speech-making; his worth 
 was shown in sound judgment, careful 
 study of facts, wonderful organizing skill, 
 and spotless integrity. The source of 
 Washington's masterly power in reading 
 character and managing men has often 
 been placed to the credit of a peculiar 
 genius possessed by him for such work. 
 The source of that power lies in another 
 direction. It is revealed in his method 
 of systematic work, in his habits of care- 
 ful observation, and his wide range of ex- 
 perience. Early in life he was for years 
 thrown in contact with all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men, from the cultured circle of
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 161 
 
 Belvoir to the simple, rough life of the 
 frontier. In the vigor of manhood he 
 spent fifteen years in the study and man- 
 agement of men in the Virginia House of 
 Burgesses. These experiences were not 
 wasted on a man like Washington. 
 
 Here is a side-light showing his keen- 
 ness of observation in some advice he 
 gave to a nephew, who was about to take 
 his seat in the House of Burgesses: "The 
 only advice I will offer," he said, "if you 
 have a mind to command the attention of 
 the House, is to speak seldom but on im- 
 portant subjects, except such as particu- 
 larly relate to your constituents; and, in 
 the former case, make yourself perfect 
 master of the subject. Never exceed a 
 decent warmth, and submit your senti- 
 ments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, 
 though it may carry conviction, is always 
 accompanied with disgust."' 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 During the period between 1759, the 
 year of his marriage, and 1775, when he 
 took command of the Continental army, 
 \Yashington lived the life of a Virginia 
 planter at Mount Vernon. These were 
 his happiest years. This charming spot 
 on the Potomac River was the goal of his 
 earthly pleasure. There he held close 
 companionship with agricultural life. 
 Growing crops fascinated him. Late in 
 life he wrote to a friend: "I think, with 
 you, that the life of a husbandman, of all 
 others, is the most delectable. It is hon- 
 orable, it is amusing, and, with judicious 
 management, is profitable. To see plants 
 rise from the earth and flourish by the 
 superior skill and bounty of labor, fills a 
 contemplative mind with ideas which are 
 more easy to be conceived than ex- 
 pressed." He loved horses, cattle, and 
 dogs, and stocked his farms with the finest
 
 MARRIAGE AND Mr. VERNON. 163 
 
 breeds. His business enterprises gener- 
 ally brought good returns; and barrels of 
 flour and bales of tobacco, bearing the 
 brand of "Geo. Washington," passed the 
 custom-house officers unchallenged. 
 
 He was the master of Mount Vernon 
 for forty-six years. During that period, 
 twenty-three years were given to public 
 service. Speaking of the losses on his 
 farms, occasioned by his absence during 
 the Revolution, he says: "To speak within 
 bounds, ten thousand pounds will not 
 compensate the losses I might have 
 avoided by being at home and attending 
 to my own concerns." For his service 
 to the cause of liberty during the Revolu- 
 tion the ideal patriot declined any remu- 
 neration, requesting only the amount of 
 his personal expenses. 
 
 Of all shrines sacred to the memory of 
 Washington, Mount Vernon is the most
 
 164 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 suggestive. Other places renowned for 
 his presence remind one of the hero, the 
 warrior, the statesman Mount Vernon 
 suggests the man. Surrounded by those 
 scenes, he played as a child. Back to 
 those halls he came from his surveying 
 trips. Through that doorway he led his 
 bride. From that loved home he went 
 forth with drawn sword in the cause of 
 liberty. To its tranquil scenes he returned 
 when the storm of war had passed, and his 
 labors as President were over. The vis- 
 itor to Mount Vernon feels the power of 
 
 these memories. The whole place has an 
 
 
 
 expectant look, as if the owner were only 
 absent for a little while, and would re- 
 turn.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 
 
 FROM the period of Washington's 
 entrance into public life to the pas- 
 sage of the Stamp Act in 1765, in 
 private thought and public action he was 
 a loyal subject of the English king. He 
 had grown up with a supreme respect for 
 authority and a zealous regard for law, 
 having no sympathy with radical enthu- 
 siasts whose zeal carried away their judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Soon after the close of the French war, 
 the Mother Country had adopted a policy 
 in relation to Colonial affairs which sa- 
 vored much of oppression. Briefly stated, 
 the policy was this: The American Colo- 
 nies were to be a part of the great British 
 
 165
 
 1 66 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Empire so far as taxation and dependence 
 went, but were to have no representatives 
 in Parliament, and no share in legislation 
 affecting them. The thoughtful leaders in 
 Colonial politics looked upon this meas- 
 ure with serious apprehension. It was 
 equivalent to the cry from the ship's look- 
 out, "Breakers ahead." 
 
 The suspicious feeling on the part of 
 the Colonies towards the authorities in 
 England began to manifest itself very 
 early in their relations with each other. 
 The Colonial governors, generally speak- 
 ing, were men who helped on the spirit 
 of antagonism by their official arrogance. 
 There was a constant warfare waged be- 
 tween them and their Assemblies, and this 
 chronic opposition, coupled with later acts 
 of injustice on the part of the English 
 ministry, rapidly developed in America a
 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 167 
 
 public opinion looking towards independ- 
 ence. 
 
 Washington came thoughtfully and 
 gradually under this influence. He loved 
 his country with a patriot's devotion, and 
 loathed injustice in his manly soul. He 
 was forced to witness the object of his 
 love treated with kingly oppression and 
 the manhood of his fellow-citizens de- 
 graded. His first efforts to repair the in- 
 jury were by way of remonstrance and 
 compromise. But _ when all such pro- 
 posals were met with disdain and refusal 
 on the part of the English Government, 
 he took the heroic stand and followed his 
 duty home, boldly declaring: "Our lordly 
 masters in Great Britain will be satisfied 
 with nothing less than the deprivation of 
 American freedom. Something should be 
 done to maintain the liberty which we
 
 1 68 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 have derived from our ancestors. No 
 man should hesitate a moment to use arms 
 in defense of so valuable a blessing, yet 
 arms should be the last resource." 
 
 If the demon of discord had been in- 
 vited to preside over the deliberations of 
 the English ministry at this period, he 
 could not have suggested a policy more 
 detrimental to the peace of the American 
 Colonies than that adopted by King 
 George and his counselors. Space forbids 
 the enumeration and historic connection 
 of America's grievances during the period 
 previous to the Revolution. Some of 
 them, however, may be set forth in skele- 
 ton form. 
 
 During the French war, Colonial paper 
 money had been issued by the Colonies, 
 in order to meet the financial pressure 
 incident to the campaign. Scarcely had 
 hostilities ceased when the English Board
 
 STIRLING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 169 
 
 of Trade obtained an order from the Eng- 
 lish ministry declaring this paper money 
 to be "no longer legal tender." This was 
 the first blow from the millionaire fist ever 
 giyen against the rights of the common 
 people of America. It shocked Washing- 
 ton's sense of justice, calling from him the 
 remark: "I fear this order will set the 
 whole country in flames." 
 
 In 1761, English authority set itself in 
 motion further to hector the Colonies by 
 the enforcement of the Navigation Act. 
 This act required all trade with the Colo- 
 nies to be carried on through home ports, 
 in British vessels. Sugar from the West 
 Indies consigned to dealers in Maryland 
 must first be shipped in English bottoms 
 to some English port, and thence to the 
 James or Potomac Rivers. Under such 
 arbitrary measures, smuggling became a 
 common practice. A Boston revenue offi-
 
 170 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 cer made application to the court for a 
 "writ, of assistance;" in other words, a 
 general search warrant, permitting him to 
 enter private houses, and search for smug- 
 gled goods. James Otis threw himself 
 into the task of defeating this application 
 before the court. In his appeal he used 
 the famous sentence: "Arbitrary measures 
 of this kind have cost one king of Eng- 
 land his head, a second his crown, and 
 they may yet cost a third his most flour- 
 ishing Colonies." James Otis lost his case 
 before the court, but his speech created 
 such excitement and enthusiasm among 
 those present, that the scene has been re- 
 garded as the opening act of the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 Early in 1765 American indignation 
 was kindled into flame by the passing of 
 the celebrated Stamp Act by the British 
 Government. This act required the
 
 STIRRING THE EA&LE'S NEST. 171 
 
 American Colonies to place a revenue 
 stamp upon every newspaper or almanac 
 published. They were also required upon 
 all marriage certificates," wills, deeds, and 
 other legal papers. These stamps varied 
 in price from three pence to ten pounds. 
 They were to be sold by officers duly ap- 
 pointed by British authority, and the 
 money received used to pay British sol- 
 diers stationed in America to enforce the 
 laws made by the English Parliament. 
 .This act produced a general uprising 
 among the Colonists from Massachusetts 
 to Georgia. It is worthy of note that the 
 first protest coming from a representative 
 body in America had its origin in Vir- 
 ginia, the Colony hitherto most loyal to 
 the crown. Secret societies known as the 
 "Sons of Liberty" were formed in most of 
 the Colonies, whose members were under 
 secret oath to resist the oppressive law.
 
 1 72 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Stamp officers were burned in effigy, and 
 the boxes containing the stamps were 
 burned or cast into the sea. It was evi- 
 dent the Stamp Act could not be enforced 
 in America, and the English Government, 
 after prolonged debate, repealed the law, 
 still insisting upon the right to tax the 
 Colonies. Speaking of this Act after its 
 repeal, Washington said: "The conse- 
 quence would have been more direful than 
 is generally apprehended, both to the 
 Mother Country and the Colonies." 
 
 The repeal of the Stamp Act amounted 
 to nothing so far as .the principle at stake 
 was involved, for it was saddled with a 
 rider, reasserting the right of Parliament 
 to impose taxes on the Colonies. It was 
 much like scraping the coat from the 
 tongue of a fever patient, with the hope 
 of thus curing him of disease. England's 
 contention in the matter of Colonial tax-
 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 173 
 
 ation was an affair of the pocket-book. 
 America's resistance was rooted in the 
 principle of justice. 
 
 Soon after the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
 the British Ministry ordered a duty to be 
 placed on certain articles shipped to 
 America. This was described as an in- 
 direct tax, and it was taken for granted 
 that the Americans would submit to it, 
 for some such intimation had been made 
 in the debate on the repeal of the Stamp 
 Act. It was evident from this action that 
 the snake had been scotched and not 
 killed. The Colonies responded to the 
 order by boycotting the articles men- 
 tioned, and Washington in his orders for 
 English goods for Mount Vernon care- 
 fully avoided sending for articles specified 
 in the tariff list. This action touched the 
 commerce of the Mother Country, and 
 that has always been a sensitive nerve in
 
 174 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 British national life. The import duties 
 were soon repealed on all goods shipped 
 to America, with the exception of the duty 
 on tea. This exception was made on the 
 ground that a tea tax would be the least 
 objectionable to the Colonies, because it 
 touched fewer people, and at the same 
 time would maintain the right of Parlia- 
 ment to tax the Colonies; that is to say, 
 the insignificance of the tax on tea would 
 protect it from opposition. It is said that 
 tea was so little known among the Colo- 
 nies at this time that when a Virginia 
 gentleman gave his overseer a pound of 
 the delicious shrub as a present to his wife, 
 she, thinking it was some new-fashioned 
 greens, boiled the whole of it in a pot with 
 a big ham. 
 
 The Colonists, however, were not 
 caught napping. American patriotism 
 did not lose sight of the principle in-
 
 STICKING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 175 
 
 volved, and declared its defiant opposition 
 in words that could not be misunder- 
 stood "The right to take one pound im- 
 plied the right to take a thousand." 
 
 Protests were unavailing, and in 1773 
 vessels loaded with tea by the East India 
 Company were sent to Boston, New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Charleston. The pres- 
 ence of these ships in American waters 
 produced among the people an outburst 
 of indignation destined to shake the con- 
 tinent. Everywhere the question of land- 
 ing these cargoes of tea was met with 
 an emphatic No! In Charleston, the only 
 place where a ship discharged her cargo, 
 the tea was stored in a damp cellar and 
 spoiled. In Boston more heroic measures 
 were adopted. Mass-meetings, attended 
 by thousands of citizens, were held in Fan- 
 euil Hall and the Old South meeting- 
 house. Samuel Adams rocked the cradle
 
 176 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 of Liberty to the tune of an intense pa- 
 triotism. A letter from the patriots of 
 Philadephia exhorted the men of Boston 
 to stand firm, saying, "Our only fear is 
 lest you may shrink. May God give you 
 virtue enough to save the liberties of your 
 country!" 
 
