No regret was in the heart of Col. George Washington as he resigned his commission at the end of 1758 and turned his horse from Williamsburg towards the plantation on the Pamunkey River where Martha Dandridge Custis was waiting for him. Lack of recognition by the British government “at home” had destroyed his military ambition but it had not lessened his conviction that he had done his part, and more, in defending both “the country,” as he termed Virginia, and the other American domain of Great Britain. In the memory of service he was willing to put neglect behind him. Besides, there was no bleakness on the road that led to the estate of the woman of twenty-seven who was to be his bride. Fires would be burning and wedding garments would be ready at the White House. Beyond spread the tobacco plantations and the prospect of opulent years.
Every expectation was realized. The marriage ceremony was performed January 6, 1759, after which a happy honeymoon was spent at the well-furnished Custis home on the bank of the Pamunkey. George now found easy and cheerful companionship in a young woman, who, though not brilliant, had her full share of good nature. She had ample common sense, also, except where her two children were involved. The son, John Parke Custis, called “Jackie” by the family, was now four and a healthy, normal boy. His sister “Patsy”—christened Martha Parke Custis—was less vigorous at two, but was an attractive child.
The bridegroom, as a good man of business, made his first inquiries concerning the details of the new duties he was to assume as fiduciary, and then he had to go to Williamsburg where he began February 22—his twenty-seventh birthday—his service in the House of Burgesses.
The control and management of the House, as usual, were in the hands of a small number of powerful seniors. In the chair sat John Robinson, Treasurer and Speaker and Washington’s consistent friend during the struggle for the Ohio. With him in the House worked Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, the Carters (Landon and three Charleses), and Peyton and John Randolph. These men did not always agree among themselves but whatever a majority of them advocated, the House customarily approved. The leading Burgesses usually worked together in complete understanding, and they carefully apportioned among themselves the chairmanships of the important committees. Not antagonistic to these men but developing steadily in thought and in knowledge of the law were several young members whom Washington probably met for the first time. One of the ablest of these was the Burgess for the College of William and Mary, George Wythe, personal adviser of the resident Governor, Francis Fauquier, whose title was officially that of Lieutenant Governor. Several other young Burgesses scarcely were inferior to Wythe in ability and diligence. From the counties still other youthful Virginians were looking towards Williamsburg and were hoping soon to be sitting among the members.
If Washington surveyed with polite curiosity those leading Burgesses whom he did not know already, they were interested in him as the most conspicuous of the younger soldiers of America. One of the lawmakers, his old friend and companion-in-arms, George Mercer, said of Washington in a letter written in 1760:
. . . He may be described as being straight as an Indian, measuring 6 feet 2 inches in his stockings, and weighing 175 lbs when he took his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1759. His frame is padded with well developed muscles, indicating great strength. His bones and joints are large as are his hands and feet. He is wide shouldered but has not a deep or round chest; is neat waisted, but is broad across the hips, and has rather long legs and arms. His head is well shaped, though not large, but is gracefully poised on a superb neck. A large and straight rather than a prominent nose; blue-grey penetrating eyes which are widely separated and overhung by a heavy brow. His face is long rather than broad, with high round cheek bones, and terminates in a good firm chin. He has a clear tho rather colorless pale skin which burns with the sun. A pleasing and benevolent tho a commanding countenance, dark brown hair which he wears in a cue. His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time discloses some defective teeth. His features are regular and placid with all the muscles of his face under perfect control, tho flexible and expressive of deep feeling when moved by emotions. In conversation he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, deferential and engaging. His demeanor at all times composed and dignified. His movements and gestures are graceful, his walk majestic, and he is a splendid horseman.
The young soldier, thus described, had been in the House only four days, among old friends and new, when on February 26 an admirer rose and offered this resolution: “. . . that the thanks of the House be given to George Washington, Esq; a member of this House, late Colonel of the First Virginia Regiment, for his faithful Services to his Majesty, and this Colony, and for his brave and steady behavior, from the first Encroachments and hostilities of the French and their Indians, to his Resignation, after the happy Reduction of Fort DuQuesne.” The resolution was passed immediately with a roar of “Ayes”; Mr. Speaker leaned forward in his chair to voice the thanks of the House; instinctively Washington arose, listened, blushed and sat down again, amid more applause.
The new member from Frederick found much that was instructive in the reports of committees and discussion of the subject for which, primarily, the General Assembly had been convened. As Fauquier explained in his address to the two houses on the opening day, General Amherst had written to ask that, for a final offensive on the Great Lakes against the French, Virginia supply him in 1759 with as many troops as the Colony had paid during the campaign of 1758.
The House responded that if the Colony fell short of Amherst’s expectations in 1759, it would be because of “poverty alone, which has often obstructed many a noble and honest intention.” This was polite notice that troops would not be supplied for an expedition on the Lakes, but it was not final. When the Committee of the Whole began to deliberate on a bill to raise the strength of the Regiment to one thousand men and continue it in service until December 1, 1759, the advocates of a strong war policy proposed that an additional five hundred be raised to guard the frontiers and that the Regiment be placed at the disposal of Amherst for such use as the military situation required.
In the intervals of the discussion, Washington had his first experience with embarrassing local bills and measures that affected counties in which he had special interest—a plea of Augusta for better protection of the frontiers, petitions for the extension of the bounds of Winchester, various appeals for changes in the tobacco-inspection laws and a measure to remove the Court House of Spotsylvania from Fredericksburg. Definitely in the line of business was an appeal from the merchants of Winchester, influential constituents of Washington’s, for protection against Pennsylvania pedlars in skins and furs. The parliamentary course of these bills was not of a sort to call for great display of the art of government, but, taken together, the enactment of the measures was, for a beginner, an informative lesson in the processes of legislation.
Committee hearings and participation in the work of the House did not occupy all of Washington’s time. The evenings were free for social affairs, and there always was delight in quiet conversation with Martha. The end of March approached while the Washingtons enjoyed the company of the children, planning for the future and the life of the town. No action had been taken on the bill concerning the supply of the Regiment, but there were indications that even the most prolix orators were exhausting their arguments. Washington was anxious to prepare his farms for spring planting but was not willing to leave the House until the bill to continue his old Regiment had been brought to a vote. He resolved his dilemma in his usual direct fashion: he would remain in Williamsburg for the passage of the measure and then apply for leave of absence for the remainder of the session. On April 2 the bill was passed. The next business of the House was the grant of a leave to Mr. Washington.
As soon after that as Martha, the children, the servants and luggage were ready, the journey to Mount Vernon began. The plantation to which Washington brought his new wife that April was close to the centre of an interesting neighborhood framed by the Potomac River. The Mount Vernon estate would have been merely a large Virginia plantation had not the Potomac given it a setting of dignity, charm and everchanging color. Eight and a half miles upstream was Alexandria. Southwest at a distance of near a mile and a half was the mouth of Dogue Run. On the south side of this was Belvoir, dear to Washington through a hundred associations. Another mile and a half of the river led to George Mason’s recently completed Gunston Hall.
Washington had other neighbors back of Belvoir; downstream was Westmoreland County, Washington’s birthplace and the home of the Lees. The largest interest was up the river at Alexandria, but the social boundary now was not that town. In effect, it was the little stream above Alexandria known as Four Mile Creek, not far from the falls of the Potomac. A fixed agricultural economy prevailed below the falls. West of them conditions were beginning to change. Ownership might be vested in rich Virginians; development might depend on those Pennsylvania Germans who ten years previously had disgusted young Washington.
MAP / 5
WASHINGTON’S “BURGESS ROUTE”
TO WILLIAMSBURG
The Colonel and his lady belonged, distinctly, to the society that lived below the falls. While Washington never forgot that more money could be made by patenting and holding land beyond the mountains than in almost any other way, he had at hand a task that would absorb for a long time all his energy and, as he soon discovered, the greater part of the capital he would get from Martha. The unhappy fact—not to be evaded, blinked, minimized or quickly ended—was this: Mount Vernon had been mismanaged during the later years of his service in the army. In the Colonel’s absence, Jack Washington had made an effort to take care of the estate, but the younger brother had not been there all the time, or successful when there. Almost everything needed for good management was worn out or lacking altogether. Washington saw immediately that he had much to do; he was not equally quick to perceive that he lacked part of the experience he needed in order to do it well.
Washington went to Williamsburg late in April to qualify for the administration of the Custis estate. He appeared with Martha’s attorney, John Mercer, before the General Court and asked that he be named to administer the two-thirds interest vested in Jackie and Patsy, along with the third he already controlled as husband of Martha. He did not request the Court to name him instead of Speaker Robinson as guardian of the children. The Court entered the appropriate order. Simultaneously, Mercer and Washington recommended to the Court a division of the property of the estate. As finally apportioned, the estate was handsome. The real estate consisted of 17,438 acres. Without inclusion of this, the sum credited to each of the three heirs was £1617 sterling and £7618, currency of the country, in slaves, livestock, notes and bonds and accounts receivable—an aggregate in personality of almost £20,000 sterling. No less than £8958 of these assets in the currency of the country were represented by slaves. Washington was resolved that his accounts of the estate should be accurate to a penny; at the same time he insisted on getting all that was due him as husband of the former Mrs. Custis.
