At Mount Vernon he found everything in order. There was ample leisure for fox-hunting. Dinners followed hunts; the pheasant as well as the fox was sought. In anticipation of success in the election December 1, Washington arranged a ball to which his adherents were invited. The poll justified both the plan and the expense, which reached the stout sum of £25 12s. Washington and John West were re-elected—Washington by a somewhat smaller lead than in the previous poll. Capt. John Posey again was the third man in the field and the loser. When the vote had been counted and proclaimed, well-wishers danced till the night was gone.
After that came Christmas and, in the New Year, 1769, new plans and commitments. At home, the slaves worked on opening an avenue to the house; from Pennsylvania Crawford wrote of the land he had procured in his own name for Washington, though the Captain had to admit the prospect of getting large tracts on the Kanawha did not appear bright. In the green upcountry, Washington had bought 2682 acres in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties from the estate of George Carter, and in March he went to survey it and divide it into small tracts.
On his return to Mount Vernon he did not find the usual cheer. Patsy had suffered more fits and apparently had to face recurring affliction. Washington grieved with Martha and with the girl, but he did not let sorrow in his own household blind him to opportunity in other homes. Having no son of his own, he was interested in the promising boys of his neighbors, and as his means increased so did his beneficence. The old acquisitiveness remained: it was dignified by a new philanthropy. He found it inconvenient at the moment to comply with the request his friend William Ramsay of Alexandria made for a loan, but he had heard Ramsay speak in praise of New Jersey College as if it were the wish of the father to have young William Ramsay attend that school. Washington accordingly wrote that he would make £25 a year available for the education of the youth. In what was the most generous sentence that ever had come from his pen, Washington wrote: “No other return is expected or wished for this offer than that you will accept it with the same freedom and good will with which it is made, and that you may not even consider it in the light of an obligation, or mention it as such; for be assured that from me it will never be known.”
These were the channels in which life was moving—now over shoals, now over rocks and now through pleasant pastures when, early in April, Washington received from Dr. David Ross of Bladensburg, Maryland, papers in which proposals were made for “associations” of merchants and citizens who would agree not to import or buy non-essential British goods so long as Parliament undertook to impose direct taxes or suppress Colonial assemblies. Washington read the papers and then forwarded them to George Mason. Vigorously Washington wrote: “At a time when our lordly Masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprication [sic] of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we had derived from our ancestors; but the manner of doing it to answer the purpose effectually is the point in question.” He dropped a line and continued as if what he was about to say was almost too obvious to labor: “That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use a-ms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; yet A-ms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource, the denier [dernier] resort.”
Washington continued his letter after he had spoken grimly of an appeal to arms as the last resort of the Colonials. The northern Colonies, Washington went on, were using associations of merchants to put pressure on British trades. This method might be an effective weapon if generally employed. Clashing interests would make difficult cutting off importation of British goods. This would be particularly true in the tobacco Colonies, Washington reasoned, because trade there was diffused and conducted not by native merchants but by factors “at home.” Even so the enterprise would not be hopeless if gentlemen would stop importation and purchase and would “explain matters to the people.” “The more I consider a scheme of this sort,” Washington wrote, “the more ardently I wish success to it. . . .” Public gain might be uncertain, because, if Parliament could tax, it could prohibit manufactures in the Colonies. Methods had to be considered. It might be well to delay action until the General Court and the Assembly met in May and agreed on a plan that could be put in operation simultaneously in all the counties.
There scarcely was a clause in any of this to show Washington realized he was entering the field of political leadership. As a Burgess since 1759 he had transacted his constituents’ public business, presented their petitions, voted according to his judgment and convictions and learned much about the mind and methods of lawmaking bodies. He had not yet essayed to be a leader.
Mason already had concluded that Virginia should follow the northern Colonies in organizing firm associations for the non-importation of British goods, though he believed the tobacco Colonies had to use certain British goods the northern Colonies could do without because New England, New York and Pennsylvania had some manufactures of their own. Now he prepared a list of the articles he thought Virginia could refuse to buy in Britain. Mason sent Washington the first text of this paper and later forwarded a few amendments. Neither Mason nor Washington had ever looked at exports and imports from the viewpoint of the plain farmer. Consequently they drafted the terms of the proposed association according to the requirements of plantation management. The view of both men was that if this association led to repeal of the Townshend Acts, a full resumption of trade across the Atlantic was to be desired, because it was beneficial both to the mother country and to America. Should Parliament be unwilling to ease the statutes, then, said Mason, Virginia should stop exports to England, particularly of tobacco, “by which the revenue would lose fifty times more than all their oppressions could raise here.”