 In one of these mass-meetings, held in 
 the Old South Church, John Rowe stood 
 up, and said: "Who knows how tea will 
 mingle with salt water?" The remark was 
 greeted with great applause. The patriots 
 had exhausted all legal methods and used 
 their wisest words of petition to prevent 
 the landing of the tea. Governor Hutch- 
 inson sent his last word of refusal to the 
 meeting. Samuel Adams then arose, and 
 quietly but distinctly said: "This meeting 
 can do nothing more to save the country." 
 Soon afterwards a war-whoop was heard 
 outside the church, and fifty stalwart citi-
 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 177 
 
 zens of Boston dressed as Mohawk In- 
 dians marched down to the wharf, boarded 
 the three tea-ships, broke open three hun- 
 dred and forty-two chests of tea, and flung 
 their contents into Boston Harbor. The 
 next morning Dorchester Beach was 
 fringed with salted tea, carried there by 
 wind and tide during the ni^ht. It was 
 a costly trimming with which Boston 
 adorned the shore of her picturesque 
 suburb. 
 
 The "Tea Party" cost the East India 
 Company much; it was yet to cost Boston 
 more. England demanded compensation 
 for the destruction of the tea; Boston re- 
 fused, although Benjamin Franklin, writ- 
 ing from London, suggested payment. 
 The answer was promptly returned, 
 "Do n't pay for an ounce." 
 
 General Gage was ordered to Boston 
 with four regiments of British regulars, 
 
 12
 
 178 GEORGE WASHINGTON: 
 
 who closed her port and ruined her com- 
 merce. Her distress met with universal 
 sympathy in the Colonies. Most of the 
 Assemblies held meetings, and voted that 
 Boston was "suffering in the common 
 cause." Droves of cattle and sheep were 
 being driven from all directions to the re- 
 lief of the cjty. Gifts of clothing, food, 
 and money, carried by ox-carts and farm 
 wagons, were brought to the martyr town. 
 Heading a subscription list for the pur- 
 pose of feeding the unemployed working 
 classes of the town was the name of 
 George Washington, with a gift of fifty 
 pounds. 
 
 In the Virginia Convention, called to 
 select delegates to the first Continental 
 Congress, Washington was chosen as one 
 of their representatives. He there uttered 
 some words which Mr. Lynch declared 
 to be "the most eloquent speech that ever
 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 179 
 
 was made." Speaking of the distressing 
 oppression of Boston, he said: "I will raise 
 a thousand men, subsist them at my own 
 expense, and march them to the relief of 
 Boston." When George Washington, 
 "the silent man," had anything to say, he 
 said it so that men understood his mean- 
 ing- 
 England had so heartlessly stirred the 
 eagle's nest in America that the young 
 Colonial birds could stand it no longer, 
 but took wing and soared to independ- 
 ence. Mother England intended other re- 
 sults to come out of this treatment, but 
 Divine Providence used her folly to ac- 
 complish the very end she sought to pre- 
 vent. 
 
 A Continental Congress, made up of 
 representatives from all of the Colonies, 
 was first proposed by the Sons of Liberty 
 in New York. This proposition was ac-
 
 i8o GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 cepted by the Colonies, and on the 5th 
 day of September, 1774, the first Conti- 
 nental Congress met in Carpenters' Hall 
 in the city of Philadelphia. Washington 
 was one of the seven delegates from Vir- 
 ginia, his name standing third on the list. 
 This was the first time the representative 
 men of the Colonies had ever met face to 
 face in convention. Washington said little 
 in this Congress, but spent much time in 
 studying the men, getting at their ideas 
 and purposes through conversation and 
 friendly visits. This Congress sat for fifty- 
 one days, occupying the time in debating 
 and discussing the vital questions pertain- 
 ing to American affairs. In speaking of 
 the personnel of this body, Patrick Henry 
 said: "If you speak of solid information 
 and sound judgment, Colonel Washing- 
 ton is unquestionably the greatest man on 
 the floor."
 
 STIRRING % THE EAGLE'S NEST. 181 
 
 The second Continental Congress met 
 at Philadelphia, May 10, 1775. War- 
 clouds were now in the sky. Washington 
 came to this Congress wearing the blue- 
 and-buff uniform of a Virginia colonel. 
 What his purpose was in appearing on the 
 floor of Congress clad in military garb no 
 one knows. It has been suggested that 
 it was his way of saying the hour for fight- 
 ing had come: "Like the war-paint of an 
 Indian, his soldierly dress was a figure of 
 speech, to tell that the time for compro- 
 mise had passed by, and the question must 
 be settled, not by words, but by blows." 
 The battle of Lexington had been fought, 
 and an army of sixteen thousand patriots 
 had gathered in Cambridge for the de- 
 fense of Boston. Congress was called 
 upon to adopt this army, and select a 
 commander-in-chief for its head. The 
 choice of a commander seemed a simple
 
 1 82 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 matter to John Adams. He moved that 
 Congress adopt the army at Cambridge, 
 and said he had "but one gentleman in 
 mind, a gentleman from Virginia, who 
 was among us, and very well known to 
 all of us; a gentleman whose skill and ex- 
 perience as an officer, whose independent 
 fortune, great talents, and excellent uni- 
 versal character, would command the ap- 
 probation of all America, and unite the 
 cordial exertions of all the Colonies better 
 than any other person in the Union." 
 Washington's modesty was touched by 
 these words, and before Mr. Adams had 
 finished this tribute, he quietly arose and 
 left the room. Silence prevailed in the 
 House for a few moments, then the vote 
 was taken, and Washington was unani- 
 mously elected commander-in-chief of the 
 Continental army. 
 
 On June 19, 1775, his commission was
 
 STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST. 183 
 
 
 
 signed, and by the 2ist of the same month 
 he was on his way to Boston. He had 
 ridden but twenty miles on his way when 
 a horseman met him bearing the news of 
 Bunker Hill. "Did the militia fight?" 
 was his first question. Receiving the de- 
 cisive "Yes!" he exclaimed, "Then the 
 liberties of the country are safe," and rode 
 forward to one of the greatest tasks ever 
 imposed on mortal man. 
 
 "The day is broke, my boys, push on! 
 And follow, follow Washington. 
 'T is he that leads the way, my boys, 
 'T is he that leads the way. 
 
 When he commands, we will obey, 
 Through fain or sun, by night or day, 
 Determined to be free, my boys, 
 Determined to be free." 
 
 Revolutionary Sone.
 
 XI. 
 
 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND PRESIDENT. 
 
 WASHINGTON'S ride from Phila- 
 delphia to Boston during those 
 early summer days of 1775 created 
 a profound impression among the inhab- 
 itants of the country through which he 
 passed. Enthusiastic citizens escorted 
 him from one town to another. The 
 nearer he came to New England, the more 
 earnest he found the people in their pa- 
 triotism. This ride was a telling object- 
 lesson to the people of the Colonies, pro- 
 claiming the dignity and sterling char- 
 acter of the leaders engaged in the service 
 of liberty. No man, after seeing that 
 cavalcade, escorting the great Virginian 
 
 to his post of duty, could speak sneeringly 
 184
 
 PRESIDENT. 185 
 
 of a movement led by such men as George 
 Washington. 
 
 Washington's mind must have been 
 occupied with serious thoughts. He was 
 on his way to take charge of an insurgent 
 army. There were some terrible examples 
 of the failure of such work in the past. 
 The bloody scenes of the Jacobite rebel- 
 lion, from 1715 to 1744, were still fresh 
 in the English mind, and the memory of 
 Culloden field, where the courageous 
 Highlanders were defeated and butchered 
 by the regulars of the British army was 
 a threatening prophecy of what English 
 regulars might do in these struggling 
 Colonies, beginning -in Boston. He was 
 to draw his sword against the strongest 
 military power in the world. He was to 
 contend against a nation from which he 
 had inherited his own fighting blood. 
 There was still vitality enough in tyranny
 
 1 86 GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 to strangle the cause of liberty in the New 
 World. His foe possessed the advantage 
 of an ancestral aristocracy, guarded by a 
 titled nobility. A pompous State relig- 
 ion would throw its mighty influence 
 across his path. The throne of despotism 
 was buttressed by the wealth, the learn- 
 ing, and the art of ages. Men of genius 
 stood ready to do the bidding of royalty. 
 And, worst of all, the lacerated form of 
 Liberty, for which he was contending, had 
 been branded in high quarter with the 
 crime of regicide. Out of such a past, 
 into the untried future, Washington 
 looked on the morning of July 3, 1775, 
 when, on Cambridge Common, under the 
 "Old Elm," he placed his hand on the hilt 
 of his sword, drew it from the scabbard, 
 and raised it in the presence of the army 
 and the people. Such a venture involved 
 business risk, home risk, personal risk;
 
 PRESIDENT. 187 
 
 yea, the hazard of everything but self- 
 respect; yet the consciousness of devotion 
 to a just cause led him to count life itself 
 as nothing compared with the great boon 
 of freedom, for which he was now con- 
 tending. 
 
 " One self-approving hour whole worlds outweighs 
 Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas, 
 And more true joy Marcellus, exiled, feels 
 Thau Csesar with a Senate at his heels." 
 
 It should be noticed, in this connec- 
 tion, that the hectoring injustice on the 
 part of the British ministry, which threw 
 the American Colonies into revolt, was 
 not the work of the common people of 
 England. The unreasonable acts of Par- 
 liament were not passed without vigorous 
 opposition on the part of some of Eng- 
 land's most sagacious men. The world 
 might have been spared the American 
 Revolution had not the English Govern-
 
 1 88 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ment been practically in the hands of two 
 young and inexperienced men George 
 III and his prime minister, Lord North. 
 The king was thirty-two years of age, 
 Lord North his senior by five years. Lord 
 North was simply the henchman to his 
 sovereign, and this young representative 
 of the House of Hanover was a narrow- 
 minded ruler, who mistook obstinacy for 
 heroism, and personal whims for wise po- 
 litical policies. A little sound statesman- 
 ship on the part of these two men might 
 have prevented the appeal to arms. 
 
 The condition of the provincial troops 
 before Boston sorely tried the military 
 spirit of Washington. The lack of disci- 
 pline was demoralizing. Short enlist- 
 ments made possible the reduction of the 
 army in critical times, and the want of 
 ammunition paralyzed any forward move- 
 ment in the way of attack. He patiently
 
 PRESIDENT. 189 
 
 went to work to bring order out of this 
 confusion. He had experienced many 
 like embarrassments while commanding 
 Virginia troops in the days of the French 
 war; but he had hoped to find more public 
 spirit and better discipline among the 
 New England levies. In his confidential 
 letters he does not mince words in describ- 
 ing the state of affairs. He complains of 
 their lack of effective organization: "The 
 people of this Government have obtained 
 a character which they by no means de- 
 serve. Their officers, generally speaking, 
 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 
 there is or can be any danger till the bayo-
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 net is pushed at their breasts. Not that 
 it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, 
 but rather from the unaccountable kind 
 of stupidity in the lower class of these 
 people, which, believe me, prevails too 
 generally among the officers of the Massa- 
 chusetts part of the army, who are nearly 
 of the same kidney with the privates." 
 There may have been something of the 
 Virginia cavalier in these words; but, 
 however that may be, Washington's trials 
 at thi^critical time w'ere extremely harass- 
 ing. He was forced to stand by and wit- 
 ness the disbanding of a part of his army 
 through short enlistments. He was 
 pressed with the necessity of recruiting 
 another army in the presence of an enemy 
 liable to give battle any day. There was 
 just cause for complaint when a man of 
 Washington's courage and nerve could 
 write; "Could I have foreseen what I have
 
 PRESIDENT. 191 
 
 experienced and am likely to experience, 
 no consideration upon earth could have 
 induced me to accept this command." 
 This feeling concerning New England 
 troops soon left him, and afterwards he 
 wrote strong words of commendation on 
 the soldierly qualities of New England 
 men. 
 