On returning to Mount Vernon he had forthwith to organize the household in order to assure comfortable management and conform to his custom of doing everything with system. “I have quit a military life,” he said, “and shortly shall be fixed at this place with an agreeable partner, and then shall be able to conduct my own business with more punctuality than heretofore as it will pass under my own immediate instruction, a thing impracticable while I discharged my duty in the public service of the country.” He ordered the best books on agriculture and farm management and, as the tobacco crop of 1759 promised a handsome return, became almost enthusiastic over the future of the staple on his own lands.
Along with hope and the happiness of new love, despite the wretched condition of the estate, the summer brought a cargo of good news about the war. Except for what might be happening in the unknown region of Detroit, the enemy now had been driven back to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence and was being held, in the main, to the line of the river, northeast of Lake Ontario. The only strong positions still in French hands were Montreal, Quebec, and the 150 miles of country between them in the region south of Quebec. Now Washington saw the long-awaited successes he had craved for his country. This point of view he expressed in a letter to a British merchant: “The scale of Fortune in America is turned greatly in our favor, and success is become the boon companion of our fortunate Generals.” Three days before Washington wrote this, Quebec had surrendered after a siege that had cost the lives of General Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm. Many of the details, when read by Washington, must have stirred his soldierly pride, because they covered some of the most magnificent achievements in the history of the British Army, but they found no place in any of his letters. Quebec, its graves and its glory, were far off; Washington’s prime interest now was in restoring the buildings, the livestock and the implements of Mount Vernon.
On October 22 he took the road to Williamsburg: The personal property in the Custis residence there was to be sold at public sale on October 25; the House of Burgesses was to meet November 1. In Williamsburg, as business did not press, he was able to enjoy such festivities as the town offered before the Burgesses assembled in a session not particularly interesting. After the General Assembly adjourned, Washington lingered long enough to see that the tobacco on the Custis plantations was inspected and delivered at the ship’s side and then returned to Mount Vernon in contentment of spirit. The tobacco crop along York River had been large; the market seemed favorable. When Washington rode into the stableyard at home two resolutions were firm in his mind—to increase his production of tobacco, which he was resolved to raise to the highest quality and cure, and to acquire more land on which to employ idle servants in growing that staple.
After the Christmas holiday of 1759, the first he had spent with his wife and her children, Washington expanded these plans and, meantime, directed the winter activities at Mount Vernon. Hogs had to be killed and the meat cured; timber was sawed; a house was moved; fencing was repaired; such grubbing was undertaken as the ground permitted; hundreds of bottles of good cider were filled; before the end of February it was possible to begin some of the plowing for oats and clover; March brought more plowing for clover and some for lucerne, along with several experiments in sowing grass seed and considerable activity in grafting cherry and nut trees.
The crop of 1759 had been grown on two plantations by Washington’s own slaves and on nine tracts by tenants. The Colonel had not been able to prepare for it and scarcely regarded it as a test of his management. It would be different now. “The greater pains imaginable,” Washington wrote subsequently, “[were] used in the management of this tobacco”; but before it was primed, there were reminders that other considerations than those under the grower’s control might affect the return. The Deliverance, which was carrying some Washington and Custis tobacco to the British Isles, was lost on the coast of France. At least one merchantman with tobacco belonging to the same owners was taken by a French man-of-war. Rains threatened to ruin the crop of 1760. Reports on the sale of the leaf of 1759 were worse than depressing. Nor was it encouraging to an ambitious young proprietor to note the figures at which the invoices sent to England for clothing and supplies had been filled. Washington was shocked at the charges on his account. Truth was, larger orders at higher prices were eating up an expanded income and a part of the money Martha had brought him. If Washington observed that fact in the summer of 1760, he did nothing to correct it.
Through a growing season that seemed in retrospect to be one of “incessant rains,” Washington spent most of his time at Mount Vernon with his wife and stepchildren. When September opened, it was manifest that the tobacco crop, which had been spotting badly, would be short but would be better than had been expected. It consequently was with some eagerness that Washington looked forward to October, when he would go to Williamsburg for the session of the General Assembly and could visit the plantations on the York and see what had been produced. As Martha wished to make the journey with him, the Colonel decided to travel in style, with chariot and six—the first time he ever had set out for the capital with the equipage that was the unchallengeable emblem of a planter of the highest affluence.
The session was opened on October 6 in a balance of cheer and of gloom. Intelligence confirmed the complete surrender at Montreal September 8 of the last organized French force in Canada. Every Virginian rejoiced with Governor Fauquier when he proclaimed: “. . . the war is gloriously brought to a happy end. . . .” The unhappy news was that all hopes of avoiding war with the Cherokees had been blasted. The Burgesses responded by voting to raise the Regiment to its full strength of one thousand men and continue its pay and subsistence until April 1, 1761, with the proviso that the men should not be employed outside the Colony. Costs were to be paid from the £52,000 that represented Virginia’s part of funds voted the Colonies by Parliament. In making these arrangements the Burgesses probably availed themselves of Washington’s experience, but he was not conspicuous in debate nor were there many calls on the committees to which he belonged.
When the House adjourned October 20, Burgess Washington became immediately the diligent proprietor and trustee, eager to know what the weight and quality of the tobacco crop would be. The showing was not good. Some tobacco on low grounds had been drowned, and some on the uplands had “fired.” Much of the leaf was poor; the total was below the average in weight and bulk as well as in quality, but the aggregate of Washington’s various crops was 147,357 pounds in spite of the bad year. It looked as if he was achieving his ambition to grow superlative tobacco in volume sufficient to crowd the hold of a proud merchantman.
The first ships to leave Virginia in the autumn of 1760 with tobacco grown that year doubtless passed westbound vessels that carried announcements of the death of George II. He had succumbed October 25—the only King to whom Washington ever had sworn allegiance. News of the demise of the monarch reached the Colonies at the end of December, but it was February 4, 1761, when Governor Fauquier received instructions to proclaim the new King, George III. Whatever else the year 1761 held, it probably would involve a dissolution of the House of Burgesses, a journey to Frederick, visits to influential citizens and a polling of freeholders. It was not a pleasant prospect for a man who desired most of all to remain at home and attend to his own affairs; but if it had to be done, Washington would do it. Membership in the House of Burgesses was at once the duty and the avocation of a gentleman. He could not discharge the duty if he shunned the contest.
Pending a call from friends in the Valley or dissolution of the House, Washington busied himself with farm affairs. The Colonel had at length to pull himself away and to go to Williamsburg, where the General Assembly had convened. Washington went tardily because he had been detained in Fairfax by a development that changed his status. On March 14 Anne Fairfax Lee, the widow of Lawrence Washington, had died. Anne had no issue within the terms of Lawrence’s will, and the estate consequently passed to George.
When Fauquier delivered his final address, April 10, he made the expected announcement of a dissolution and sent the Burgesses home to seek reelection or to participate in the choice of their successors. Washington felt that he should go to Frederick to counteract the electioneering of Adam Stephen. He had not been in Frederick when the election of 1758 had been held; it would be neither proper nor prudent to have the voters of the county regard him as indifferent. Doubtless he would have been reelected decisively in any event, but he could not have been given a much stronger vote of confidence than the poll of May 18 showed: Washington, 505; George Mercer, 399; Stephen, 294; scattering, 3. Washington and Mercer had been elected.
It was victory at a price. A severe cold Washington caught while visiting among his constituents persisted and stirred up old maladies. Fever produced a lassitude that Washington in some humility of spirit attributed to indolence. Most of the conferences of a hard, tedious summer were with physicians. He wrote late in July: “I have found so little benefit from any advice yet received that I am more than half of the mind to take a trip to England for the recovery of that invaluable blessing, Health.” Another suggestion was that he consult Philadelphia physicians. The final decision was to try the waters of the Berkeley Baths. George had no faith whatever in “the air,” which he believed unwholesome, but he was willing to test the effect of the mineral water, and he accordingly set out August 22 with Martha and the children. The Colonel was so weak that the easiest part of the journey was an ordeal; adverse weather made the later stages torture. After the crude resort finally was reached, August 25, the water, the weather, his state of mind or the vigor of his body—one or more than one of these—soon brought improvement. When he reached Mount Vernon about September 18, he was in a mood to pick up business matters that had been neglected.
While his own financial war seemed now to face defeat and now to promise victory, Washington never ceased buying and planning for the future, even though he had thought at one time that he would lose the fight for his own life. Now that stimulating autumn weather had come to Virginia, he felt able to make the journey to Williamsburg for the first meeting of the new General Assembly. After arrival in the capital November 2, he was able, also, to transact some private business and write with cheer not only of the prospect of peace with the Cherokees but also of a settlement of the larger struggle between Britain and France.
Able to give his crops the attention he could not bestow during his illness, Washington visited the plantations in New Kent and on the York. He found they had enjoyed a more favorable season than in 1760; the yield was larger. The merchants’ returns in 1762 should demonstrate whether Washington was winning or losing—whether his special care for the quality of his leaf was a profitable expenditure.
The General Assembly met January 14, 1762, without the senior Burgess from Frederick. Washington knew that the session was to be devoted to one question, the continuance or disbandment of the Virginia Regiment. He probably anticipated the decision of the lawmakers and did not feel that members from the more remote counties were so badly needed that they should be called upon to make the long journey in midwinter. The Burgesses were not convinced of the need of retaining an armed force in the service of the Colony, but they were unwilling to disband it until they had positive assurance that the war with the Cherokees had been ended. That view shaped the law. The statute “for preventing mutiny and desertion,” one that had been strengthened after many exhortations by Washington, was revived for the period that ended May 1, but no further provision was made for the pay of the troops. Officers fared better. Each of those in service at the time was allowed a full year’s compensation beyond that due him on the date the Regiment was disbanded.
