Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  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.

  CHAPTER / 7

  The close of 1767 would have been peaceful and the beginning of 1768 cheerful but for action of the British Parliament. There was insistent exercise of the right of taxation asserted in the Declaratory Act. Import duties were fixed on paints and their ingredients, glass, many kinds of paper, and all tea. Proceeds were to pay for a central customs system and then for the compensation of Governors and other officials of the Crown. These Townshend Acts, so styled after the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were passed between June 15 and July 2, 1767. When known in America, they were denounced as violations of the fundamental rights of Englishmen in America. Everywhere, public men renewed the argument that it was tyrannical to have taxes levied without the consent of the people who were to pay them.

  The future of all the Colonial legislative bodies might be forecast by the punishment imposed on the New York Assembly under the first of the Townshend Acts. Because the greater part of the British troops in America had been billeted on New York, the Assembly had declined to vote salt, vinegar and cider or beer, on the ground that these were not allowed His Majesty’s troops in European barracks, though the Assembly did not withhold the grant it previously had made under the Quartering Act of 1765. When Gen. Thomas Gage reported this to the home government, Charles Townshend had Parliament pass a stern act: The New York Assembly was suspended from the exercise of its functions until it complied with all the requirements the British commander set for billeting his troops.

  Alarm over this “Suspending Act” spread throughout the Colonies. Previously assemblies had been convened, prorogued and dissolved by the Governor, as the representative of the Crown. Now it appeared that Parliament had usurped royal authority at the behest of an irritated politician. Parliamentary control of Colonial lawmakers, taxation without representation, a royal rein on Governors and judges because they had to look to the King for their pay, the denial to the assemblies of control over customs—these provisions of the Townshend Acts, taken together, were regarded as a threat to the most essential rights of America. If these rights were lost, what remained?

  For Colonel Washington 1768 began with hope for benefits from the shift from tobacco growing to wheat. The change meant vast saving in labor, for no Virginia crop is quite so demanding of time and toil as tobacco. New tasks now could be undertaken—the development of farm-fisheries, improvement of the mill, expansion of weaving, construction of a new barn and enlargement of the residence at Mount Vernon. Washington had more time for hunting and could look forward to visiting in summer Martha’s kinsfolk and his own. He entered zestfully into fox hunting, shooting and card-playing. March called for more farm activities, and the Colonel had to contend with his first illness in several years.

  A session of Assembly opened the last day of March and was prorogued April 16, without attendance by the junior Burgess from Fairfax. It was a session of some distinction. To the general grief of the Colony, Governor Fauquier had lost on March 3 a long struggle with illness. Burial in the Williamsburg church was with every honor the people could give him. His temporary successor, under existing practice, could be none other than the President of the Council. John Blair, who held that office, was eighty-one years of age, but was alert, acceptable and able, though reluctant to assume the duties of Governor. On assuming the post, “Mr. President” had believed that Fauquier’s call for a session of Assembly at the end of March should stand, because the reason for it remained. Encroachment by white settlers on Indian lands had aroused the Redmen to threats of reprisal that were alarming the frontier. The Assembly resolved politely to urge Indians and frontiersmen to avoid hostilities. Its most serious deliberations were on the Townshend Acts. Freeholders of half a dozen counties had sent protests against these measures and in support of the appeal the Massachusetts General Court had made February 11 for united action of the Colonies against measures that deprived them of their rights. Virginia Burgesses drafted another address to the King, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the House of Commons.

  These papers were more argumentatively explicit and somewhat less rhetorical than those adopted prior to the passage of the Stamp Act. The Virginians maintained more vigorously than ever that the fundamental principle of British government was, “No power on earth has a right to impose taxes upon the people or to take the smallest portion of their property without their consent, given by their representatives in Parliament.” As the Colonies were not and could not be represented in Commons, the right of self-taxation must rest exclusively in the Colonial legislative bodies. The “Suspending Act” aimed at the New York Assembly presented the Virginians with possibilities they had not canvassed in any of their previous declarations, but in their appeal to Parliament they merely branded the statute as even “more alarming” than the other measures. The Burgesses were not divided as in 1764; they were unanimous in approving all three papers. The Council concurred, and agreed that its representative in England would join the regular agent of the Colony in supporting address, memorial and remonstrance. Finally, and again with unanimity, Speaker Randolph was given two instructions: First, he was to reply to the “circular Letter” of the Massachusetts House “that we could not but applaud them for their attention to American liberty and that the steps we had taken thereon would convince them of our opinion of the fatal tendency of the acts of Parliament complained of and of our fixed resolution to concur with the other Colonies in their application for redress.” Second, he was “to write to the respective Speakers of the Assemblies and Representatives on this continent to make known to them our proceedings on this subject and to intimate how necessary we think it is that the Colonies should unite in a firm but decent opposition to every measure which may affect the rights and liberties of the British Colonies in America.” Common danger created common cause.