 Six weeks after his arrival in Boston 
 Washington had his plan for defense com- 
 pleted. During the winter he employed 
 the time by gathering military stores, 
 arms, and ammunition for the use of his 
 troops. For six months the two camps 
 were within a mile of each other, and did 
 little but guard duty. Quiet was main- 
 tained on the part of the English by the 
 memory of Bunker Hill, and the Conti- 
 nentals rested on their arms for lack of 
 powder. 
 
 By March following Washington had
 
 192 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 succeeded in getting sufficient powder to 
 warrant an attack upon the British. Dur- 
 ing the winter he had brought cannon 
 through the forests from Ticonderoga, 
 and in one night threw up fortifications 
 and mounted his guns on Dorchester 
 Heights. The British had been caught 
 napping. The fortification of this stra- 
 tegic point completed Washington's line 
 of defense about Boston. The town and 
 its harbor were now in full range of the 
 cannon on Dorchester Heights. This 
 move filled the English officers with 
 alarm, and on the I7th of March eight 
 thousand British troops and nine hundred 
 Tory citizens of Boston found it conven- 
 ient to take a sea-voyage to Halifax, leav- 
 ing behind them all their medical sup- 
 plies and instruments, two thousand 
 cannon, and a great quantity of military 
 stores, powder, muskets, gun-carriages,
 
 PRESIDENT. 193 
 
 and small arms. To this day the citizens 
 of Boston are called from their slumbers 
 at six o'clock on the morning of the i/th 
 of March, by the belfry bells ringing out 
 in memory of "Evacuation-day." 
 
 Washington took possession of the 
 town, establishing his headquarters in 
 Mrs. Edwards's boarding-house, the place 
 formerly occupied by General Howe, the 
 British commander. There is an amusing 
 story told concerning Washington's stay 
 in this house. One .day he took the little 
 granddaughter of his hostess on his knee, 
 and asked her which she liked the better, 
 the red coats or the provincials. "The 
 red coats," was the reply. "Ah, my dear," 
 said the commander, with a twinkle in his 
 eye, "they look better, but they do n't 
 fight. The ragged fellows are the boys 
 for fighting." 
 
 Washington was not so carried away 
 * 3
 
 i$4 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 with his bloodless victory, as to neglect 
 the significance of the future. He knew 
 the English Government would send a 
 greater army against the Colonies, and he 
 surmised the scene of action would be 
 transferred from Boston to New York. 
 Leaving a sufficient number of troops in 
 Boston to garrison the town, he marched 
 with his army to New York, and on the 
 1 3th of April, 1776, he began organizing 
 the defense of that city by recruiting the 
 army and erecting fortifications. 
 
 At this time he was fully convinced 
 that there was no possibility for America 
 to obtain her freedom by remaining a sub- 
 ject of the British crown. He was ready 
 for independence. The war was now to 
 be carried on with that end in view. On 
 the 4th of July, 1776, Congress issued the 
 Declaration of Independence. Washing- 
 ton ordered this immortal document to
 
 PRESIDENT, 195 
 
 be read before the army. It was received 
 with great enthusiasm, both by the sol- 
 diers and citizens in the Colonies. 
 
 Not long after the issue of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, a large British 
 fleet dropped anchor in New York Bay. 
 This meant war on a more extensive scale 
 than had ever before been witnessed on 
 the American continent. The British 
 Lion was aroused, and determined to 
 strike a decisive blow. 
 
 Now followed a year of humiliating dis- 
 asters to the American cause. Washing- 
 ton's army was driven from Long Island; 
 Fort Washington on the Hudson was 
 forced to surrender more than three thou- 
 sand soldiers, opening the great river to 
 the navigation of English men-of-war. 
 The British forces chased Washington's 
 depleted army through the Jerseys far 
 across the Delaware River, Jn the
 
 196 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 of these defeats Washington never lost 
 heart. After crossing the Delaware, he 
 stopped for a time in his retreat, and, like 
 a wounded lion furious to deal a dying 
 blow, he recrossed the Delaware in the 
 darkness of a winter night, and won the 
 great victory of Trenton. In January, 
 1777, he went into winter quarters at 
 Morristown with an army of less than four 
 thousand men. This was the end of his 
 first campaign. 
 
 In the opening spring he regained the 
 Jerseys, coming off the victor in several 
 engagements, but was soon driven out 
 by the pressure of the British force. 
 Brandywine was a British victory, and 
 defeat was measured out to him at Ger- 
 mantown. The British army had gained 
 possession of Philadelphia, and driven the 
 Continental Congress farther South. 
 
 In the winter of 1777-78, Washington
 
 PRESIDENT. 197 
 
 went into quarters at Valley Forge. In 
 that terrible winter the sufferings of the 
 Continental army were indescribable. 
 Yet the Ideal Patriot, George Washing- 
 ton, did not yield to despair. In 1776 he 
 had an army of forty-seven thousand men; 
 in 1777 it was less than twenty thousand. 
 The division with Washington at Valley 
 Forge was shelterless and poorly clad; 
 blankets were so scarce that terrible win- 
 ter that many soldiers were forced to 
 stand all night by times around the camp- 
 fires to keep from freezing. At one time 
 more than one hundred soldiers had not 
 a shoe to their feet, and their line of march 
 could be traced by the blood-marks which 
 their naked feet left in the snow. 
 
 During that winter Washington of- 
 fered a prize for shoes made from un- 
 tanned hides. For months he had been 
 calling the attention of Congress to his
 
 198 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 needs, yet that body were indifferent to 
 his appeals. "Hogsheads of shoes, stock- 
 ings, and clothing were lying at different 
 places on the roads and in the woods per- 
 ishing for want of teams or money to pay 
 the teamsters," yet Congress failed to vote 
 measures for his relief. The only action 
 put forth by that body at this time was 
 the vote passed removing both the com- 
 missariat and quartermaster-general's de- 
 partment from his control. 
 
 In the midst of these difficulties there 
 arose an ugly plot on the part of some of 
 his trusted generals to displace Washing- 
 ton as commander-in-chief. This con- 
 spiracy was known as the "Conway Ca- 
 bal." The treason of Benedict Arnold 
 and his desertion to the enemy was the 
 bitterest part of that cup of suffering 
 from which Washington was forced to 
 drink during the dark days of the Revo-
 
 PRESIDENT. 199 
 
 lution. Arnold was a man for whom 
 Washington cherished a deep affection. 
 When he learned that his friend had 
 played the part of a traitor, great sobs 
 broke from his distressed heart, and all 
 night long he paced his room in company 
 with his bitter thoughts. 
 
 The only ray of bright light which 
 shone through these dark days upon the 
 American cause was the good news that 
 the British General Burgoyne had been 
 trapped at Saratoga by General Gates, 
 surrendering over five thousand regulars. 
 But even this victory brought with it 
 something more than joy to the heart of 
 Washington, for it carried with it a certain 
 feeling of distrust on the part of the coun- 
 try as to the efficiency of Washington's 
 leadership. Even New England became 
 suspicious of him, and Samuel Adams, 
 noble patriot that he was, wanted demo-
 
 200 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 cratic rotation in the office of commander- 
 in-chief, suggesting the hiring a general 
 by the year. 
 
 Yet hope deferred and threatening dis- 
 aster did not make Washington heart- 
 sick. Through all these trials he quietly 
 kept steadfastly to his purpose. He had 
 faith in his cause, anchoring his hopes to 
 his favorite quotation, " 'T is not in mor- 
 tals to command success." 
 
 Cheerful news soon came from over the 
 sea. The big brain of dear old Benjamin 
 Franklin was planning for the American 
 cause at the French court, and after the 
 surrender of Burgoyne, France acknowl- 
 edged the independence of the United 
 States of America, promising help to the 
 cause of American freedom in money, 
 men, and munitions of war. The period 
 of the American Revolution has a litera- 
 ture of its own. There is not space
 
 PRESIDENT. 201 
 
 enough in this volume to tell fully the 
 story of the war, and, if there were, it 
 would be presumption on the part of the 
 writer to attempt it. For a full and fasci- 
 nating account of those heroic days the 
 reader is referred to the charming pages 
 of Mr. John Fiske's "American Revolu- 
 tion." It is no disparagement to Ameri- 
 can leaders and soldiers to say that, with- 
 out French intervention, the cause of 
 America could not have been carried to 
 victory. American gratitude associates 
 very tenderly the name of the dashing 
 young French nobleman, Lafayette, with 
 that of her great patriot, Washington. 
 
 At last the end came. At Yorktown 
 the blow was struck which closed the war. 
 On the i Qth of October, 1782, the formal 
 surrender of the British forces under Lord 
 Cornwallis took place, and on the iQth 
 day of April, 1783, just eight years to a
 
 202 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 day after the battle of Lexington, peace 
 was proclaimed between the two nations 
 in the contest. The terms of the surren- 
 der of Lord Cornwallis specified that the 
 British flag was not to fly, and American 
 music must not be played. The band 
 selected an old English air, called "The 
 World Turned Upside Down." The title 
 of the piece of music must have been de- 
 scriptive of the feelings of the English 
 prime minister, Lord North, for, upon 
 hearing of the surrender of Cornwallis, he 
 exclaimed, "O God, it is all over!" 
 
 Washington's first order after the sur- 
 render was a call for a day of public 
 thanksgiving and praise to God. "Divine 
 service is to be performed to-morrow in 
 the several brigades and divisions. The 
 commander-in-chief earnestly recom- 
 mends that the troops not on duty should 
 universally attend with the seriousness of
 
 PRESIDENT. 203 
 
 deportment and gratitude of heart which 
 the recognition of such reiterated and 
 astonishing interpositions of Providence 
 demand of us." 
 
 In the interim between the surrender 
 at Yorktown and the final disbanding of 
 the army there were many serious diffi- 
 culties besetting the young Nation. 
 Washington still kept his hand on the 
 helm, and guided the contending factions 
 into peaceful waters. Congress had made 
 no satisfactory provision for the back pay 
 of the soldiers. The men who had stood 
 with Washington through those trying 
 years of war were angered at this show 
 of ingratitude. An anonymous letter had 
 been sent through the army threatening 
 serious action if their wages were not pro- 
 vided for. Washington saw the danger 
 to the success of the Nation in this threat, 
 and immediately called the officers and
 
 204 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 men before him, reading to them a long, 
 pleading, and telling speech full of the 
 noblest patriotism. He had proceeded 
 but a little way in his reading, when he 
 paused for several moments, slowly took 
 his spectacles from his pocket, and, in the 
 process of adjusting them, feelingly said: 
 "Gentlemen, you will pardon me for put- 
 ting on my glasses. I have grown gray 
 in your service, and I now find myself 
 growing blind." It was a magnetic touch 
 of sentiment, and deeply affected his audi- 
 ence, causing them to listen with fixed 
 attention to his words and to heed his 
 appeal. 
 
 When the time came for disbanding 
 the army, Washington, with his officers 
 and a few of the troops, were in New 
 York. He was about to return to private 
 life at Mount Vernon. Gathering his
 
 PRESIDENT. 205 
 
 officers about him in the old Fraunce 
 Tavern in Broad Street, he said, with deep 
 emotion in his voice: "I can not come 
 to each of you to take my leave, but shall 
 be obliged if each of you will come and 
 take me by the hand." General Knox, 
 who stood nearest, was the first to extend 
 his hand to his great chief. With tears in 
 his eyes, Washington took the hand of his 
 much-loved comrade in arms, drew him 
 towards him, and kissed him. All the 
 others were greeted with the same affec- 
 tionate parting. He was then escorted to 
 the North River, where he crossed by 
 ferry and proceeded to Philadelphia. 
 After such a scene, let the American peo- 
 ple hear no more of the statement that the 
 Father of his Country was not an affec- 
 tionate man. On the 23d of December, 
 1783, Washington presented his resigna-
 
 206 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 tion as commander-in-chief, and again be- 
 came a private citizen. The next day he 
 returned to his home at Mount Vernon. 
 American political affairs were in a de- 
 plorable condition at the close of the Rev- 
 olution. The Colonies were free from the 
 English yoke, but there was a sad lack 
 of union between them. War had for a 
 time bound them together in a common 
 interest, but upon the establishment of 
 peace their old sectional jealousies were 
 tearing them asunder. "Thirteen staves, 
 and ne'er a hoop do not make a barrel," 
 was the quaint way in which one of their 
 statesmen described their condition. Men 
 called "Virginia or Carolina my country." 
 They had not yet come under the spell 
 of that patriotism represented by the word 
 America. The Nation had as yet no ex- 
 istence. Our studious historian, Mr. 
 Fiske, says: "It is not too much to say
 
 PRESIDENT. 207 
 
 that the period of five years following the 
 peace of 1783 was the most critical mo- 
 ment in all the history of the American 
 people." In this serious time Washington 
 was again called from his loved home, and 
 placed at the head of the Nation. 
 