Washington now had the normal operations of his plantations in full swing and was busying himself with an interesting routine. By February 9 the master of Mount Vernon began plowing for oats. Sowing and harrowing followed. About March 24 the tobacco beds were burned over and then seeded. While the plows were turning the earth where corn rows soon were to stretch, Washington had grim news from Westmoreland: His brother Austin had succumbed to an illness that had pursued him for years. His end had come at Wakefield, where he had lived amply. Washington journeyed as quickly as he could to the home of the dead brother who never quite had succeeded to Lawrence’s place in the affection of George but always had counselled him wisely and with patience. George could do nothing now to show his appreciation except to stand by his brother’s grave.
In a short time, Washington had again to travel to Williamsburg for a reason that was becoming monotonous—another session of the General Assembly. Fauquier had arrived in Virginia during June 1758 and in three years and nine months had held eleven sessions. This time, at a meeting begun on March 30, the Governor reported that he had disbanded the Virginia Regiment as soon as he had received formal news of peace with the Cherokees. Later he had notice that the King desired a regiment to “be kept in the pay of the Colony.” In addition, His Majesty demanded that a quota be raised to aid in filling the regiments under Amherst. This was not all. The day before the General Assembly met, the Governor had received notice that Spain had joined France in the war on Britain. If, therefore, peace had been made with the Cherokees, a new adversary had to be accepted in their stead. The General Assembly voted to raise one thousand men for a new Regiment and to recruit Virginia’s quota for Amherst’s forces. For the discipline and control of its soldiery the Assembly passed a new mutiny and desertion act.
In the spring of 1762 there was interesting work and the prospect of comforting profit from good management of the land to which he returned when the brief session ended. All went well except for the essential—good weather. A drought began at the very time plants most needed moisture. Washington had to replant tobacco and corn, also. There was prospect, of course, that if the tobacco crop was small, prices would be high—but even that hope was eclipsed by reports that the Mount Vernon product had not been sold at a good figure in London.
While buyers withheld shillings and Nature begrudged rain on the banks of the Potomac, Washington busied himself with some of the many improvements he had projected. In spite of debt and doubt concerning the tobacco crop, he continued steadily to restore and improve the plantation. He bought more slaves; title was acquired to acres which raised his total to 8505. Business always was interesting to the master of Mount Vernon, especially if there was profit in it; but the bargain in land had to be a promising one that absorbed him as completely as did provision for new equipage, for good wine, for the furnishings and beautification of the house, and for the pleasure of Martha and the children. His desire to select and enjoy the best was sharpened as he increasingly became a family man. For these reasons, the year 1762 was one of much purchasing and planning.
He had ordered a new still in 1761 and intended to put it into service in the autumn of 1762 if it arrived by that time. Use of it could eliminate numerous bills for spirits used on the plantation. Among the milder beverages, the one he most used and most frequently served was Madeira, which he imported directly from the Islands. Drink in itself made no strong appeal to him: he liked three or four glasses of Madeira at dinner, but these were merely a part of the grace of living.
The entire household must have been made conscious of abundance when on July 20 the Unity discharged the goods Washington had ordered in the fall of 1761. From salt to saddles, from spirits of lavender to diversified leather portmanteaux, from “one dozen augurs, sorted” to “three pecks almonds in the shell,” from the plainest fabrics for the slaves’ garments to egrets for the headdress of Martha, the goods were brought forth and were appraised and admired or criticized and pronounced too expensive.
This cargo arrived in the year when Jackie became eight and Patsy six. Their mother had put into the orders from England many articles for them, but, of course, life for Jackie and Patsy was not to consist altogether of opening trunks over which Aladdin himself might have rubbed his lamp. Colonel and Mrs. Washington had resolved that the children must begin the acquisition of serious knowledge and that Patsy, in addition, must learn the graceful arts of a young lady of fashion. They had a tutor now in the person of Walter Magowan. A challenging list of Latin grammars, dictionaries and texts had been ordered. Soon the invoices were to include Greek books with stern titles in Latin. Furthermore, Miss Custis now had a spinet that had been ordered for her with superlative care.
Already, in other matters, there were indications that the gentleman who had preserved on the frontier both the discipline of his Regiment and his own amiability might not be equally successful with his wife’s children at Mount Vernon. The reason would not be special perversity on the part of the children but the indulgent extremity of their mother’s love for them. The oddest aspect of this was Martha’s own recognition of a weakness she could not overcome.
The sowing of wheat was begun August 16 and was continued to September 8. Soon the tobacco was cut, and the annual argument over the probable size and price of the new crop was renewed. Washington set out November 10 for Williamsburg, where the General Assembly had met on the second—for the third time that year. En route, he found the crops on the York relatively better than those on the Potomac and he permitted himself to hope, as he phrased it, that “the tobacco, what there is of it, will prove exceedingly good this year. . . .”
The legislative session was interesting to him in his role of planter. Governor Fauquier explained that he had called the Assembly together to enter upon the usual business of the country and provide for the future safety and well-being thereof. Of particular importance, said the Governor, were carefully matured action to relieve the shortage of bullion and measures of similar wisdom to regulate trade with the Cherokees. Military operations on American soil had ended, though the war against the French and Spanish continued at sea. The Burgesses enacted a new election law, amended militia legislation, put on the books a measure for the relief of insolvents, provided for the inspection of pork, beef, flour, tar, pitch and turpentine, and fashioned a modified plan to encourage wine-making and silk-culture in Virginia.
This diversified legislation kept the General Assembly in session until December 23, but it did not detain the senior Burgess from Frederick until so close to Christmas. He reached home December 1 in time to see the corn crop measured and shared with the overseers. Of meat he set down the total for the use of “the family” at 6632 pounds. This weight of meat, virtually three tons, was typical of the magnitude of many of the operations at Mount Vernon. Everything was expanding; some things were prospering. The Washington and Custis tobacco crop from the several plantations was almost 60,000 pounds.
That seemed a reassuring figure but, now that he was completing his fourth year’s work after his retirement from the army, a number of circumstances should have kept the Colonel from financial complacency. He had done the essential things at Mount Vernon. In 1759, neglect was visible under every shed and in every field. Even now repair seemed endless; but the place was decently equipped in almost every requirement—teams, livestock, implements, buildings, Negroes. All this made the estate more valuable but it had cost many hundred pounds and it had not demonstrated what Washington had taken for granted—that first-class tobacco could be grown at Mount Vernon in quantity and at a sufficient profit to pay off the debt and keep up the plantation.
These were the concerns of a man who intended to remain a planter, grow richer if he could, and enjoy the luxury of a life he had earned for himself. In larger preparation for the uncertainties of the future, political and personal, he had learned more of law-making, had gained in good will to men, and, facing the vagaries of season and of human nature, was becoming more patient and more willing to bear what he could not cast off. By the thorough performance of commonplace, daily duties he was building slowly the stronger structure of the spirit that men call character.
During four years of struggle to make Mount Vernon a profitable tobacco plantation, Washington had been drawn closer to the church and October 25, 1762, had been elected a vestryman of Truro Parish. His first important official duty was to attend a vestry meeting at Falls Church and consider the need of a new structure there. Beyond this election, Washington had no new public distinction. He did not shine as a Burgess, though his character and his military reputation gave him influence. More and more he was becoming a planter who had his holidays and enjoyed them but had, between them, to discharge duties that were as humdrum as they were numerous.
Good bargains seemed better and bad crops appeared not quite so intolerable when set against the joyful news of the Treaty of Paris, signed February 10, 1763. The struggle then ended between France and England had cost the lives of 853,000 soldiers and of unreckoned hundreds of thousands of civilians. England was supreme in North America and had gained enormously in India. The Earl of Granville did not exaggerate when he aroused himself from the languor of his last illness to affirm this “the most glorious war, the most honorable peace, this nation ever saw.” Very different were the comments of the Virginia former Colonel. “We are much rejoiced at the prospect of peace which,” he wrote, “ ’tis hoped will be of long continuance and introductory of mutual benefits to the merchant and planter, as the trade to this Colony will flow in a more easy and regular channel than it has done for a considerable time past.” That was all: peace meant easier, profitable trade.
Climbing debt and dragging repayment did not keep Washington from ordering another pipe of a “rich, oily” Madeira, nor was he deterred from new expenditure by a controversy over exchange that now threatened the amity of Virginians. British merchants trading in the Dominion had filed in February a protest against the volume of paper money issued by the Colony. The injustice of the act for the relief of insolvent debtors likewise had been challenged in the memorial, which the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations had hastened to transmit to Fauquier. The Governor, in turn, had laid the paper before the Council on April 28 and had said he thought it imperative that the Assembly be convened. A call then had been sent out for May 19.