  Colonel Washington’s absence denied him the right of voting “Aye” on the adoption of these papers. Had he been present he would not have hesitated for an instant. Once the issue became that of the rights of Virginians, it no longer was in the realm of debate with him. Thereafter his course of duty was plain.

  That spring, the children’s tutor, Walter Magowan, decided to proceed to England to seek admission to holy orders. Mrs. Washington might provide instruction for Patsy at Mount Vernon or in the neighborhood, but the stepfather had to find a teacher for Jackie. Washington had heard of the well-attended school for boys that Jonathan Boucher, rector of St. Mary’s, Caroline County, was conducting on the minister’s glebe, twelve miles from the church. The Colonel wrote forthwith to Boucher. Boucher’s replies contained first a doubt, because the school might be moved to Maryland, and then an eagerness to have “Master Custis.” About July 1, Jackie was escorted by Washington to Caroline County along with his body servant, two horses and luggage but without sundry Latin texts he soon was to need.

  On June 13 Washington and Martha rode to Belvoir, where Colonel and Mrs. Fairfax were entertaining. On their return home Patsy suddenly became ill and had what unmistakably was a fit. Dr. William Rumney was summoned and was able to relieve the twelve-year-old girl. She recovered to such an extent that the physician felt justified in leaving the next morning, but the child’s illness was alarming. Fits might recur. The solicitous mother could do nothing more than the doctor suggested, except to give Patsy the pleasure of pretty possessions.

  Tobacco once again had a bad season. Four years in five Washington had received less money, net, for the leaf he had sent to England than he could have commanded for it at Dumfries. This year he sold 53,000 lbs. at 22s. 6d. per hundredweight, Virginia currency, to Hector Ross of Colchester. The crops of 1768 from the York were twenty hogsheads of Washington’s and thirty-six of Jackie’
s. These probably would go to England. The debt to Cary & Co. had not yet been discharged, but Washington’s credits were accumulating. A fine wheat crop yielded more than 4900 bushels. Washington ordered a new chariot, the specifications of which he drew with much care. Circumstances seemed, also, to justify expenditure for handsome clothing and more luxuries. During the spring and summer Washington attended two meetings of the company that sought acreage on the Mississippi, and in October he set out again for the Dismal Swamp where he spent three days.

  From the Great Dismal, Washington went back to Williamsburg to make an inspection of the Custis farms and attend the autumn session of the General Court. As soon as he reached the capital, Washington learned that a proclamation had been issued October 27 for the dissolution of the General Assembly. This was the act of the new Governor, Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, who had arrived ceremoniously the day before he signed the paper. Lest the Virginians assume that his proclamation indicated a suspension of the General Assembly, the Governor announced in the document that he intended “shortly to issue writs for the election of Burgesses to serve in the new Assembly at such time as by the advice of his Majesty’s Council shall be judged most fit and convenient.” The attitude of the new Governor was conciliatory. He said nothing of instructions to curb the resentful Colonials; no word came that dissolution was punishment for the papers of protest adopted in April. To most of the Burgesses the proclamation meant only that if they wanted to retain their seats they had to undergo the expense and annoyance of an election in the late autumn.

  Washington had no thought of declining the contest. He felt the responsibility and enjoyed the distinction. Besides, he just now had attained to the full honors of a gentleman of the county and he did not wish to forgo any of them. In addition to holding the office of Burgess and that of Warden of Truro Parish, he was appointed in September a Justice of the County Court of Fairfax and a member of the Court of Oyer and Terminer of the County.