 In 1787 the great Constitutional Con- 
 vention was called. Virginia sent George 
 Washington at the head of her delegation. 
 When the Convention assembled in Phila- 
 clephia, Washington was chosen as its pre- 
 siding officer. This august body of Na- 
 tion-makers was composed of fifty-five 
 members. They assembled day after day 
 for a period of four months, discussing and 
 formulating the great principles of the 
 Constitution of the United States of 
 America. Mr. Bancroft calls them "the 
 goodliest fellowship of lawgivers whereof 
 this world holds record." And of their 
 work the Constitution of the United
 
 208 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 States of America Mr. Gladstone de- 
 clares that it is "the most wonderful work 
 ever struck off at a given time by the 
 brain and purpose of man." This Con- 
 vention adjourned on the I7th of Septem- 
 ber, and on the igth the great document 
 was published throughout the country, 
 and finally accepted by the States. 
 
 The question of selecting a President 
 for the new Government was the first 
 claiming the attention of the people. The 
 Constitution provided for the election of 
 an Executive who should be called "the 
 President of the United States." When 
 the time came for the election of such 
 an officer to direct the course of the Na- 
 tion, all minds turned to Washington, and 
 he was chosen President without a dis- 
 senting vote. He held this high office for 
 two terms, extending over a period of 
 eight years. Through all these years he
 
 PRESIDENT. 209 
 
 guided the Ship of State with that per- 
 .sistent wisdom and justice which had 
 characterized his administration of all 
 matters connected with his fellow-men, 
 drawing the lightning from the clouds of 
 faction, and conducting it harmlessly to 
 the ground. The renowned hero of the 
 battle-field became the successful and wise 
 administrator in the times of peace. 
 
 On the 3d of March, 1797, Washing- 
 ton's term of office as President expired, 
 and again he congratulated himself that 
 he was permitted to put great duties aside, 
 and resume the quiet life of a husbandman 
 at Mount Vernon. It was not a quiet life, 
 however, for he was a man with a world- 
 wide fame, and was forced to pay the in- 
 cident penalty. Visitors beset him from 
 all quarters; artists from over the sea came 
 to paint his portrait; curiosity-seekers 
 
 thronged Mount Vernon until even Vir- 
 14
 
 2io GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ginia hospitality was taxed to its utmost 
 endurance. 
 
 This did not last long, for the Ideal 
 Patriot was near his end. On December 
 12, 1799, this man, who was proof against 
 the deadly arrows of savage Indians and 
 the whizzing bullets of the battle-field, was 
 stricken at last by the unerring aim of the 
 archer Death. He had spent the day rid- 
 ing over his farms, while "rain, hail, and 
 snow" were "falling alternately, with a 
 cold wind." When he returned home he 
 was chilled through. The next day he 
 kept in-doors most of the time, "and com- 
 plained of having a sore throat." "He 
 had a hoarseness, which increased in the 
 evening; but he made light of it, as he 
 would never take anything to carry off a 
 cold, always observing, "Let it go as it 
 me/ " 
 
 The following day the doctor was
 
 PRESIDENT. 2 1 1 
 
 called, and found his patient in much dis- 
 tress. He could "swallow nothing," "ap- 
 peared to be distressed, convulsed, and 
 almost suffocated." Later in the day he 
 gave directions concerning his will, and 
 then said, "I find I am going," and, "smil- 
 ing," remarked, "that, as it was the debt 
 which we must all pay, he looked to the 
 event with perfect resignation." To Dr. 
 Craik he said: "I die hard, but I am not 
 afraid to go. I believed from my first 
 attack that I should not survive it; my 
 breath can not last long." Thanking his 
 attendants for their tender care, he re- 
 quested them to trouble themselves no 
 more; "but let me go off quietly." His 
 last words were, " 'T is well." 
 
 "About ten minutes before he expired, 
 his breathing became much easier; he lay 
 quiet, . . . and felt his own pulse. . . . 
 The general's hand fell from his wrist,"
 
 212 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Between the hours of ten and eleven 
 o'clock that night his noble spirit passed 
 beyond the scenes of earth's turmoils and 
 cares into the rest and peace of the Better 
 Land. 
 
 "There's a star in the West that shall never go 
 
 down, 
 
 Till the records of valor decay ; 
 We must worship its light, though 't is not our 
 
 own, 
 
 For liberty bursts in its ray. 
 Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard 
 
 By a freeman, and thrill not his breast? 
 Is there one out of bondage that hails not the 
 
 word 
 As the Bethlehem-star of the west?"
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 WASHINGTON'S VISION OF THE WEST. 
 
 AT daybreak on the morning of the 
 1 3th of September, 1759, General 
 Wolfe and his gallant English sol- 
 diers found themselves in possession of 
 the fateful Plains of Abraham. Mont- 
 calm, the French general who held Que- 
 bec, the citadel of Canada, was thunder- 
 struck when informed that the English 
 were on the heights; but the contest was 
 on, and there was fought the memorable 
 battle that decided whether Englishmen 
 or Frenchmen were to take the leadership 
 of American affairs. 
 
 "With the triumphs of Wolfe on the 
 Heights of Abraham began the history of 
 
 the United States," is the estimate Mr. 
 
 213
 
 214 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Green, the historian, places upon this 
 event. Our own charming historic 
 writer, Mr. John Fiske, says: 'The tri- 
 umph of Wolfe marks the greatest turn- 
 ing-point as yet discoverable in modern 
 history." Another writer, describing how 
 the English cause that day was the cause 
 of America, and especially of the great 
 West, eloquently says: "Montcalm stood 
 for the old regime, Wolfe for the House 
 of Commons; Montcalm for the alliance 
 of king and priest, Wolfe for habeas corpus 
 and free inquiry; Montcalm for the past, 
 Wolfe for the future; Montcalm for Louis 
 XV and Madame de Pompadour, Wolfe 
 for George Washington and Abraham 
 Lincoln." 
 
 Prior to the battle of Quebec the en- 
 tire Mississippi Valley, from Canada to 
 the Gulf of Mexico, was under the do- 
 minion of France, the English possessions
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 215 
 
 comprising only a skeleton of Colonies 
 lying along the Atlantic Coast. When, 
 amid the crash of Wolfe's musketry that 
 day on the Plains of Abraham, victory 
 perched upon the English banner, a 
 changed destiny awaited the American 
 people. There it was settled forever that 
 the resources and possibilities of America 
 were to be developed by New England, 
 and not by New France. "Wolfe's vic- 
 tory," says Bancroft, "one of the most 
 momentous in the annals of mankind, 
 gave to the English tongue and the insti- 
 tutions of the Germanic race the unex- 
 plored and seemingly infinite West and 
 North." 
 
 The possession of the great West was 
 the principal stake for which France and 
 England had contended here in America 
 during more than half a century. In 
 1753, six years previous to the fall of
 
 216 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Quebec, George Washington, then 
 twenty-one years of age, comes before us 
 for the first time in this struggle between 
 France and England for the dominion of 
 the great West. About this time a num- 
 ber of Maryland and Virginia Colonists 
 formed an association known as the Ohio 
 Company, organized for the purpose of 
 colonizing the Ohio Valley. Lawrence 
 Washington, George Washington's old- 
 est brother, was the manager, and Au- 
 gustine, another brother, was one of the 
 charter members/ This scheme of plant- 
 ing English Colonists in the Ohio Valley 
 was a subject of frequent conversation at 
 Mount Vernon; for we must remember 
 that both the Massachusetts and Virginia 
 charters, given by James I, included the 
 whole country from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific. One can easily imagine how this 
 project took possession of the mind of
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 217 
 
 young Washington. He seems to have 
 had a vision, which revealed to him the 
 importance of the West to the future of 
 America, and to it he ever afterwards 
 yielded unhesitating obedience. 
 
 During the period when the Ohio 
 Company was receiving such attention 
 from the intelligent and enterprising men 
 of Virginia, through the influence of Lord 
 Fairfax, an intimate friend of the family, 
 George Washington received his commis- 
 sion as public surveyor. In this capacity 
 he made many journeys into the wilder- 
 ness beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, 
 receiving his first experience in wood- 
 craft and the exposure of camp-life, be- 
 coming acquainted with Indian tribes and 
 studying their methods of guerrilla war- 
 fare. In reading the diary kept by him 
 during these expeditions to the West, it 
 is manifest that the magnitude and im-
 
 2i8 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 portance of that vast domain made a pro- 
 found impression upon him, and one in- 
 stinctively feels that he believed himself 
 called to take an active part in the work 
 of developing this great frontier. 
 
 The French in Canada kept a keen eye 
 on this colonizing scheme of the Ohio 
 Company, and determined to enter their 
 protest against the westward march of the 
 English Colonists from Virginia. They 
 gathered stores and munitions of war 
 upon Lake Erie, and in 1753 began the 
 erection of a line of forts from Lake Erie 
 to the Ohio River. 
 
 This advance of the French on the ter- 
 ritory claimed by the English created 
 alarm among the Virginia Colonists. 
 Governor Dinwiddie resolved to chal- 
 lenge the right of the invaders, and re- 
 quest them to withdraw. He selected as 
 his envoy for this important commission
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 219 
 
 Major George Washington, who by this 
 time had received the appointment of 
 adjutant-general of the Virginia militia. 
 The order was received by Washington 
 1 on the last day of October, 1753. A close 
 student of those heroic days declares that 
 "Nothing in all Washington's career is 
 more remarkable" than the fact that, 
 while a mere boy of twenty-one, he was 
 "chosen for such a difficult and dangerous 
 enterprise." It was this rough Scotch 
 Colonial governor, Mr. Parkmah sug- 
 gests, "who launched Washington on his 
 illustrious career." 
 
 On the 1 6th of January, Washington 
 returned to Williamsburg, and waited o 
 the governor with the letter from Saint 
 Pierre, the French commandant. His 
 journal, carefully kept on this trip, was 
 considered of such importance at the time, 
 that the governor ordered it to be printed
 
 220 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and circulated in England and America. 
 This was George Washington's first ap- 
 pearance in print, and it is interesting to 
 note that it was in connection with his ear- 
 liest services in the struggle for the great 
 West on the part of the French and Eng- 
 lish Colonists. 
 
 The French gave little heed to the 
 warning of the Virginia governor, Saint 
 Pierre sending word to him by Washing- 
 ton that he was there by the orders of 
 General Duquesne, the governor of Can- 
 ada, which orders he should obey with 
 "exactness and resolution." In defiance 
 of Dinwiddie's challenge, a force of one 
 thousand soldiers was pushed still further 
 down the river from Venango to the 
 point where the Alleghany and Monon- 
 gahela unite to form the Ohio; the sixty 
 men sent there by the Ohio Company to
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 221 
 
 build a fort were driven out, and the 
 French army took possession of the post, 
 and built a strong fort themselves, nam- 
 ing it Fort Duquesne, after their gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 This position the site of the present 
 city of Pittsburg had been selected by 
 Washington himself, who regarded it as 
 the key to the whole territory in dispute. 
 Such an aggressive move on the part of 
 the French was interpreted as a declara- 
 tion of war by the Colonists in Virginia, 
 and Washington, now lieutenant-colonel, 
 in command of Virginia troops was sent 
 to the scene of action to carry on the war. 
 The battles of Great Meadows, Fort Ne- 
 cesity, and Braddock's Field have already 
 been described in this volume; they are 
 here mentioned to show that in the mili- 
 tary career of George Washington his
 
 222 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 first service was rendered to save the 
 Western territory for the future develop- 
 ment of the United States of America. 
 