MAP / 6
THE PROCLAMATION LINE OF 1763
When the Burgesses filed into the council chamber, they found the friendly and diplomatic Governor in a mood of unwonted stiffness. Fauquier did not undertake to suggest how the merchants were to be satisfied, but he urged the lawmakers to provide adequately for the redemption of the paper currency on maturity and called on them to repeal the amended act for the relief of insolvents. The Burgesses were ready for the Governor, Emission of treasury notes had been necessary, the Burgesses maintained, because there had been no other means of meeting the King’s requisitions. The notes had been made legal tender, except for quit rents, in the conviction that this was essential justice to all. Provision for judicial determination of disputed rates of exchange was proper; sufficient funds had been provided for the redemption of the notes; “no person trading to this Colony could receive any injury” ; British merchants would gain as much as they would lose in the fluctuations of exchange. The general tone was one of professed surprise that the House was censured for what it had considered “acts of duty to our Sovereign.” To this view, the Burgesses adhered. No appeal, no persuasion, could shake them. The insolvency act of the previous November was repealed. More than this the Burgesses refused to do.
In this discussion, Washington had no place of prominence. He probably was not present when the Governor called the Burgesses to the council chamber May 31, scolded them mildly for their failure to act, and then prorogued them. The absence of the senior member from Frederick was not due to unconcern over sterling debts but to a desire to increase his fortune and discharge some of his own debts otherwise than from the uncertain returns of an unpredictable crop. Washington was convinced that land speculation held as good a promise of profit as ever. He still was looking westward; but, along with some of the planters and merchants, he now turned to an undeveloped area not far away, the Great Dismal Swamp.
There was general belief that if the swamp were drained, tens of thousands of acres of ideal farming land would be the reward. William and Thomas Nelson and a few of their friends had decided to seek the patent of the unoccupied and waste land of the swamp and to draw off the water from the best of it. These men readily interested Washington, who agreed to visit the Great Dismal and see for himself what it would offer of fine timber while it was being drained and of rich flatlands when it was cleared. The ground seemed, in his own phrase, “excessive rich.” The prospect was one of undisguised speculation; but if the swamp could be drained successfully, the reclaimed land might yield fabulous crops, close to the market of Norfolk and the open sea. Washington decided he would make the venture along with the Nelsons, Robert Tucker, Robert Burwell and the others who had shown special interest in it.
Washington returned north to resume his everyday life as a planter, but he did not abandon his reawakened interest in speculative land enterprises. Almost immediately he became a sharer in a new Mississippi Company that had bold, ambitious designs: Fifty subscribers, and no more than that number, were to contribute funds with which to send to England an agent to solicit the grant directly on the Mississippi River of a domain large enough to allow each member of the company fifty thousand acres. The terms, like the aims that shaped them, were the ideal of speculation, such an arrangement as the land-hungry dream about.
Later in June Washington went to Frederick County and while there had news of the sort grimly associated in his mind with that region. After the surrender of Montreal, many of the French Indians, particularly those around Detroit, had refused to accept the rule of the conquering English. During the spring of 1763, these Indians captured English outposts north of the Potomac and the Ohio. No massacres had been reported from any part of Virginia, but terror once again had gripped the frontier. Washington knew what to expect. When he returned home at the end of June he wrote: “. . . it is melancholy to behold, the terror that has seized them and the fatal consequences that must follow in the loss of their harvest and crops, the whole back country being in forts or flying.”
Happily for the Colonies, some of the Highlanders who had fought in Forbes’s campaign of 1758 had been left in Pennsylvania under Colonel Bouquet. That veteran struck west from Carlisle on July 18 with approximately 460 regulars. Detaching a handful to garrison Raystown, which now had become Bedford, and another score and a half to guard Fort Ligonier, formerly Loyal Hannon, he hurried along the route he had followed five years previously. On the afternoon of August 5 the Indians attacked in force on Bushy Run. Their tricks were those that had led to the massacre of Braddock’s men; but Bouquet was not Braddock, nor were his troops untrained in the warfare of the woodlands. Bouquet matched the Indians’ worst until nightfall, and, when they renewed the battle August 6, he lured them forward by a pretended retreat, then delivered a fierce bayonet charge and finally routed them. Relief of Fort Pitt followed immediately. West of that outpost, the savages still were violent, but the retired Colonel of Mount Vernon knew that the defeat administered by Bouquet would dull their zeal for war.
Closer at hand Washington had a multitude of vexatious duties that would have alarmed a timid planter or have harassed a man less reconciled to detail than he was. By October 1 Washington had harvested his summer crops, sown his winter wheat and cut his tobacco. He was pessimistic about his “money crop.” The yield on the York appeared to be good, “but,” Washington had to write his London dealer, “my crops on the Potomac are vastly deficient; in short, a wet spring, a dry summer and early frosts have quite demolished me.” When the hogsheads had been filled on all the plantations, the total was better than the Colonel had thought it could be. On the other hand, quality was so lacking in the leaf that bulk and weight were more than cancelled. Washington realized this and did not purchase luxuries as recklessly as in the past. His largest single item in the orders that fall was for chariot harness for six horses.
Land was different; he could not resist that. By the end of summer he had carried his total holdings to 9381 acres, and almost before the tobacco crop was housed he went to Stafford Court House to attend a meeting of the men who sought the vast grant on the Mississippi. Later in October Washington started again for the Great Dismal Swamp—to get still more land. Washington “went the rounds” of the swamp, as he said, and visited its southern border in North Carolina where he saw some excellent land he subsequently determined to purchase. He concluded that profitable drainage of the swamp was possible and, with the other speculators, returned to Williamsburg in an effort to procure action on a petition filed the previous May for the grant of lands in the swamp. It developed that the petition itself had disappeared and that the Council had done nothing about it. Thereupon a new paper was circulated in the names of the original applicants, their kinsmen, friends and tenants, to a total of 148 persons. On presentation of this paper, the Council was quick to make amends for delay and neglect. It resolved November 1, “that each of the petitioners have leave to take out a patent for 1000 acres of the said land upon condition of giving legal notice to the proprietors of the contiguous high lands and that they will not interfere with any entries antecedent to this day. . . .” Seven years were allowed for the return of the surveys.
The Governor’s irresistible inclination to consult the Assembly prompted His Honor to summon the lawmakers on January 21, 1764. The reason was the familiar one—a call for Virginia troops to join in a new campaign against the Indians. The Redmen still were halting the advance of English settlement and were threatening to bring the torch and the scalping knife to the frontier again. Thomas Gage, who had served in Braddock’s campaign, was now Major General and American Commander-in-Chief and urged that Virginia supply five hundred men for a western offensive to relieve Detroit and annihilate the resisting Indians or force them to make peace.
Fauquier asked the lawmakers whether it was not better “to march into the enemies country than by waiting at home to revenge yourselves when they think proper to enter yours and commit all kinds of outrages and murders.” He had been employing the militia, Fauquier said, and had found it expensive. The force had been reduced to five hundred men and would have been diminished still further had not the call for the Assembly been sent. The Assembly preferred using the militia to raising troops by extravagant bounties, and it promptly named a commission, with Washington as chairman, to examine the accounts of the militia and certify them for payment. After the close of the short session, Washington remained in Williamsburg long enough to arrange for the shipment of fifty-two hogsheads of tobacco.
Washington was not stinting the luxuries he, Martha and their guests enjoyed. He, indeed, was becoming a bit reckless, not to say extravagant. He was not deterred from the purchase of luxuries or of Negroes by the size of the debt he owed Robert Cary & Co., his factors in London; he scarcely was restrained by the fact that money was scarcer than ever, that many planters were in difficulty, and that several bills of exchange given him in repayment of loans proved worthless at the time. His eyes were opened to reality, if not to frugality, by a letter he received shortly before May 1 from Cary & Co. The merchants informed him that Jackie Custis’s balance had shrunk to £1407 and that Washington was in their debt for no less than £1811. They would be pleased to have him reduce that obligation and, meantime, to pay interest on it. As a matter of right, Cary should be told to charge interest. The merchant might be reminded that poor crops and bad debtors explained the magnitude of the debt. Buying need not be stopped. Cary & Co. could wait for their money from a customer who was sending them fifty-two hogsheads of tobacco, with more to follow.
While some of that tobacco still was at sea, America received unwelcome word of new taxes that might be levied by Parliament. In the war with France from 1754 to 1763, Britain had increased her national debt to £130,000,000. Her interest charge alone was £4,500,000; new and continuing expense must be assumed for the protection of the American frontier. George Grenville, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had raised the question of Colonial contribution to the cost of defending the English settlements. He asserted and the Commons promptly agreed that “it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties in the said Colonies and plantations.” No action to this end was taken at the time, but Parliament seemed ready to act whenever the Ministry brought in the bills.
Reports of this reached Virginia and Maryland about the middle of May and met with instant challenge. Direct taxation of the Colonials by act of Parliament never had been attempted. Such general levies as had been imposed in any Colony had been by laws of its own Assembly, chosen by the people who were to pay the taxes. This had been so unvarying a practice that only constitutional lawyers of inquisitive mind had taken the pains to analyze taxation in terms of inherent political right. Colonials had now to unlock the forgotten armory of their rights to get weapons for their defence against parliamentary taxation. Practice had to be vindicated by principle. The Colonials rediscovered their inheritance in protecting their interests. Had not their forefathers possessed all the rights of British subjects, including the right of taxation through representatives of their own choice, when they came to America? What had they done that deprived them of any guarantee they possessed under the English constitution? The first rumors of direct taxation of Americans by Parliament prompted every Colonial who knew anything of history to think of Runnymede and of the long struggle of Parliament itself to establish taxation as the right of the taxpayer. Even before the precise form of contemplated British action was known, Washington’s fellow-Burgess, Richard Henry Lee, put the question that shaped endless protests: “Can it be supposed,” he asked a correspondent in London, “that those brave adventurous Britons, who originally conquered and settled these countries . . . meant thereby to deprive themselves of that free government of which they were members, and to which they had an unquestionable right?”