When Washington set out for Williamsburg April 30 he had with him the final text of Mason’s paper. The journey, which took four days, was not given over entirely to reflection on the grievances of his Majesty’s subjects in America. Washington had a new, nearer and more personal interest. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix with the Iroquois, November 5, 1768, and the Treaty of Hard Labour with the Cherokees, October 14, 1768, had wiped out the “Proclamation Line” of 1763. The Iroquois had agreed to surrender their claims to territory on a line from Fort Stanwix near Lake Oneida, New York, to Fort Pitt and thence along the eastern bank of the Ohio to the mouth of the Cherokee (Tennessee) River. By their treaty, the Cherokees yielded everything east and northeast from Fort Chiswell to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The two pacts threw open country to which Washington long had been looking. By prompt action with Captain Crawford he could hope to patent some thousands of acres. Another prospect was having the Colony execute the formal pledge of Governor Dinwiddie and the Council in 1754 to allot two hundred thousand acres of land to those who would volunteer to go to the Ohio “to erect and support” the fort to be built at “The Forks.” Now, Dinwiddie’s promise could come into effect. Two hundred thousand acres, divided “in a proportion due to . . . respective merit”! That was a promise no government should be allowed to forget: By any arithmetic it meant some thousands of acres to be added to the holdings of George Washington.
At Williamsburg he found most of the old leaders returned in the December election. Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, Peyton Randolph, Archibald Cary and Charles Carter all were there. Patrick Henry now represented Hanover. An unusual number of new members appeared. Among these was a tall, thin young man of twenty-six who represented Albemarle—Thomas Jefferson. During the term of the Assembly’s sessions Washington found time and opportunity to acquaint the Governor with the terms of the proclamation of February 1754. While he did this in a cursory manner, he had no intention of leaving so large and valuable a grant where it might or might not be remembered by Lord Botetourt. The Colonel was sowing the seed now; he would come again, to till and then to harvest.
As legislation was neither large in volume nor important in
scope, Burgesses talked much of what might be accomplished by such an association as Mason had modeled after those in the northern Colonies and had sketched in the paper entrusted to Washington. There was discussion of threats in Parliament to have persons accused of treason in the Colonies sent to England for trial. A statute of Henry VIII, authorizing this, had been unearthed and brandished over the heads of the Colonials. This alarmed Vriginians. They had begun to lose faith in appeals to Parliament and felt that a blow at England’s trade was a better defence than was argument.
A motion was made on May 16 to refer to the Committee of the Whole the early British acts on treason trials that had been cited as justification for sending offending Colonials to England. Debate on these statutes and on the operation of the tax laws disclosed no difference of opinion. Inclusive resolutions were presented for reaffirmation of the principle that the sole right of taxing the inhabitants of Virginia was and always had been vested in the House of Burgesses. A second resolution asserted the right of petition to the throne. Next came solemn affirmation of the right of trial in Virginia of any person charged with any crime there. Unanimously, the House approved its own action in Committee of the Whole, resolved to continue its discussion of the state of the Colony, and directed that the Speaker send copies of the paper to the presiding officers of all the American Colonies, with a request that the other Assemblies concur.
The House proceeded to routine business the next day. At length about noon, the Sergeant-at-Arms called out: “Mr. Speaker, a message from the Governor!”
Nathaniel Walthoe, Clerk of the General Assembly, strode down the aisle and halted. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “the Governor commands the immediate attendance of your House in the Council Chamber.”
Down from his chair and out of the House Randolph walked. Behind him the Burgesses streamed up the stairs to the council chamber. Governor Botetourt waited until the last members had massed around the table and along the walls. Then he said: “Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, I have heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their effect: You have made it my duty to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly.”
Dissolved! If this was the spirit of a Governor well-disposed to Virginia, what was to be expected of a Parliament that was threatening to invoke against Americans a two-hundred-year-old treason act? Soon word was passed that there was to be a meeting at Raleigh Tavern. Thither most of the Burgesses flocked and into its largest room, the Apollo. Randolph was elected Moderator. The House reconvened unofficially and listened as members gave warning that the Colony soon might lose its liberties. Washington was the one man who had a definite plan—in the form of Mason’s project for an association—and he consequently had to take a more prominent part than ever before in a deliberative body. Motion was made that an Association be formed and that a committee be chosen to prepare a plan. At length the motion was put and passed; the committee was named with Washington one of its members; adjournment was taken until the next day to give the committee time to draft its recommendations.
The questions to be determined by the committee were the practical ones of the articles to be excluded, the date when the Association should become operative, duration of the agreement, and methods by which all citizens could be induced to sign. On almost all these points Mason’s draft was accepted. In an effort to make non-importation hurt Virginia as little as possible, while alarming Britain by the loss of exports, the committee endorsed a highly complicated scheme: No taxed article—tea, paint, pigment, paper other than the cheapest sheets—was to be imported. Of the supply in the Colony, none was to be purchased after September 1, 1769, for so long as it was taxed by Parliament. During the continuance of the tax on those particular items, none of a long list of untaxed luxuries and articles of British manufactures was to be brought to America on new invoices or was to be purchased after September 1. The Association could be dissolved only at a general meeting of the subscribers after a month’s prior notice of the meeting or automatically after the taxes were terminated. Even if the Association were abandoned by consent, the pledge against the importation and purchase of taxed articles would remain in force.
The next morning the document was approved and signed by the members. By no means all the Burgesses signed. Absentees included, twenty-two members of a House of 116 failed to attach their signatures. Even in the face of this dissent the majority represented three-fourths of the House and nearly all the men apt to have influence in prevailing on the people to join the Association. Virginia would stand with her northern sisters.