 When peace spread her wings oirer the 
 land after the fall of Quebec, Washington 
 was just settling down at Mount Vernon 
 as a married man. In the midst of the 
 duties pertaining to the life of a husband- 
 man, he was still earnestly engaged in 
 maturing plans for the colonization of the 
 Western border. Through his influence 
 large tracts of land were awarded the offi- 
 cers of the army in consideration for their 
 services in the French war. He projected 
 schemes looking toward the importation 
 of Germans for the settlement of the lands 
 lying in the great western woods. He was 
 personally interested in an extensive 
 "land boom" for the West. And this not 
 simply for money-making purposes. 
 There was nothing discreditable to Wash-
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 223 
 
 ington in his land speculations. "He con- 
 templated an extensive public benefit, as 
 well as private advantage." In this re- 
 spect he was the forerunner of that Ameri- 
 can public spirit which has united private 
 enterprise and public good in the develop- 
 ment of the continent. Washington was 
 convinced, by a practical sagacity which 
 seldom failed him, that the course of em- 
 pire in America was westward. In this 
 the Virginia statesman and soldier antici- 
 pated, by some hundred years, the famous 
 dictum of Horace Greeley "Go west, 
 young man." 
 
 During the stormy days of the Revo- 
 lution, Washington's mind was con- 
 fronted by other problems, and his active 
 interest in Western matters subsided 
 somewhat; yet even during the trying- ex- 
 periences of that conflict we catch 
 glimpses which show that the West still
 
 224 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 held a place in his thought. In case the 
 cause of the patriots was lost on the East- 
 ern battle-fields, he had determined to 
 withdraw his army into the virgin forests 
 of the Alleghany Mountains, and there 
 defy and hector King George by main- 
 taining a guerrilla warfare. When it was 
 intimated during the darkest days of the 
 Revolution that the emperor of Russia 
 had joined hands with the British to crush 
 the cause of liberty, Washington was 
 asked one day by a serious patriot, "If this 
 be true, and we are driven from the Atlan- 
 tic border, what is to be done?" "We will 
 retire to the Valley of the Ohio, and there 
 be free," was the prompt answer. 
 
 When the war was over, and peace 
 with England was established, Washing- 
 ton turned again to his vision of the west- 
 ward march of the United States of Amer- 
 ica; for it must be remembered that be-
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 225 
 
 fore the close of the war he repeatedly re- 
 ferred to the "United States" as an em- 
 pire in process of development; he saw it 
 by faith until he felt it as fact. It has been 
 truly said that, with the exception of 
 Hamilton, no man of his time grasped 
 the magnificent future opening before the 
 nation as did Washington. 
 
 In 1784, Washington, in a letter to 
 Benjamin Harrison, governor of Virginia, 
 outlines and urges the plan for making 
 easy the trade relations between the East 
 and the West. This plan was to open up 
 a route westward by the Potomac Riven. 
 He calls Harrison's attention to the fact 
 that the Potomac connection is nearer to 
 tidewater than the St. Lawrence by one 
 hundred and sixty-eight miles; nearer 
 than the Hudson River by one hundred 
 and seventy-six miles. "The Western 
 
 States," he argued, "stand as it were on a 
 15
 
 226 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 pivot; the touch of a feather would turn 
 them" either towards the Mississippi or 
 the Atlantic Coast in the outlet for their 
 trade. 
 
 Sectional and State jealousies were the 
 bctc noire of Washington's public life, and 
 he strenuously urged the sinking of all 
 such differences in the broad scheme of 
 National federation. In private letter and 
 public proclamation he sought to indoc- 
 trinate the people with the importance of 
 National union. In reading his able Fare- 
 well Address, one is impressed with the 
 truth that his deepest solicitation was not 
 a question of the peaceful relations be- 
 tween the North and the South al- 
 though even then slavery was a threaten- 
 ing cloud on the horizon of the future. 
 The storm-center, as Washington saw it, 
 hovered over the line dividing the East 
 from the West. To obviate any such con-
 
 VISION OF THE WEST. 227 
 
 flict, he set himself to develop the policy 
 of easy and free communication between 
 the two sections of the country, binding 
 them together by river courses, public 
 canals, and national roads. The Potomac 
 Canal Company, pushing its waterway 
 through the Alleghanies, uniting the 
 Western Reserve with the Eastern Sea- 
 board States, was the foreshadowing of 
 our present great trunk-lines of railroads, 
 speeding over Western prairies, climbing 
 with their white plumes the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, uniting the East and the West 
 under one standard of national, commer- 
 cial, and social life. 
 
 Washington's policy in relation to sec- 
 tional America is worthy of the profound- 
 est attention by the political students of 
 the present hour. In our political and 
 commercial life to-day the line of cleav- 
 age runs in the same direction; splitting'
 
 228 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 sounds are heard in our national elec- 
 tions; and sectional prejudices, aired by 
 political demagogues, create dangerous 
 combinations in our body politic. Wash- 
 ington was the first statesman of his time 
 to grasp the Continental idea of the Amer- 
 ican Commonwealth. His words to La- 
 fayette tersely express his thought on the 
 subject: "The honor, power, and true in- 
 terest of this country must be measured 
 on a continental scale." The first definite 
 plan for the formation of Western States 
 is found in a letter written by Washington 
 to James Duane, member of Congress 
 from New York. This letter bears the 
 date of September 7, 1783, and suggests 
 the laying out of two new States beyond 
 the Ohio River. The State lines sug- 
 gested by Washington bear a striking re- 
 semblance to the present shape of the 
 great States of Ohio and Michigan. It is
 
 VISION OF THE WEST, 22$ 
 
 not improbable that in looking at the lines 
 of conformation in these States, we have 
 before us Washington's first plan for the 
 division of the western territory into rep- 
 resentative Commonwealths. 
 
 When we take into account the petty 
 jealousies and sectional bitterness existing 
 between the thirteen Colonies, the hesi- 
 tancy and obstinacy on the part of some 
 in coming into the Union under the Con- 
 stitution, and then compare this prag- 
 matic provincialism with Washington's 
 noble vision of America's future, we heart- 
 ily indorse the sentiment of Edwin D. 
 Mead: "Never does Washington seem 
 more truly the Father of his Country, 
 never does the Great First in War stand 
 so close to the Great First in Peace."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 IN presenting these sayings of Washing- 
 ton, the writer humbly claims the privi- 
 lege of calling attention to the marvel- 
 ous insight of the man, concerning the 
 principles which were to be worked into 
 the political and social life of the nation. 
 In Washington's day the history of re- 
 publics presented a gloomy picture; 
 among the great nations of the world 
 Liberty meant little more than a word 
 derived from the dead language of the 'Ro- 
 mans. It was a sorry past from which to 
 draw inspirations for future democracy. 
 Yet in this hour Washington was the 
 
 nation's prophet. Like Moses, he enun- 
 230
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 231 
 
 ciated the principles and designated the 
 materials out of which the American 
 Commonwealth was to rise, "according 
 to the pattern shown him in the mount." 
 His thought is clothed in the stately Eng- 
 lish common to his time, a period when 
 love-letters were written after the manner 
 of State documents. In his letters to his 
 mother he invariably addressed her as 
 "Honored Madam." Nevertheless, his 
 sentences clearly express his thought; 
 they are not garnets and rubies gathered 
 from the sands of sparkling streams, but 
 solid cubes of granite quarried for the 
 foundations of empire. Even to-day a 
 policy is relieved of much debate if it can 
 be shown that it had the approval of 
 Washington. 
 
 Washington's favorite quotation was 
 the line from Addison: 
 
 "'Tis not in mortals to command success."
 
 232 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 THE END OF GOVERNMENT. J 
 
 The aggregate happiness of society, 
 which is best promoted by the practice of 
 a virtuous policy, is, or ought to be, the 
 end of government. 
 
 DEMOCRACY. 
 
 It is among the evils, and perhaps not 
 the smallest, of democratic governments, 
 that the people must feel before they will 
 see. When this happens, they are roused 
 to action. Hence it is that those kinds of 
 government are so slow. 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 Great Britain thought she was only to 
 hold up the rod, and all would be hushed. 
 
 PEACE POLICY. 
 
 My policy, in our foreign transactions, 
 has been to cultivate peace with all the 
 world; to observe the treaties with pure
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 233 
 
 and absolute faith; to check every devi- 
 ation from the line of impartiality; to ex- 
 plain what may have been misappre- 
 hended, and correct what may have been 
 injurious to any nation; and having thus 
 acquired the right, to lose no time in ac- 
 quiring the ability, to insist upon justice 
 being done to ourselves. 
 
 Would to God the harmony of nations 
 were an object that lay nearest to the 
 hearts of sovereigns, and that the incen- 
 tives to peace, of which commerce and 
 facility of understanding each other are 
 not the most inconsiderable, might be 
 daily increased! 
 
 Washington's words of advice to a 
 nephew, who was about to take his seat in 
 the House of Burgesses: 
 
 "The only advice I will offer," said he, 
 "if you have a mind to command the at-
 
 234 GEORGE WASHI.\<.;TO\. 
 
 tention of the House, is to speak seldom 
 but on important subjects, except such as 
 particularly relate to your constituents, 
 and, in the former case, make yourself 
 perfect master of the subject. Never ex- 
 ceed a decent warmth, and submit your 
 sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial 
 style, though it may carry conviction, is 
 always accompanied with disgust." 
 
 "Honesty in States, as well as in indi- 
 viduals, will ever be found the soundest 
 policy." 
 
 "Discourage vice in every shape." 
 The prevalent belief that Washington 
 was cold in the realm of friendly affections 
 shows how his private life has been neg- 
 lected and misunderstood. Strip his let- 
 ters of the pompous literary style of his 
 day, and some of them are very tender. 
 Here is one to Lafayette, after parting 
 from the French Patriot, containing; the
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 235 
 
 tender pathos of real life: "In the moment 
 of our separation upon the road as we 
 traveled, and every hour since, I have felt 
 all that love, respect, and attachment for 
 you with which length of years, close con- 
 nection, and your merits have inspired me. 
 I often asked myself, as our carriages sep- 
 arated, whether that was the last sight 
 I should ever have of you. My fears an- 
 swered, yes. I called to mind the days of 
 my youth, that they had long fled to re- 
 turn no more; that I was now descending 
 the hill I had been fifty-two years in climb- 
 ing; and that, though I was blessed with a 
 good constitution, I was of a short-lived 
 family, and might soon expect to be en- 
 tombed in the mansion of my fathers. 
 These thoughts darkened the shades, and 
 gave a gloom to the picture, and con- 
 sequently to my prospects of ever seeing 
 you again."
 
 236 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 I am well aware that appearances 
 ought to be upheld, and that we should 
 avoid as much as possible recognizing, 
 by any public act, the depreciation of our 
 currency. ... It is our interest and truest 
 policy, as far as it may be practicable, on 
 all occasions, to give a currency and value 
 to that which is to be the medium of our 
 internal commerce. 
 
 SPECULATORS IN THE CURRENCY. 
 This tribe of black gentry work more 
 effectually against us, than the enemy's 
 arms. ... It is much to be lamented, that 
 each State, long ere this, has not hunted 
 them down, as pests to society and the 
 greatest enemies we have to the happiness 
 of America. I would to God that some 
 one of the most atrocious in each State 
 was hung upon a gallows, five times as
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 237 
 
 high as the one prepared by Haman. No 
 punishment, in my opinion, is too great 
 for the man who can build his greatness 
 upon his country's ruin. 
 
 Commerce and industry are the best 
 mines of a nation. 
 
 I have been writing to General Knox 
 to procure me homespun broadcloth of 
 the Hartford fabric, to make a suit of 
 clothes for myself. I hope it will not be a 
 great while before it will be unfashion- 
 able for a gentleman to appear in any 
 other dress. Indeed, we have already 
 been too long subject to British preju- 
 dices. 
 
 WAR AN EVIL. 
 
 My first wish is to see this plague of 
 mankind banished from the earth, and the 
 sons and daughters of this world em- 
 ployed "in more pleasing and innocent 
 amusements than in preparing imple-
 
 238 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ments, and exercising them for the de- 
 struction of mankind. 
 
 MOTTO. 
 
 Perseverance and spirit have done 
 wonders in all ages. 
 
 \Vhen we assumed the soldier, we did 
 not lay aside the citizen. 
 