Washington, like most Virginians, was concerned and instinctively disposed to resist, but, as usual, was not inclined to anticipate events. That applied to taxation and, more immediately, and more personally, to his debts. Summer brought from Cary & Co. a letter which its recipient somewhat indignantly regarded as a dun. Washington undertook to answer it with a statement that “mischances rather than misconduct” had been responsible for his financial ills. He was chagrined but not chastened. Orders from England must be reduced. Luxuries for the time being were banned. He would defer other purchases in order to reduce his debt.
That was one measure of relief. His other and more acceptable recourse was an increase of income. Substantial increase in farm income at Mount Vernon might be through the substitution of some other large crop for tobacco. Culture of the troublesome and exacting tobacco-plant would continue until a profitable staple could be grown in its stead. Perhaps it would be wise on the lower Custis farms to make no change; but at Mount Vernon the coveted leaf could not be matured and marketed in a quality to make it yield anything more than cost, if even cost, on the London market. The fact was: Mount Vernon tobacco was second rate. Washington must try something else—wheat, hemp, flax, anything that was profitable. In Alexandria, the firm of Carlyle & Adam was seeking more vigorously each year to encourage the growing of wheat. The market was only a few miles up river, and the financial settlement at 3s. 6d. per bushel would be with friends. Washington was sufficiently encouraged to increase the acreage he normally devoted to wheat. This wheat was in the ground and some at least of the tobacco of 1764 was ready for shipment when, about October 28 or 29, Washington completed another journey to Williamsburg for a session of the General Assembly.
The Burgesses wished to consider, in particular, the subject that had alarmed the Colony in the spring. According to a letter from a committee of the Massachusetts Assembly, passage of a direct tax on the Colonies might be as close as the next session of Parliament. Virginia lawmakers must decide what they would do about it. On November 14 the Burgesses reached their main conclusion. It was the traditional one—to address the throne and protest to the Lords and the Commons. So delicate a task naturally was assigned those members of the House best skilled in letters and in the lore of the British constitution. Peyton Randolph was appointed chairman. With him were associated Richard Henry Lee, Landon Carter, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison, Archibald Cary, and John Fleming. The session dragged interminably on while the House debated uninteresting bills, and the special committee weighed words and sanded phrases in perfecting the address to the King and the appeals to the Houses of Parliament.
Relief broke tedium December 10 when the Governor forwarded a letter from Bouquet reporting that he had pressed on from Pittsburgh into the Ohio country and had forced the Indians there to make peace. Col. John Bradstreet had made a treaty in August at Detroit with savages who from the outset showed little intention of respecting it; but the Burgesses were so confident peace would be enforced that they advised the Governor to disband the militia still guarding the frontier.
At last, on December 13, the address to the King and the memorial to the Lords and the remonstrance to the Commons were ready for consideration. The core of the address was a plea that the King would protect the people of Virginia “in the enjoyment of their ancient and inestimable right of being governed by such laws respecting their internal polity and taxation as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign or his substitute.” In the memorial to the Lords, the central argument was that the settlers of Virginia had all the rights and privileges of British subjects and that the descendants of the first comers had done nothing to deprive them of this inheritance. The arguments in the remonstrance to Commons were the same with the added protest that if taxation were justified, it would be unwise because it would be intolerable to a people already burdened by the costs of the war with the French. Virginians would be “reduced to extreme poverty, would be compelled to manufacture those articles” they formally had imported from Britain. Together the three documents included about two thousand words, and they meant much more than their authors realized. The Virginians were not asking a favor: they were asserting a right. They had explored their inheritance and had faith in the weapons they found there. Right, rediscovered, was reenforced. What pride and self-interest prompted, the constitution vindicated. In that spirit the session and the year came to a close. It might not be easy to get the address of Virginia before the King, but the papers could be printed and circulated.
Whatever burden of taxation 1765 might or might not bring Virginia, the year called for no less than seven things at Mount Vernon: Invoices from England must include nothing beyond the articles indispensable in the operation of the farms; no more slaves should be bought; no additional lands should be acquired. These were the economies. Income must be increased by the planting of more wheat, an effort to produce and market hemp profitably, large use of the mill, and greater hauls of the river’s fish.
This was not an impossible plan for reducing the debt to Cary & Co. Good crops and sound management of a property well-stocked, would in time clear the account. The servants were now nearly sufficient in number—eleven in the house, seven on the home plantation, eleven working at trades, nine at Muddy Hole, ten at Dogue Run and seven at the mill—a total of fifty-five. For directing this labor more carefully and undertaking larger farm activities the owner employed his remote cousin, Lund Washington. Lund could discharge many of the irksome duties that had crowded the Colonel’s days. The winter months passed quietly, and the hands were preparing to sow oats, hemp and lucerne when Washington once again set out for Williamsburg. The House met on May 1, 1765, and prepared to debate the subject for which the session primarily had been arranged. This was the revision of the tobacco law, a measure so clumsily amended that it was in great confusion. Indications were for a dull meeting; attendance was below average. Four vacancies were reported—one each in Chesterfield, Amelia, Lunenburg and Louisa. Writs for new elections were requested of the Governor; the session got under way and rumbled slowly along.
Days of routine followed so drearily that many members procured leave to go home for the remainder of the session or left without permission. Then, about May 20, sensations began to develop. Louisa County reported that she had complied with the writ of election and had chosen Patrick Henry of Hanover. Although it was unusual to name a man from another county when he owned no property in the county that chose him, there was nothing in the election law to prohibit it. The oath was administered.
On the twenty-third Washington, the new member from Louisa and the others who had ears for it heard some of the seniors of the House explain the details of the plan, even to the rate of interest Virginia was to pay, for a loan of £250,000 in London and the form of the tax she was to impose until 1795 in order to meet the debt. Debate was not prolonged. Those Burgesses sufficiently versed in matters of finance to understand the resolutions had been lined up in advance; those who did not comprehend could not oppose. The Committee of the Whole reported the resolutions that same day.
On May 24 the measure came up for action by the House. The fledgling Burgess from Louisa arose to challenge the measure. Henry had no schooling in public finance, but he sensed that one aim of the proposal was to permit rich debtors to mortgage their lands to pay for luxuries and he skillfully brought down the complicated “resolves” to language the least-tutored member from the newest frontier county could understand. Vehemently he exposed what he declared to be the favoritism of the plan and the abuses to which it certainly would lead. The leaders had the vote, if not the answer, and proceeded to pass the resolves; but they were doubtful of their handiwork as they sent the resolutions to the Council for concurrence. Either because the unwisdom of the resolutions led a majority to say “No,” or because the patrons took alarm at Henry’s attack, there came back no message from the council chamber that concurrence had been voted. On the contrary, Council rejected the measure.
On the twenty-sixth only a few minor measures remained. Most of the members had started home. Of a total of 116 Burgesses, only thirty-nine besides the Speaker were in their seats when George Johnston of Fairfax moved that the House go into Committee of the Whole to consider the “steps necessary to be taken in consequence of the resolutions of the House of Commons of Great Britain relative to the charging certain Stamp duties in the Colonies and Plantations in America.”
The motion itself announced what had not been published officially—that Commons had set in operation the parliamentary procedure for passing the Stamp Act. A copy of the bill had “crept into the House,” as Governor Fauquier later expressed it, and had convinced members that the new tax was to be stiff and inclusive. Some of the details probably were known at the time Johnston made his motion, which Henry seconded. The motion was put and carried; the Speaker left the chair and sat as committee chairman; the thin House looked to Johnston; he deferred to Henry. From his place, the junior Burgess of Louisa County rose, took out a paper and submitted a series of resolutions:
Resolved—
That the first Adventurers and settlers of this his Majesty’s Colony and Dominion brought with them and transmitted to their Posterity and all other his Majesty’s Subjects since inhabiting in this his Majesty’s said Colony, all the Privileges, Franchises and Immunities that have at any Time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the People of Great Britain.
That by two royal Charters, granted by King James the first the Colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all the Privileges, Liberties and Immunities of Denizens and natural-born Subjects, to all Intents and Purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.
Resolved—
That the Taxation of the People by themselves or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what Taxes the People are able to bear, and the easiest Mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such Taxes themselves, is the distinguishing Characteristic of British Freedom and without which the ancient Constitution cannot subsist.
Resolved—
That his Majesty’s liege People of this most ancient Colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the Right of being thus governed by their own Assembly in the article of their Taxes and internal Police, and that the same hath never been forfeited or in any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the Kings and People of Great Britain.
Resolved—
Therefore, That the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the Inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any Person or Persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.
A majority of the Burgesses favored a protest of some sort against a Stamp Act, but some of the older leaders frowned and shook their heads as they listened to Henry’s paper. One after another of them assailed the resolutions. Their argument must have been that in so far as the resolutions were proper, they duplicated the address, memorial, and remonstrance of 1764 and that conciliation, not denunciation, should be the weapon of the Colonies. When the utmost had been made of this general objection, a motion was put and passed to consider Henry’s resolution seriatim.
Where reference was made to “the Privileges, Franchises and Immunities” the “first Adventurers and settlers” brought with them from Great Britain, the word “liberties” was inserted ahead of the other nouns. Henry probably had no objection to this strengthening of the first resolution, and he certainly could not fail to thank the Burgess who suggested how the language of the second resolution could be improved without any change of meaning. The same thing happened to the third resolution. On each of the first four resolutions the old leaders demanded a division—and in each case lost narrowly. None of the resolutions commanded a larger majority than twenty to seventeen. The firmest of all the declarations, the fifth, now was up for approval or rejection. To some, the mild conclusion may have seemed anti-climactic; but the fifth resolution was the one to which all the others led. That was why Henry had put “therefore” after that particular “resolved” and not after any of the others. There was no power outside the General Assembly that had any right to tax Virginians. Were that power usurped, it would be tyranny. So Henry reasoned.
The debate had angered him. Abuse by his adversaries was a goad. Henry took the floor thoroughly aroused. His words took on the nobility of his theme. Listeners were carried to new heights of thought. Young Thomas Jefferson, standing at the door, was swept back to Troy by the rhythmic eloquence of Henry. “He appeared to me,” said Jefferson long afterwards, “to speak as Homer wrote.” The air became wine. A tax was lost in a principle. Williamsburg became Runnymede. The walls of the chamber melted into the deep background of the Englishman’s struggle to shape his own destiny. Henry’s imagery took bolder and bolder form. With a voice that impaled his hearers, he shouted: “Tarquin and Caesar each had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—”
“Treason,” ruled the outraged Speaker.
Henry lifted his shoulders still higher as he paused for an instant only—”and George the Third may profit by their example! If this be treason make the most of it!”
Skillful as this was, the Speaker did not intend to permit the utterance or the apparent acquiescence of the House to go unrebuked. Robinson again ruled Henry’s words treasonable. Henry had made his point; he had no intention of having prejudice aroused against his resolutions because of a ruling that the author of them had uttered treasonable words. He apologized to the Speaker and the House and avowed his loyalty to the King. Division was demanded. The count showed the declaration to have been carried by twenty to nineteen.
The Committee of the Whole rose; Peyton Randolph reported to the House that certain resolutions had been adopted and that he was ready to deliver them. As the hour was late, the House voted to receive the report the next day. May 30, when the seniors undertook to defeat Henry’s resolutions, his lines held. All five were adopted with some slight amendments.
In the belief that the declaration of the Colony was now firmly a matter of record, Henry started back to Hanover. The following morning his absence was noted in a House perceptibly thinner than it had been even during the debate on the Stamp Act. Randolph and other leaders proceeded to move that the resolutions be expunged, but, as the five parts of the paper had been adopted one by one, the chair ruled, that the expunging vote be put separately on each resolution. Weakened though Henry’s supporters were by his absence, they held together and beat down the motion to efface from the record the first, the second, the third and the fourth resolutions. The fifth, the resolution carrying the climactic “therefore,” they lost. It was stricken from the Journal.
Governor Fauquier, on June 1, summoned the Burgesses to the council chamber, signed the completed bills and joint resolutions and then, without a word of thanks or reproach, dissolved the House. The King must appeal to his people in new elections. Appeal he might, but Henry had not penned his resolutions in vain. Virginia’s resolves gave the signal for a general outcry over the continent.
It is unlikely that Washington attended the final days of the General Assembly. He probably left Williamsburg early, for there were serious matters to consider at Mount Vernon. A new uncertainty was creeping into the life that defeat of the French had given promise of stability. Washington found the family well, but conditions on the farms were bad. Drought had settled on the Hunting Creek estate. Besides drought, there was rust on the wheat crop which Washington was hoping would offset the decline in returns from the Potomac tobacco.
The hard summer was not without its satisfactions and its honors. Writs of election went out in June for the new House. In Fairfax, there was to be a vacancy. George Johnston decided that he would not be a candidate for the seat he had held since 1758. Washington accordingly declined in Frederick County and declared himself a candidate in Fairfax. The result of a light vote on July 16 was: Washington, 201; John West, 148; John Posey, 131. Washington and West were elected. Washington was entirely satisfied. It was, he confessed, “an easy and a creditable poll.”
Attendance on the new Assembly seemed immediately in prospect. Washington was preparing to start for the capital when word came on July 28 that the session had been prorogued. “I am convinced . . .” said Washington, “that the Governor had no inclination to meet an Assembly at this juncture.” That was the belief in every part of Virginia. The lawmakers of Massachusetts had sent on June 8, 1765, a call for a meeting in New York October 7 of representatives of all the Colonies: Governor Fauquier did not want the Houses of Burgesses to approve participation in this enterprise which he regarded as seditious.
Opposition to the Stamp Act was shifting from argument to resistance. The stamps had been printed in England and were being sent to each of the Colonies for allotment. For Virginia, the designated “Distributor” was Col. George Mercer. Mercer’s known acceptance of the office had cost him already his place in the affection of many of his own people. On the Northern Neck he had been burned in effigy. Thousands of the Colonials were resolved they would not use the tax-paper in any circumstance. Some members of county courts were saying that they would not serve a day after legal processes had to be stamped. Whispers were passed that if an attempt were made to execute the law, men would come from the upcountry to Williamsburg and would seize and destroy the stamps. Washington heard and pondered. He was not excited and had not made common cause with those who advocated an extreme course.
Whether or not the new ministers of a coalition headed by Lord Rockingham ended the calamity of the Stamp Act, the year in Virginia was certain to be a disastrous one on the plantations. While the drought did not prove as ruinous as Washington had expected, the yield of his enlarged acreage of wheat was not more than 1112 bushels. The experiments with flax and hemp bore out Washington’s earlier fears of partial failure that season. Quality was low and the market was undeveloped, though the prospect was not altogether disheartening. The difficult crop year was ending when Washington read the details of the meeting in New York during October of the “Stamp Act Congress.” Twenty-seven from nine Colonies had conferred for about a fortnight and had formulated a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances” to which most Virginians would have subscribed.
Then Washington heard that a startling new scene in the drama of the Stamp Act had been staged in Williamsburg. Mercer had crossed the Atlantic with a full stock of stamps and had arrived in Hampton Roads at a time when the Colony’s anger over the tax measure was rising to new resentment with the approach of November 1, the date on which a stamp would be required to validate almost any act of business or law. Little besides the Stamp Act was discussed in Williamsburg as October was closing and attorneys, merchants and planters gathered for the usual settlement of accounts at the meeting of the General Court, scheduled for the same fateful November 1.
On October 30, when the throng was close to its crest, Colonel Mercer arrived in Williamsburg and went forthwith to private lodgings, but he brought none of the detested stamps with him from the vessel. Word of his presence reached the Governor who decided immediately to go to Mrs. Campbell’s Virginia Coffee House to be at hand in event of disorder. About mid-afternoon, someone shouted “One and all!” Others took it up and began to move towards the building where Mercer was supposed to be. “This concourse of people,” the Governor said afterwards, “I should call a mob, did I not know that it was chiefly if not altogether composed of gentlemen of property. . . .” The crowd came upon Colonel Mercer at the Capitol. He had shown abundant courage during the French and Indian War and he did not cringe now. The question was shot straight at him: he saw how the people felt about the stamps; was he going to distribute them or would he stand with his own people and resign the office? Mercer kept his head. The issue meant a great deal to him, he said. He could not attempt to answer the question immediately. Friday, the day the stamps had to be used, he would make his answer—in front of the Capitol—at ten o’clock in the morning.
With that he started towards the coffee house. There on the porch, seated together, were the Governor and most of the members of Council. Mercer, of course, went straight to the Governor, whom he had not seen since his arrival. The crowd did not like this. Cries were rising from the street: “Friday is too late,” “The law goes into effect then,” “Promise to give your answer tomorrow.” After various messages and appeals, Mercer reluctantly agreed to give his answer at five o’clock Thursday afternoon.
By the next afternoon at five o’clock the crowd was larger than ever and was collected in the Capitol, where Mercer had promised to appear. In a few minutes he arrived, faced the throng and read a letter which said in part:
I do acknowledge that some little time before[,] I heard of and saw some resolves which were said to be made by the House of Burgesses of Virginia, but as the authority of them was disputed, they never appearing but in private hands, and so often and differently reported to me, I determined to know the real sentiments of my countrymen from themselves and I am compelled to say that those sentiments were so suddenly and unexpectedly communicated to me that I was altogether unable to give an immediate answer upon so important a point. . . .
I should be glad to act now in such a manner as would justify me to my friends and countrymen here and the authority which appointed me but the time you have all allotted me is so very short that I have not yet been able to discover that happy medium and therefore must entreat you to be referred to my future conduct with this assurance in the meantime that I will not directly or indirectly by my deputies or myself proceed further with the Act until I receive further orders from England and not then without the assent of the General Assembly of this Colony and that no man can more ardently or sincerely wish the prosperity of than myself. . . . Your sincere friend and humble servant. . . .
That was enough! Those who had seemed willing to kill him on Wednesday now made a hero of him and carried him out of the Capitol in triumph.