 FOREIGNERS. 
 
 It does not accord with the policy of 
 this Government to bestow offices, civil 
 or military, upon foreigners, to the exclu- 
 sion of our oii'ii citizens. 
 
 PRISONERS OF WAR. 
 I am informed that General Putnam 
 sent to Philadelphia, in irons, Major 
 Stockton, taken upon the Raritan, and 
 that he continues in strict confinement. 
 I desire that if there is a necessity for con- 
 finement, it may be made as easy and com- 
 fortable as possible to Major Stockton
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 239 
 
 and his officers. This man, I believe, has 
 been very active and mischievous-; but 
 we took him in arms, as an officer of the 
 enemy, and by the rules of war we are 
 obliged to treat him as such, and not as 
 a felon. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Do not forget that there ought to be a 
 time appropriated to attain knowledge, as 
 well as to indulge in pleasure. 
 
 FOREIGN EDUCATION. 
 It has always been a source of serious 
 regret with me to see the youth of these 
 United States sent to foreign countries 
 for the purposes of education, often before 
 their minds were formed, or they had im- 
 bibed any adequate ideas of the happiness 
 of their own ! contracting too frequently 
 not only habits of dissipation and extrava- 
 gance, but principles unfriendly to repitb-
 
 240 GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 Heart government and the true and genuine 
 liberties of mankind, which thereafter are 
 rarely overcome. 
 
 NATIONAL UNIVERSITY. 
 That a National University in this 
 country is a thing to be desired, has al- 
 ways been my decided opinion; and the 
 appropriation of grounds and funds for it 
 in the Federal City has long been con- 
 templated. 
 
 FRIENDLY ADVICE. 
 
 The opinion and advice of friends I re- 
 ceive, at all times, as a proof of their 
 friendship, and am thankful when they 
 are offered. 
 
 To correspond with those I love is 
 among my highest gratifications. 
 
 The company in which you improve 
 most will be least expensive to you. 
 
 Men's minds are as variant as their
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 241 
 
 faces. Let your heart feel the afflictions 
 and distresses of every one. Let your 
 hand give in proportion to your purse, 
 remembering always the estimation of the 
 widow's mites. 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 There is not a man living who wishes 
 more sincerely than I do to see a plan 
 adopted for the abolition of it; but there 
 is only one proper and effectual mode by 
 which it can be accomplished, and that 
 is by legislative authority. This, as far as 
 my suffrage will go, shall never be want- 
 ing. 
 
 I never mean, unless some particular 
 circumstance should compel me to it, to 
 possess another slave by purchase, it being 
 among my first wishes to see some plan 
 adopted by which slavery in this country 
 may be abolished by law. 
 
 Upon the decease of my wife, it is my 
 
 16
 
 242 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 will and desire that all the slaves whom I 
 hold in my own right shall receive their 
 freedom. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 I was summoned by my country, whose 
 voice I can never hear but with vener- 
 ation and love. 
 
 When my country demands the sacri- 
 fice, personal ease must always be a sec- 
 ondary consideration. 
 
 The love of my country will be the rul- 
 ing influence of my conduct. 
 
 I require no guard but the affections 
 of the people. 
 
 TRUST IN GOD. 
 
 I shall rely, confidently, on that Provi- 
 dence which has hitherto preserved and 
 been bountiful to me. 
 
 I believe that man was not designed 
 bv the All-wise Creator to live for himself 
 alone.
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 243 
 
 REFUSAL OF PECUNIARY COMPEN- 
 SATION. 
 
 When I was first honored with a call 
 into the service of my country, then on 
 the eve of an arduous struggle for its 
 liberties, the light in which I contem- 
 plated my duty required that I should re- 
 nounce every pecuniary compensation. 
 From this resolution I have in no instance 
 departed; and being still under the im- 
 pression which produced it, I must de- 
 cline, as inapplicable to myself, any share 
 in the personal emoluments which may 
 be indispensably included in the perma- 
 nent provision for the Executive depart- 
 ment; and must accordingly pray that the 
 pecuniary estimates for the station in 
 which I am placed may, during my con- 
 tinuance in it, be limited to such actual 
 expenditures as the publie good may be 
 thought to require,
 
 244 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 DOMESTIC LIFE. 
 
 You may believe me, my dear Patsy, 
 when I assure you, in the most solemn 
 manner, that, so far from seeking this ap- 
 pointment,* I 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; 
 and that I should enjoy more real happi- 
 ness in one month with you at home, than 
 I have the most distant prospect of finding 
 abroad, if my stay were to be seven times 
 seven years. 
 
 I can truly say, I had rather be at 
 Mount Vernon with a friend or two about 
 me, than to be attended, at the seat of 
 Government, by the officers of state and 
 the representatives of every power in Eu- 
 
 * Commander-in-chief.
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 245 
 
 rope. I shall hope that my friends will 
 visit and endeavor to keep up the spirits 
 of my wife as much as they can; for my 
 departure will, I know, be a cutting stroke 
 to her. 
 
 ADVICE ON MATRIMONY. 
 
 A woman very rarely asks an opinion, 
 or requires advice, on such an occasion 
 till her resolution is formed; and then it 
 is with the hope and expectation of ob- 
 taining a sanction not that she means 
 to be governed by your disapprobation; 
 that she applies. In a word, the plain 
 English of the application may be 
 summed up in these words: "I wish you 
 to think as I do; but, if unhappily you 
 differ from me in opinion, my heart, I 
 must confess, is fixed, and I have gone 
 too far now to retract." 
 
 "Went a fox-hunting with a gentle- 
 man who came here yesterday. . . . After
 
 246 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 a very early breakfast found a fox just 
 back of Muddy Hole Plantation, and after 
 a chase of an hour and a quarter with my 
 dogs and eight couple of Doctor Smith's 
 (brought by Mr. Phil. Alexander) we put 
 him into a hollow tree, in which we fast- 
 ened him, and in the Pincushion put up 
 another fox, which in an hour and thir- 
 teen minutes was killed. We then, after 
 allowing the fox in the hole half an hour, 
 put the dogs upon his trail, and in half 
 a mile he took to another hollow tree, and 
 was again put out of it ; but he did not go 
 six hundred yards before he had recourse 
 to the same shift. Finding therefore that 
 he was a conquered fox, we took the dogs 
 off, and came home to dinner." Excerpt 
 from Diary. 
 
 In a letter to Lafayette, written from 
 Mount Vernon, he says: "Free from the 
 bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 247 
 
 public life, I am solacing myself with those 
 tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier, 
 who is ever in pursuit of fame; the states- 
 man, 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 always watching the 
 countenance of his prince in hopes of 
 catching a gracious smile, can have very 
 little conception. I have not only retired 
 from public employments, but I am retir- 
 ing within myself, and shall be abj^e to 
 view the solitary walk, and tread the paths 
 of private life with heartfelt satisfaction. 
 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 life until I sleep 
 with my fathers."
 
 248 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 RURAL EMPLOYMENTS. 
 
 My time is now occupied in rural 
 amusements, in which I have great satis- 
 faction, and my first wish is (although it 
 is against the profession of arms, and 
 would clip the wings of some of our young 
 soldiers, who are soaring after glory) to 
 see the WHOLE WORLD IN PEACE, and the 
 inhabitants of it AS ONE BAND OF BROTH- 
 ERS, striving who should contribute most 
 to the happiness of mankind. 
 
 Nothing is more a stranger to my 
 breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, 
 than^hat black and detestable one, of in- 
 gratitude. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 My chief reason for supposing the 
 West India trade detrimental to us was, 
 that rum, the principal article received 
 from thence, is the bane of morals and 
 the parent of idleness.
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 249 
 
 This I am certain of, and can call my 
 conscience, and what I suppose will be a 
 still more demonstrative proof in the eyes 
 of the worl^l, my Orders, to witness, how 
 much I have, both by threats and per- 
 suasive means endeavored to discounte- 
 nance gaming, drinking, swearing, and 
 irregularities of every other kind. 
 
 GIN-MILLS. 
 
 I apprehend it will be thought advis- 
 able to keep a garrison always at Fort 
 Loudoun; for which peason I would beg 
 to represent the number of tippling- 
 houses in Winchester as a great nuisance. 
 
 GAMING. 
 
 Gaming of every kind is expressly for- 
 bidden, as being the foundation of evil 
 and the cause of many a brave and gallant 
 officer's ruin. 
 
 Avoid gaming. This is a vice which is
 
 250 GEORGE WASHI.\<;I<>.\. 
 
 productive of every possible evil; equally 
 injurious to the morals and health of its 
 votaries. It is the child of Avarice, the 
 brother of Iniquity, and the father of Mis- 
 chief. It has been the ruin of many 
 worthy families, the loss of many a man's 
 honor, and the cause of suicide. The suc- 
 cessful gamester pushes his good fortune, 
 till it is overtaken by a reverse; the losing 
 gamester, in hopes of retrieving past mis- 
 fortunes, goes on from bad to worse, till, 
 grown desperate, he pushes at everything, 
 and loses his all. 
 
 RELIGIOUS MAXIMS. 
 
 It is impossible to account for the cre- 
 ation of the universe, without the agency 
 of a Supreme Being. 
 
 It is impossible to govern the universe, 
 without the aid of a Supreme Being. 
 
 It is impossible to reason, without ar- 
 riving at a Supreme Being.
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 251 
 
 I feel now, as I conceive a wearied trav- 
 eler must do, who, after treading many a 
 painful step with a heavy burden on his 
 shoulders, is eased of the latter, having 
 reached the haven to which all the former 
 were directed, and from his housetop is 
 looking back and tracing, with an eager 
 eye, the meanders by which he escaped the 
 quicksands and mires which lay in his 
 way; and into which none but the All- 
 powerful Guide and Dispenser of human 
 events could have prevented his falling. 
 When I contemplate the interposition of 
 Providence as it was manifested in guid- 
 ing us through the Revolution, in prepar- 
 ing us for the reception of a General Gov- 
 ernment, and in conciliating the good-will 
 of the people of America towards one 
 another, after its adoption, I feel myself 
 oppressed and almost overwhelmed with a 
 sense of the Divine munificence.
 
 252 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent 
 Being, who has not deserted the cause of 
 America in the hour of its extreme haz- 
 ard, may never yield so fair a heritage to 
 anarchy or despotism. 
 
 The propitious smiles of Heaven can 
 never be expected on a nation that dis- 
 regards the eternal rules of order and 
 right, which Heaven itself has ordained. 
 
 I commend my friends, and with them 
 the interests and happiness of our dear 
 country, to the keeping and protection 
 of Almighty God. 
 
 Whilst just government protects all in 
 their religious rites, true religion affords 
 government its surest support. 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits which 
 lead to political prosperity, religion and 
 morality are indispensable supports. In 
 vain would that man claim the tribute of
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 253 
 
 patriotism, who should labor to subvert 
 these great pillars of human HAPPINESS, 
 these firmest props of the duties of men 
 and citizens. The mere politician, equally 
 with the pious man, ought to respect and 
 cherish them. A volume could not trace 
 all their connections with private and pub- 
 lic felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where 
 is the security for property, for reputa- 
 tion, for life, if the sense of religious obli- 
 gation desert our oaths, which are the 
 instruments of investigation in courts of 
 justice? 
 
 The want of a chaplain, I humbly con- 
 ceive, reflects dishonor on the regiment, 
 as all other officers are allowed. 
 
 The pew I hold in the Episcopal 
 Church at Alexandria shall be charged 
 with an annual rent of five pounds, Vir- 
 ginia money; and I promise to pay an-
 
 254 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 nually to the minister and vestry of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in Fairfax 
 Parish. 
 
 We are not graceless * at Mount Ver- 
 non. 
 
 June ist, Wednesday. Went to 
 Church and fasted all day. 
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 Having once or twice heard you speak 
 highly of the New Jersey College, as if 
 you had a desire of sending your son Will- 
 iam there (who, I am told, is a youth 
 fond of study and instruction, and dis- 
 posed to a studious life, in following which 
 he may not only promote his own happi- 
 ness, but the future welfare of others), I 
 should be glad, if you have no other ob- 
 jection to it than the expense, if you would 
 send him to that college as soon as con- 
 
 t He always said rac$ at table.
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 255 
 
 venient, and depend on me for twenty- 
 five pounds a year for his support, so long 
 as it may be necessary for the completion 
 of his education. 
 