The General Court met the next day, but not a litigant appeared and not a lawyer, except the Attorney General. Fauquier subsequently reported: “. . . I called for Colonel Mercer and asked him in open court whether he could supply the Court with proper stamps that the business might be carried on, according to law. He replied he could not, and gave the substance of the answer he had given the evening before. I then asked the Clerk whether he could carry on the business without them. He said he could not, without subjecting himself to such penalties as he would not expose himself to. . . . Then the Court was unanimous that we might adjourn to the next court in course, which was accordingly done.”
There was more—an effort by Mercer to tender his resignation to the Governor who refused it, and the transfer of all the stamped papers to a war vessel—but that tableau in the General Court was the ominous climax. “The first and most obvious consequences of all this,” Fauquier reported, “must be the shutting up all the ports and stopping all proceedings in the courts of justice.” A few days later the optimistic Governor was wondering whether the Colonials would stand fast: “. . . I am very credibly informed that some of the busy men in opposing the reception of the stamps are already alarmed at the consequences of the imprudent steps they have taken.”
“Credibly informed,” the Governor said he was—not concerning the man who read of this at Mount Vernon, nor Henry, nor that young student Jefferson whose heart had beat high as he listened to Henry cry, “Caesar had his Brutus. . . .”
The temper displayed towards Mercer and his stamps was warning that 1766 might prove a year of grim and stubborn contest in Virginia. Plans had to be based on the possibility that no ships would be cleared, no debts collected and no legal business of any sort transacted because no stamps would be purchased or used. To prevent the rusting of all the wheels of trade the Stamp Act must be repealed. England must realize that the measure was as unenforceable as it was unjust. Should this effort prove vain, then Mount Vernon and every like plantation must produce the articles necessary for self-support.
Washington did not undertake to grow any tobacco in 1766 on the Potomac, though he did not forbid his tenants doing so. He determined, instead, to increase his wheat and, at least experimentally, continue with flax and hemp. In addition, as Capt. David Kennedy offered to rent the Bullskin plantation for £28 per annum, that gentleman should have it. A schooner was finished and rigged and could be used during the spring for fishing and, later, for bringing plank from the Occoquan sawmill. The outlook was not hopeless. Unfavorable conditions would correct themselves if Parliament would abandon direct taxes in frank realization that the Colonies would not yield, could not be made to do so and would be quick and violent in dealing with any attempt to comply with the law.
Hot blood on the Rappahannock did not wait. A merchant and shipowner of Hobbs Hole, Archibald Ritchie, declared at the court in Richmond County during February that he intended to clear his vessels on “stamped paper” and that he could get stamps. The countryside was enraged. Everywhere along the Rappahannock the comment was the same: If merchants yielded, the Stamp Act could be enforced in part at least, and the right of exclusive Colonial self-taxation would be destroyed. On February 27, 1766, a number of prominent planters met at Leedstown to decide what they should do about Ritchie’s defiance. They proceeded to formulate the principles on which they would act and to draw up articles of association.
Then the “Associators” decided to make Ritchie sign a declaration that was duly drafted and approved. The next day, no less than four hundred men assembled at Hobbs Hole—”Sons of Liberty” they called themselves in proud acceptation of the name Col. Isaac Barre had applied during the debate in the House of Commons on the stamp bill. A committee went to Ritchie’s house to demand that he sign the paper. Ritchie protested: Would not the gentlemen name a committee to “reason with him on the subject?” No! His case had been passed upon. It was for him to say whether he would go willingly to the street where the other Sons of Liberty were waiting for him. Ritchie could not hesitate otherwise than at the risk of worse things to come. He went out, listened as the declaration was read to him, signed and swore to this paper:
Sensible now of the high insult I offered this County by my declaration at Richmond Court lately of my determination to make use of stamped paper for clearing out vessels; and having been convinced such proceedings will establish a precedent by which the hateful Stamp Act might be introduced into this Colony to the utter destruction of the Public Liberty, I do most submissively in the presence of the public sign the Paper meaning to show my remorse for having formed so execrable a Declaration and I do hereby solemnly promise and swear on the Holy Evangelist that no vessel of mine shall clear on stamped paper; that I never will on any Pretence make use of Stamped Paper unless that use be authorized by the General Assembly of this Colony.
ARCHIBALD RITCHIE.
At Norfolk, Virginia, the Sons of Liberty resolved to use “all lawful ways and means” that Providence had put in their hands for preserving the right “of being taxed by none but representatives of their own choosing, and of being tried only by a jury of their own peers”; in London, the agents of the Colonies and some of the merchants were pleading before Committees of Commons for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Benjamin Franklin underwent examination at great length, by friends and by adversaries, before Commons in Committee of the Whole, and he won great praise by his answers. The prime distinction he drew in his argument was between a tax on commerce, imposed and accepted in the interest of the empire, and a direct internal tax on the American Colonies, levied without their consent.
Mercer was still another witness before the Committee. He thought the burden of the stamp tax would fall most heavily on the poor because the great part of the taxes were “very trifling” in amount and would mean little to persons of wealth. Mercer made the distinction on which Franklin had laid much emphasis: “The grand objection was to any internal tax, and this is the only institution to which the Legislature has been opposed.”
Other witnesses were equally firm in saying that attempted enforcement of the Stamp Act would be calamitous and that nothing less than complete repeal would satisfy the Colonials or save the merchants. Perhaps the most vehement cry of all was in a petition of the London merchants, who described the markets that had been created in the Colonies for British goods and the benefits that had been Britain’s from commodities the Colonies had shipped in part payment for the products sent them. “. . . this commerce,” the merchants told the Commons, “so beneficial to the State and so necessary for the support of multitudes, now lies under such difficulties and discouragements that nothing less than utter ruin is apprehended without the immediate interposition of Parliament.”
Virginians did not hear promptly of any of this, but they learned that the Rockingham ministry still held office and that friends of the Colonies were urging the repeal of the Stamp Act. Commerce remained at a standstill. Conversation was changed, too. When men of station were not talking of repeal of the act, their speech was of how to carry on the business of plantations in spite of it. Ladies of fashion had pride no longer in what they were importing from England but in what they were doing without. Refusal to send orders to Britain now was as sure a distinction as the high cost of an invoice of fine dress previously had been. The enforced self-dependence of the frontier had become the voluntary law of life in the Tidewater.
In the midst of this period of protest and uncertainty Washington made a journey in April to the Dismal Swamp with his brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis. They found the Negroes making sufficient progress to renew faith in the undertaking. So hopeful were the visitors that they decided to purchase on their own account approximately 1100 acres of Marmaduke Norfleet’s land for £1200 Virginia currency. It was a dangerously large obligation to be assumed at a time of perplexity by a man already in debt to his London merchant for a considerable sum; but Washington believed in the future of the swamp. When he believed in anything he would stake his money on his judgment.
The early days of May brought developments that seemed to justify faith in the future. As if she were proud to be the messenger, the ship Lady Baltimore arrived in York River May 2 with news for which the entire Colony had been hoping: the Stamp Act had been repealed! After a resounding debate in which Pitt was the strategist against the measure, Commons had voted to erase the offending tax from the statute books. On the first division, the Lords voted fifty-nine to fifty-four for the execution of the Stamp Act, but in the end they accepted the repeal bill. Royal assent was given March 18. Merchants had been so confident this would be the action of Parliament that some of them already had started cargoes to America. Commercial England’s gratification was as nothing compared with the jubilation of America. Resistance had justified itself, one element proclaimed; faith in King and Parliament, said others, had been vindicated.
So completely were Washington’s fellow-planters convinced of the sympathy of Parliament with the Colonies’ interpretation of constitutional principles that scarce attention was paid in Virginia to a “Declaratory Act” that had been responsible, in part, for the willingness of the Lords to reverse their vote against repeal. The measure, passed almost simultaneously with the repeal bill, referred to the assertion by the Colonies of the exclusive right of taxing themselves. In plain words the Colonies were told they did not possess that right without qualification. The act set forth that Crown and Parliament “had, hath and of right ought to have the full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the Colonies and people of America, subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” Further, Colonial proceedings of every sort that challenged or disputed the powers of King and Parliament were “utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.”
This declaration was warning to the Colonies that the repeal of the Stamp Act was not to be regarded as an admission that the law itself was unconstitutional or that the provisions of it were arbitrary and tyrannical. Parliament, in fact, did more than assert full authority to do again what it voluntarily had undone: it served notice that it could and, if need be, would declare Colonial laws of no effect—a power that previously had been exclusively the prerogative of the Crown. This was minimized, if not ignored by the leaders of the General Assembly who felt that it mattered little, as they saw it, that powers had been declared that never would be exercised by Parliament.
It was tragic for the leaders of the General Assembly that the news of the repeal should be followed on May 11 by the death of Speaker Robinson, who for many years had seemed to exemplify good will. Death was not his worst fate. Robinson was buried with honor and lament; Robert Carter Nicholas was named in his place as Treasurer. Then in a short time the new official reported that Robinson was delinquent in some vast, undetermined sum, which enemies styled defalcation and apologists declared to be loans made to protect the estates of friends.
Governor Fauquier formally proclaimed the repeal of the Stamp Act on June 6 and thereby gave justices and lawyers, merchants and planters the signal to go back to work. Washington wrote his merchants: “The repeal of the Stamp Act, to whatsoever causes owing, ought much to be rejoiced at, for had the Parliament of Great Britain resolved upon enforcing it, the consequences I conceive would have been more direful than is generally apprehended both to the Mother Country and her Colonies. All therefore who were instrumental in procuring the repeal are entitled to the thanks of every British subject and have mine cordially.”