 If I live to see the accomplishment of 
 this term, the sum here stipulated shall 
 be annually paid. And if I die in the 
 meantime, this letter shall be obligation 
 upon my heirs or executors to do it ac- 
 cording to the true intent and meaning 
 hereof. 
 
 No other return is expected or wished 
 for this offer than that you accept it with 
 the same freedom and good-will with 
 which it is made, and that you may not 
 even consider it in the light of an obliga- 
 tion, or mention it as such; for be assured 
 that from me it will never be known. 
 
 ALEXANDRIA ACADEMY. 
 To the trustees ... I give four thou- 
 sand dollars; or, in other words, twenty of
 
 256 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 the shares which I hold in the Bank of 
 Alexandria, towards the support of a free 
 school, established at, or annexed to, the 
 Academy; for the purpose of educating 
 such orphan children, or the children of 
 such other poor and indigent persons as are 
 unable to accomplish it with their own 
 means, and who, in the judgment of the 
 trustees of the seminary, are best entitled 
 to the benefit of the donation. 
 
 When Washington was on his tour 
 through New England in 1789, he visited 
 Ipswich. Mr. Cleveland, the minister of 
 the town, was presented to him. As he 
 approached, hat in hand, Washington 
 said: "Put on your hat, parson, and I will 
 shake hands with you." "I can not wear 
 my hat in your presence, General," said 
 the parson, "when I think of what you 
 have done for this country." "You did as
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 257 
 
 much as I." "No, no," protested the min- 
 ister. "Yes," said Washington, "you did 
 what you could, and I have done no 
 more." 
 
 At the close of the Revolution, Wash- 
 ington received a letter from Colonel 
 Nicola, an intimate friend, containing the 
 proposition to make him king of America. 
 In reply to this letter, Washington wrote 
 these words: "With a mixture of great 
 surprise and astonishment, I have read 
 with attention the sentiments you have 
 submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, 
 no occurrence in the course of the war 
 has given me more painful sensations 
 than your information of there being such 
 ideas existing in the army as you have 
 expressed, and I must view with abhor- 
 rence and reprehend with severity. For 
 the present, the communication of them 
 
 will rest in my own bosom, unless some 
 17
 
 258 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 further agitation of the matter shall make 
 a disclosure necessary. 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. At the same time, 
 in justice to my own feelings, I must add, 
 that no man possesses a more sincere wish 
 to see ample justice done to the army than 
 I do; and as far as my powers and influ- 
 ence, in a constitutional way, extend, they 
 shall be employed to the utmost of my 
 abilities to effect it, should there be any 
 occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if 
 you have any regard for your country, 
 concern for yourself or posterity, or re- 
 spect for me, to banish these thoughts
 
 WORDS OF WASHINGTON. 259 
 
 from your mind, and never again com- 
 municate, or from yourself or any one 
 else, a sentiment of like nature." 
 
 The Ideal Patriot had defeated King 
 George III of England, and repudiated 
 "King George I of America." 
 
 DUTY. 
 
 The man who wishes to steer clear of 
 shelves and rocks must know where they 
 lie. 
 
 To persevere in one's duty and be 
 silent, is the best answer to calumny. 
 
 I am resolved that no misrepresenta- 
 tions, falsehoods, or calumny shall make 
 me swerve from what I conceive to be the 
 strict line of duty. 
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 In looking forward to that awful mo- 
 ment when I must bid adieu to sublunary 
 things, I anticipate the consolation of
 
 260 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 leaving our country in a prosperous con- 
 dition. And while the curtain of separa- 
 tion shall be drawing, my last breath will, 
 I trust, expire in a prayer for the temporal 
 and eternal felicity of those who have not 
 only endeavored to gild the evening of 
 my days with unclouded serenity, but ex- 
 tended their desires to my happiness here- 
 after in a brighter world. 
 
 Do not flatter me with vain hopes. I 
 am not afraid to die, and therefore can 
 hear the worst. 
 
 Whether to-night or twenty years 
 hence makes no difference. I know that 
 I am in the hands of a good Providence.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 
 
 "1 ^IRST in war, first in peace, and 
 first in the hearts of his country- 
 men." Henry Lee. 
 
 "My fine crab-tree walking-stick with 
 a gold head, and curiously wrought in the 
 form of the Cap of Liberty, I give to my 
 friend and the friend of mankind, George 
 Washington. If it were a scepter he has 
 merited it, and would become it." Ben- 
 jamin Franklin (in his Will). 
 
 "America has furnished to the world 
 the character of a Washington. ... If 
 our American institutions had done noth- 
 ing else, that alone would have entitled 
 them to the respect of mankind." Daniel 
 
 Webster. 
 
 261
 
 262 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "The most illustrious and beloved per- 
 sonage which the country ever pro- 
 duced." John Adams. 
 
 "Washington is the purest figure in 
 history. ... If among all the pedestals 
 supplied by histcjry for public characters 
 of extraordinary nobility and purity, I saw 
 one higher than all the rest, and if I were 
 required at a moment's notice to name 
 the fittest occupant for it, I think my 
 choice at any time during the last forty- 
 five years would have lighted, and it would 
 now light upon Washington." William 
 E. Gladstone. 
 
 "His integrity was most pure."- 
 Tlwmas Jefferson. 
 
 "Next to the saints of religion must 
 be ranked in all our minds the saints of 
 our country. . . . Great, pure leaders, like 
 those of historic memory, enlarge polit-
 
 SAYINGS ABObT WASHINGTON. 263 
 
 ical philosophy into devotion. . . . The 
 soldiers of Valley Forge saw in their gen- 
 eral a lofty character, for whom they could 
 endure privations, in whom they could 
 trust. When they were cold and hungry 
 and homesick, they were still inspired by 
 the merit of their commander. He had 
 separated himself from his wealth and its 
 peace to be a soldier against the greatest 
 power on earth; the troops saw that moral 
 worth, and were cheered by the vision 
 when all other scenes were darkened. 
 When Baron Steuben, an ardent volun- 
 teer from the German army, saw the 
 troops at Valley Forge, their want of all 
 the comforts of life, he wondered what 
 held the soldiers so firmly to their post of 
 duty. It was a moral power that held 
 them the hope of a free nation and faith 
 in their chieftain. In Philadelphia the 
 British army, from the highest to the
 
 264 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 humblest, was spending in carousal the 
 winter months, which the Colonial troops 
 were spending in all forms of discomfort. 
 One British officer kept a gambling- 
 house, in which the common soldiers were 
 robbed of their gold. Thus was the Brit- 
 ish army a military machine, while the 
 American army was a band of men with 
 a soul in it an army of six thousand 
 friends of freedom and of Washington. 
 Washington's dining-room of logs, in 
 which banqueting-hall, that could be du- 
 plicated for fifty dollars, there was simple 
 food and no carousal, became an emblem 
 of the kind of leader the file was trusting 
 and following." David Swing. 
 
 "Egad! he ran wonderfully! We had 
 nobody, hereabouts, that could come near 
 him. There was young Langhorne Dade, 
 of Westmoreland, a confounded clean-
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 265 
 
 made, tight young fellow, and a mighty 
 swift runner, too; but he was no match for 
 George." An Old Gentleman Neighbor. 
 
 In 1785, John Hunter visited Mount 
 Vernon, and describes a tour through 
 Washington's stables: "Went to see his 
 famous horse, Magnolia a most beauti- 
 ful creature. A whole length of his was 1 
 taken awhile ago (mounted on Magnolia) 
 by a famous man from Europe on copper. 
 I afterwards went to his stables, where, 
 among an amazing number of horses, I 
 saw old Nelson, now twenty-two years of 
 age, that carried the general almost al- 
 ways during the war. Blueskin, another 
 fine old horse next to him, now and then 
 had that honor. Shaw also showed me his 
 old servant, that was reported to have 
 been taken with a number of the general's 
 papers about him. They have heard the
 
 266 GEORGE WASHINGTON.' 
 
 roaring of many a cannon in their time. 
 Blueskin was not the favorite, on account 
 of his not standing fire so well as vener- 
 able old Nelson." A serious fault to a 
 man like Washington. 
 
 "He was one of the few entirely goo.d 
 men, in whom goodness had no touch of 
 weakness; one of the rigorously just, in 
 whom justice was not commingled with 
 any severity of personal temper." Rufus 
 W . Griswold. 
 
 "Every one who met Washington told 
 of the commanding presence and noble 
 person, the ineffable dignity, and the 
 calm, simple, and stately manners. No 
 man ever left Washington's presence 
 without a feeling of reverence and respect 
 amounting almost to awe. I will quote 
 only a single one of the many descriptions 
 of Washington, and I select it because,
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 267 
 
 although it is the least favorable of the 
 many I have seen, and is written in 
 homely phrase, it displays the most evi- 
 dent and entire sincerity. The extract is 
 from a letter written by David Ackerson, 
 of Alexandria, Va., in 1811, in answer to 
 an inquiry by his son. Mr. Ackerson 
 commanded a company in the Revolu- 
 tionary War. 'Washington was not,' he 
 wrote, 'what ladies would call a pretty 
 man, but in military costume a heroic fig- 
 ure, such as would impress the memory 
 ever afterwards.' 
 
 "The writer had a good view of Wash- 
 ington three days before the crossing of 
 the Delaware. 'Washington/ he says, 
 'had a large, thick nose, and it was very 
 red that day, giving me the impression 
 that he was not so moderate in the use 
 of liquors as he was supposed to be. I 
 found afterwards that this was a peculiar-
 
 268 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ity. His nose was apt to turn scarlet in 
 a cold wind. He was standing near a 
 small camp-fire, evidently lost in thought 
 and making no effort to keep warm. He 
 seemed six feet and a half in height, was 
 as erect as an Indian, and did not for a 
 moment relax from a military attitude. 
 Washington's exact height was six feet 
 two inches in his boots. He was then 
 a little lame from striking his knee against 
 a tree. His eye was so gray that it looked 
 almost white, and he had a troubled look 
 on his colorless face. He had a piece of 
 woolen tied around his throat, and was 
 quite hoarse. Perhaps the throat trouble 
 from which he finally died had its origin 
 about then. Washington's boots were 
 enormous. They were number 13. His 
 ordinary walking shoes were number n. 
 His hands were large in proportion, and 
 he could not buy a glove to fit him, and
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 269 
 
 had to have his gloves made to order. 
 His mouth was his strong feature, the lips 
 being always tightly compressed. That 
 day. they were compressed so tightly as 
 to be painful to look at. At that time he 
 weighed two hundred pounds, and there 
 was no surplus flesh about him. He was 
 tremendously muscled, and the fame of 
 his great strength was everywhere. His 
 large tent, when wrapped up with the 
 poles, was so heavy that it required two 
 men to place it in the camp-wagon. 
 Washington would lift it with one hand 
 and thrbw it in the wagon as easily as if it 
 were a pair of saddle-bags. He could hold 
 a musket with one hand, and shoot with 
 precision as easily as other men did with 
 a horse-pistol. His lungs were his weak 
 point, and his voice was never strong. He 
 was at that time in the prime of life. His 
 hair was a chestnut-brown, his cheeks
 
 270 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 were prominent, and his head was not 
 large in contrast to every other part of his 
 body, which seemed large and bony at 
 all points. His finger-joints and wrists 
 were so large as to be genuine curiosities. 
 . . . He was an enormous eater, but was 
 content with bread and meat if he had 
 plenty of it. ... I saw him at Alexandria 
 a year before he died. His hair was very 
 gray, and his form was slightly bent.' 
 
 "This description is certainly not a flat- 
 tering one, and all other accounts, as well 
 as the best portraits, prove that Washing- 
 ton was a much handsomer man than this 
 letter would indicate. Yet the writer, de- 
 spite his freedom from all illusions and 
 his readiness to state frankly all defects, 
 was profoundly impressed by Washing- 
 ton's appearance as he watched him medi- 
 tating by the camp-fire at the crisis of his 
 country's fate, and herein lies the princi-
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 271 
 
 pal interest of his description." Henry 
 Cabot Lodge. 
 
 "This serene, inflexible, decisive man, 
 biding his hour, could be then the ven- 
 turesome soldier, willing to put every for- 
 tune on a chance, risking himself with a 
 Courage that alarmed men for his life. 
 Does any but a fool think that he could 
 have been all these things, and not have 
 had in him the wild blood of passion? He 
 had a love for fine clothes and show. He 
 was, I fear, at times extravagant, and, as 
 I have heard, could not pay his doctor's 
 bill, and would postpone that, and send 
 him a horse and a little money to educate 
 his godson, the doctor's son. As to some 
 of his letters, they contained jests not 
 gross, but not quite fit for grave seigniors. 
 . . . Was he religious? I do not know. 
 Men say so. He might have been, and yet
 
 272 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 have his hours of ungoverned rage, or of 
 other forms of human weakness. Like a 
 friend of mine, he was not given to speech 
 concerning his creed. . . . He had no 
 tricks of the demagogue. He coveted no 
 popularity. He knew not to seek favor 
 by going freely among men. . . . And 
 yet this reserved aristocrat had to the etyi 
 the love and confidence of every soldier 
 in the ranks." 5. Weir Mitchell. 
 
 "General Washington is, I believe, al- 
 most the only man of an exalted character 
 who does not lose some part of his re- 
 spectability by intimate acquaintance. I 
 have never found a single thing that could 
 lessen my respect for him. A complete 
 knowledge of his honesty, uprightness, 
 and candor in all his private transactions, 
 has sometimes led me to think him more
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 273 
 
 than man." Mr. Lear (Washington's Sec- 
 retary, a graduate of Harvard). 
 
 "He never was known to tell a war 
 story. Not that it is a sin to tell war 
 stories; far from it. If the veteran sur- 
 vivor of many a bloody encounter may 
 not fight his battles o'er again, even in 
 the ears of his friends, then is human na- 
 ture brutal, and freedom a taunting lie. 
 . . . But Washington never told a war 
 story; no wonder that most pictures of 
 him show him with a lower jaw that is 
 'set' as defiantly as if its owner were de- 
 termined that nothing should escape 
 him." John Habberton. 
 
 "I have sometimes made him laugh 
 most heartily from sympathy with my joy- 
 ous and extravagant spirits." Miss 
 
 Custis. 
 
 18
 
 274 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "When, long ago, the ax-men went 
 into the woods to find among the trees 
 one suitable to be shaped into a mast for a 
 large clipper ship, thousands of trees had 
 to be passed by with only a glance. One 
 tree had been twisted by the wind; one 
 had been creased by the lightning; one 
 had, when young, been bent down by 
 some playing bears; one had been too 
 near to its neighbors, and had been 
 dwarfed in the top ; one had been too near 
 a stream, and had had too much sun and 
 air on the side next the water, its trunk 
 had bent towards its greatest limb; one 
 had in youth been scorched by the fire of 
 a hunter. At last a tree is found from 
 which all defects are wanting, and up, 
 straight as a draftsman's rule, runs the 
 wooden shaft for a hundred feet. The 
 woodsmen all rejoice, for the mast is
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 275 
 
 found. The tree is elected from amid its 
 fellows, and soon, instead of wearing its 
 verdure in the forest, it goes careening 
 on the ocean, holding up white sails to 
 the journeying wind. Not otherwise 
 when some weak Colonies need a chieftain 
 for war and peace; they must pass by 
 many a name great in fame before they 
 find the citizen who holds all the virtues 
 they know and love. No one dare say 
 that Washington was the only man who 
 could have performed the needed task. 
 There may have been one other or many 
 others who could have led the people to 
 independence. The one man having been 
 found, the people did not pursue longer 
 the search. Such a search would be a 
 foolish task for an historian. Having 
 found the mast, the ax-men left the 
 woods." David Swing.
 
 276 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "He does what he thinks he ought to 
 do. . . . Here is the finest instance in his- 
 tory of the success of moral power. . . . 
 This is certain, that the eagerness of men 
 to believe that pure, moral power carries 
 empire with it, is the reason why men 
 study with personal interest the life and 
 character of Washington. His success 
 seems to give a warrant for the triumph 
 of humanity. In his success men believe 
 that they will not for any long time be 
 given over to the sway of men who are 
 merely intellectual tricksters or giants of 
 physical force. Men agree to honor 
 Washington, because in his life they think 
 they have a demonstration that right is 
 might." Edward Everett Hale. 
 
 "It is refreshing to find that he some- 
 times departed from the solemn, dull, con- 
 ventional language of State papers, and
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 277 
 
 calls the British soldiers 'Red Coats,' and 
 General Putnam 'Old Put;' talks of 'kick- 
 ing up some dust,' 'making a rumpus,' of 
 nominating 'men not fit for shoe-blacks;' 
 speaks of 'the rascally Puritanism of New 
 England,' and 'the rascally Tories;' 'a 
 scoundrel from Marblehead a man of 
 property.' But, in general, his style is 
 plain and business-like, without fancy or 
 figure of speech." Theodore Parker. 
 
 "He had every title to command. 
 Heaven, in giving him the higher qualities 
 of the soul, had given also the tumultuous 
 passions which accompany greatness and 
 frequently tarnish its luster. With them 
 was his first contest, and his first victory 
 was over himself." Gouverneur Morris. 
 
 "A conqueror for the freedom of his 
 country; a legislator for its security; a 
 magistrate for its happiness, with no self-
 
 278 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 ish ambition or criminal thirst for 
 power." London Courier. 
 
 "He loved his country well enough to 
 hold his success in serving it an ample 
 recompense. But when his country 
 needed sacrifices that no other man could 
 or perhaps would make, he did not even 
 hesitate. This was virtue in its most ex- 
 alted character. . . . 
 
 "More than once he put his fame at 
 hazard, when he had reason to think it 
 would be sacrificed, at least in his age. 
 Two instances can not be denied: First, 
 when the army was disbanded; and, sec- 
 ond, when he stood, like Leonidas at the 
 Pass of Thermopylae, to defend our inde- 
 pendence against France. . . . 
 
 "The unambitious life of Washington, 
 declining fame, yet courted by it, seemed 
 like his own Potomac, widening and deep-
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 279 
 
 ening his channel as he approached the 
 sea, and displaying the usefulness and se- 
 renity of his greatness towards the end of 
 his course." Fisher Ames. 
 
 "He did the two greatest things which, 
 in politics, man can have the privilege of 
 attempting. He maintained, by peace, 
 that independence of his country which 
 he had acquired by war. He founded a* 
 free Government in the name of the prin- 
 ciples of order, and by re-establishing 
 their sway; both tasks were accomplished 
 when he '"etired from public life." Guizot. 
 
 "England has some share in his glory. 
 Although she can not number him among 
 those who have extended her provinces 
 or augmented her dominions, she may 
 at least feel a legitimate pride in the vic- 
 tories he achieved, in the great qualities 
 he exhibited in the contest with herself,
 
 280 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and indulge with satisfaction in the re- 
 flection that the vast empire which neither 
 the ambition of Louis XIV nor the power 
 of Napoleon could dismember, received 
 its first shock from the courage which she 
 had communicated to her own offspring, 
 and that real liberty has arisen in that na- 
 tion alone which inherited in its veins the 
 genuine principle of British freedom."- 
 Arcliibald Alison. 
 
 "Never in the tide of time has any man 
 lived who had in so great a degree the 
 almost divine faculty to command the 
 confidence of his fellow-men, and rule the 
 willing. Wherever he became known 
 in his family, in his neighborhood, his 
 county, his native State, the continent, the 
 camp, the civil life, the United States, 
 among common people, in foreign courts 
 throughout the civilized world of the hu-
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 281 
 
 man race, and even among savages he, 
 beyond all other men, had the confidence 
 of his kind." George Bancroft. 
 
 "It will be the duty of the historian 
 and the sage in all ages to omit no occa- 
 sion of commemorating this illustrious 
 man, and until time shall be no more will 
 a test of the progress which our race has 
 made in wisdom and virtue be derived 
 from the veneration paid to the immortal 
 name of Washington." Lord Brougham. 
 
 Providence left him childless, that his 
 country might call him father." H. T. 
 Tuckerman. 
 
 "To the appointment of Washington, 
 far more than to any other single circum- 
 stance, is due the ultimate success of the 
 American Revolution, though in purely 
 intellectual powers Washington was cer-
 
 282 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 tainly inferior to Franklin and perhaps 
 to two or three other of his colleagues." 
 William E. H. Lecky. 
 
 "What manner of people ought we to 
 be in return for this great gift? We may 
 bring forth others like him. There is more 
 hope, not less of another Washington, 
 from having had the first. We say of a 
 great genius like Shakespeare or Raph- 
 ael, that he is inimitable. But Washing- 
 ton was not a genius in the ordinary ac- 
 ceptation of that term. His perfections 
 are imitable, on an humbler scale. Per- 
 sonal integrity, indefatigable industry, de- 
 ferring self to duty, true brotherhood 
 towards mankind, and a sincere desire to 
 co-operate with God in doing good, may 
 make many a Washington of whom the 
 world may never hear." Caroline M. 
 Kirkland.
 
 SAYINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON, 283 
 
 "George Washington will always re- 
 ceive the love and reverence of men, be- 
 cause they see embodied in him the 
 noblest possibilities of humanity." 
 Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 "Washington served us chiefly by his 
 sublime moral qualities. To him be- 
 longed the proud distinction of being the 
 leader of a revolution, without awaken- 
 ing one doubt or solicitude as to the spot- 
 less purity of his purpose. His was the 
 glory of being the brightest manifestation 
 of the spirit which reigned in this country; 
 and in this way he became a source of 
 energy, a bond of union, the center of an 
 enlightened people's confidence." Will- 
 iam E. Channing. 
 
 "From 1749 till 1784, and from 1789 
 till 1797, or a period of forty years, Wash- 
 ington filled offices of one kind or another,
 
 284 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 and when he died he still held a commis- 
 sion. Thus, excluding his boyhood, there 
 were but seven years of his life in which 
 he was not engaged in public service. 
 Even after his retirement from the Presi- 
 dency, he served on a grand jury, and 
 before this he had several times acted as 
 petit juror. In another way he was a good 
 citizen, for when at Mount Vernon he in- 
 variably attended the election, rain or 
 shine, though it was a ride of ten miles 
 to the polling town." Paul Leicester 
 Ford. 
 
 "He rode upon his farms entirely un- 
 attended. Mr. Custis, his adopted son, 
 gave this direction to a gentleman who 
 was out in search of Washington: 'You 
 will meet, sir, with an old gentleman rid- 
 ing alone, in plain, drab clothes, a broad- 
 brimmed, white hat, a hickory switch in
 
 SAVINGS ABOUT WASHINGTON. 285 
 
 his hand, and carrying an umbrella with 
 a long staff, which is attached to his 
 saddle-bow that person, sir, is General 
 Washington.' 
 
 "So carefully did Washington manage 
 his farms, that they became very produc- 
 tive. So noted were these products for 
 their quality, and so faithfully were they 
 put up, that any barrel of flour bearing 
 the brand, 'GEO. WASHINGTON, MOUNT 
 VERNON,' was exempted from customary 
 inspection in British West India ports." 
 
 Erskine, so chary of his praise, so slow 
 of faith in his fellows, inscribed in a set of 
 his works as a present to Washington: 
 "You, sir, are the only individual for 
 whom I ever felt an awful reverence." 
 
 "He was a sincere believer in the Chris- 
 tian faith." Chief-Justice Marshall.
 
 286 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 "A Christian in faith and practice." 
 fared Sparks. 
 
 "I am not surprised at what George has 
 done. He was always a good boy." 
 
 Washington's Mother. 
 
 "This is the one hundred and tenth an- 
 niversary of the birthday of Washington. 
 We are met to celebrate this day. Wash- 
 ington is the mightiest name of earth 
 long since mightiest in the cause of civil 
 liberty, still mightiest in moral reforma- 
 tion. On that name a eulogy is expected. 
 It can not be. To add brightness to the 
 sun or glory to the name of Washington 
 is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. 
 In solemn awe pronounce the name, and 
 let its naked, deathless splendor leave i 
 shining on." Abraham Lincoln. 
 
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