It was gratifying to get rid of so provocative an issue; doubly so because conditions at Mount Vernon called for the undiverted attention of the owner. The transfer from tobacco to wheat was not easy. A controversy was brewing with Carlyle & Adam over the proper weight of wheat per bushel. That firm, moreover, was far from prompt in paying. Information was discouragingly meagre concerning the growing and shipment of flax and hemp and the collection of the bounty offered by Parliament. Goods from England were high in price and, sometimes, poor in quality or shipped without regard to specifications. Unpleasantness found its place in letters and ledger-entries; the happiness of domestic life left no record except in the heart. Private life was better, not worse.
In this atmosphere the new Burgess from Fairfax received the usual summons to Williamsburg: Fauquier had set a date for a session of the General Assembly in March, then May, then July, and once again in September, only to postpone it finally to November. Washington went in style this time, with coach-and-six and with Martha and the children. He found himself immediately on the scene of a vigorous contest for the office of speaker, vacated by the death of Robinson. The potentates were divided over a choice between Peyton Randolph and Richard Bland. The majority were for Randolph, who proceeded at once to take the chair and organize the House. First action was a unanimous vote for the appointment of a committee to examine the state of the Treasury and, in particular, to scrutinize all receipts and check all issues of Virginia paper money after 1754. Bland was named chairman, with ten associates from among the ablest members of the House.
The committee had to go back in Robinson’s accounts to April, 1755, from which date it followed all the issues of Treasury notes, all the collections and all the major disbursements—a long and troublesome task. The committee concluded that the balance due by Robinson was £100,761, and his administrators asked three years in which to settle. The Assembly was loath to prolong the period during which the Colony might be crippled by the defalcation. After discussion in Committee of the Whole, the decision was, first, to request the Governor to institute suits against Robinson’s estate, and, second, to instruct the Attorney General, after obtaining judgment against Robinson’s securities, not to issue executions in a larger sum than was necessary to make good the difference between what Robinson owed and what his estate would yield. Measures thought to compass all that could be done at the moment to recover the £100,000 of which the people had been defrauded were enacted. The legislation was prompt and uncompromising, but the humiliation persisted: through Robinson, the integrity of the ruling class had been assailed.
Washington bore his part of responsibility for the decisions in the Robinson case, and he took advantage of his proximity to the Dismal Swamp to visit the new enterprise for a week. He continued to believe that money devoted to the work would prove an investment of high value. It was pleasant to look forward to the development of new, rich farms because some of those on the Potomac still seemed to rebel against anything that was planted after the plow had passed over. Washington now owned 9581 acres of land on which he was paying quit rents of 2s. 6d. per hundred acres—a total that did not include any of the plantations acquired through Martha. Custis farms that year had grown tobacco to fill seventeen hogsheads for Washington and fifty-one for Jackie Custis—a short crop. From the Potomac, Washington received none of the staple other than “rent tobacco” which eight tenants had raised. The wheat crop of 1766 had been good, but neither yield nor weight had been exceptional. Nor were relations with the purchasers, Carlyle & Adam, marked by any closer approach to the spirit of full friendliness that Washington desired.
If Washington had sought or needed consolation, he would have found it in the delights of home life and the knowledge that Mount Vernon was better equipped every year. If money could be made on the thin land of the area adjacent to Hunting Creek, Washington now had the slaves and the implements to make it. He was becoming more and more rooted into the life of the Potomac. Seven years of almost constant residence on the river had increased his love of his land and waterfront and his interest in the advancement of the simple institutions of Fairfax County and Alexandria. On the death of George Johnston, one of the trustees of the town, Washington was named in his place. Another continuing, perhaps increasing, interest was in the affairs of Truro Parish. Now that he was a vestryman, he had duties which he discharged with diligence. Dr. Charles Green having died in 1765, the Rev. Lee Massey became minister and proceeded to appeal for the erection of a new church. Washington was one of five named to “view and examine” the structure at intervals. The master of Mount Vernon was designated also to handle the parish collection and, with George William Fairfax, to sell the parish tobacco for the payment of the minister and the erection of the new place of prayer. In signing these accounts, Washington soon was authorized to write “Warden” after his name.
Plans for 1767 at Mount Vernon were explicit. No tobacco was to be grown by Washington on any of his Potomac farms, though eight or ten of the “renters” would continue to pay in leaf. The main crop was to be wheat. Under the contract with Carlyle & Adam, all that grain grown by Washington would be delivered to that firm; but as the mill on Dogue Run was now operating smoothly on a moderate scale, it could grind the wheat of other planters from whom Washington might buy flour as well as take toll. More corn would be planted. Experiments with hemp and flax would be continued for another year. The schooner could be used in fishing and, when not needed for other purposes, might be chartered by planters or shipmasters. Weaving would be the farm industry Washington would develop most vigorously, because the shortage of specie had increased the demand for homespun. The carpenters would erect a barn on the Neck Plantation. There would be vigorous prosecution of the bold venture of draining Dismal Swamp; and if fine western land could be found at a low figure, it must be purchased, even though Cary & Co. had to wait a little longer for the balance due them. These plans were followed in 1767 with few disappointments.
In February Washington went to Williamsburg on business of the Custis estate, and in mid-March he had to attend another session of the House of Burgesses. It did not prove exciting. Perhaps the report that created most talk was another on the state of Treasurer Robinson’s accounts, which showed a payment to the Colony of only £553 by his administrators. His outstanding delinquency, recomputed, was set down as slightly over £102,000. The familiar, almost unendurable shortage of money that made the sale of Robinson’s property slow and expensive was the subject of attempts at relief legislation. The day the Council said “No” to these proposals, April 11, the Governor prorogued the Assembly.
Washington again found occasion for a visit to Dismal Swamp, and he arranged for advertising a lease of the Custis plantation near Williamsburg. Then he went home and, among other things, renewed a controversy with Carlyle & Adam. The issue was that of weight per bushel. Contention was sharpened because the merchants had written Washington bluntly that they “had rather be £1000 in any other gentleman’s debt than the trifling sum of £100” in debt to him.
Washington’s code of noblesse oblige would not permit him to turn away debt-distraught friends, perplexed farmers of humble station who valued his judgment above the advice of lawyers and the more so because it cost them nothing, old soldiers who seemed to think their Colonel must remain their counsellor, or aging planters of wealth who wanted a prudent executor of their will or a careful guardian of their sons. All these were beginning now to call on Washington. To hear them took hours; to solve their problems or relieve their distress sometimes called for days. It was costly but it was not shunned. Instead, Washington’s service for his neighbors daily increased his sense of obligation to them and, at the same time, gave him longer patience and new understanding of men. Contact with human woe subtly slackened his acquisitive impulse and tightened his self-discipline. He had to be more diligent and orderly than ever in looking after his own business, because he had to give so much of his time to the affairs of others. All this service was training, though he probably did not so regard it and certainly did not ask himself for what purpose this training would be used.
While the wheat crop still was being stored in the driest barns on the plantations, Washington went with Martha and the children to the Berkeley Springs. Along with the cripples and the feeble, Washington met at the Springs an old comrade of the French and Indian War—Col. John Armstrong, senior officer of the Pennsylvania contingent in Forbes’s campaign of 1758. Washington did not have much of the Pennsylvanian’s company at the resort, but he learned that Armstrong was residing at Carlisle and had some connection with a public land office in Pennsylvania.
By the middle of the second week in September Washington was back at Mount Vernon with his appetite for western lands whetted by developments in controversies over the boundary lines of Pennsylvania. To ascertain the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had started work in 1764. Their survey had been suspended in November 1766 but now was being extended. Washington received information that valuable lands, previously unpatented, were to be declared within Pennsylvania and might be procured under grants of that Colony. He began a campaign to get 1500 or 2000 or even more acres of the best of this land. Capt. William Crawford, another old comrade of Forbes’s march to the Ohio, resided on the Youghiogheny, in the very country towards which Washington was looking. Two letters went promptly to the Captain to enlist his services. Crawford must find out how patents could be had; Colonel Armstrong would help him; if Crawford succeeded, Washington would compensate him and, in the spring of 1768, would visit him on the Youghiogheny to explain the whole matter and another of even greater importance, which he proceeded to sketch.
This was the patenting of a very large tract west of the Pennsylvania boundary and west, also, of the “Proclamation Line” set over the royal seal, October 2, 1763. That frontier separated the eastern settlements of all Colonies from the lands left to the Indians for their hunting and occupancy. Washington confided to Crawford: “. . . I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians and must fall of course in a few years especially when those Indians are consenting to our occupying their lands. Any person therefore who neglects the present opportunity of hunting out good lands and in some measure marking and distinguishing them for their own (in order to keep others from settling them) will never regain it. . . .” A loose partnership was to be formed: Crawford must locate the lands in the closed area and must mark them; Washington would pay all the costs of surveys and patents and would engage to procure the lands as soon as possible. A letter was dispatched to Colonel Armstrong: would he please advise concerning the procedure for patenting lands in Pennsylvania? Armstrong would do all he could to assist; Crawford was entirely at Washington’s command.