At Mount Vernon when Washington drew rein on the evening of the twenty-second, the house was full of guests. Jackie was there with the Reverend Boucher, his new instructor. Magowan had come to report himself back from England, duly accepted for holy orders. Dr. Rumney was paying a social call. Mrs. John Bushrod and Mrs. Warner Washington, with their families, were on a visit. Plans were afoot for attending a race at Cameron and a barbecue in Alexandria.
After a brief season of festivities, Washington again took up a life that combined direction of his own farms, patient effort to solve some of the problems of his neighbors and steadfast planning for the increase of his estate. In the early summer of 1769 he had, also, a measure of responsibility to make it certain that planters of his county understood the Association and subscribed to it. He followed closely and shared personally in what was done to acquaint the residents of Fairfax and Prince William Counties with the Williamsburg agreement, and he hoped for hearty endorsement of it everywhere in Virginia. Reports from the capital were not encouraging. The fact was, the Association soon proved itself too rigid and too complicated.
Washington, Martha and Patsy set off July 31 in the chariot and on August 6 reached Berkeley Springs. Lord Fairfax and George William Fairfax were in residence; life was as agreeable as it could be at so crude a place; but Patsy’s recurring illness did not improve. By September 9, chill, circumstance and the calls of business led the Washingtons to start home. Then the Colonel had to go to Alexandria for the election of a new House of Burgesses. Nobody challenged the incumbents; Washington and West were declared the county’s choice.
Lord Botetourt called the General Assembly to open on November 7. For the sake of Martha’s company and her own pleasure, Washington wished to take his wife and Patsy with him. Jackie prevailed on his mother to let him go, too. For so many travelers, the new chariot would be needed. It had never been shown in Williamsburg, and it should be. Its carved exterior and its green leather furnishings were not altogether unworthy of appearing on the same street with Governor Botetourt’s coach. It was the last day of October when the chariot left Mount Vernon and November 6 when Washington reached Williamsburg. Martha and Patsy were to stop with Mrs. Washington’s sister, Mrs. Burwell Bassett, at Eltham. Later the family would come to Williamsburg and join in the festivities there. In Williamsburg, also, there would be opportunity to have Patsy examined by the Colony’s leading physicians. Jackie was to spend a few days at each place and then go back to school.
The day after Washington reached town he attended the opening of the General Assembly, took the oaths and, with his fellow-members, listened to a speech which showed why the Governor, Lord Botetourt, so readily enlarged good will already acquired. Although the membership was substantially that of the General Assembly he had sent home in May, His Excellency had not a word to say regarding the circumstances of the dissolution. Instead, the Governor told of the King’s approval of a farther extension of the boundary in the Cherokee country if Virginia would bear the expense of negotiating it. Botetourt hastened to repeat assurance from Lord Hillsborough “that his Majesty’s present administration have at no time entertained a design to propose to Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America for the purpose of raising a revenue, and that it is their intention to propose in the next session of Parliament to take off the duties upon glass, paper and colors, upon consideration of such duties having been laid contrary to the true princip
les of commerce.”
Botetourt scarcely could have phrased it more skillfully, nor have announced more deftly what was in reality a proposal for a compromise—that the tax on tea only was to be left but that the repeal was to be ostensibly in the interest of commerce and must not be regarded as an admission that Parliament had no right to levy internal taxes on America. Most of the Burgesses accepted the Governor’s statement as the proclamation of a truce, but they did not overlook the fact that the tax on tea was to remain.
The most important general measure in which Washington had personal interest was an address to the King, accompanied by a memorial to the Governor, on the extension of the western boundary in the Cherokee country. Determination of this line might affect the claim that veterans of the expedition of 1754 had to bounty land. Washington’s eager examination of the chances of getting this land had uncovered three obstacles. The first was the multiplicity of large western grants and “orders” for land. At least one of these must be taken seriously—an enterprise to be associated with the names of Samuel Wharton and Thomas Walpole and to be known as the “Walpole Grant.” This might lead to the establishment of a large new colony, with its own government and with authority to make or to deny land grants. Second was the occupation of so much land around Fort Pitt by previous patentees that it was doubtful whether the one hundred thousand acres promised in that region to the veterans would be anything more than barren mountainside. Third was the question: Did not the volunteers of 1755 have a right to share this bounty?
Washington first made these difficulties clear in his own mind. Then he developed means of dealing with them. He and other interested persons had Dinwiddie’s proclamation of February 18, 1754, read in the House and placed on the table “to be perused by the members”—a familiar preliminary to the introduction of a motion for the drafting of a bill. The next day the House voted an address to the Governor concerning the lands between the Allegheny Mountains and a line drawn from the western boundary of North Carolina to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. In those instances where the usual terms of “seating” grants had not been met in this area, the Burgesses wished to know whether the government of the Colony had made any pledge to confirm “orders” previously approved by Council. Further, would the Governor be pleased to discourage monopolies of land in Virginia? On the third day Washington wrote the Governor, outlined the history of the claim and explained why he thought no veterans except those of 1754 had any right to share in the grant. He had completed this letter and was preparing to transmit it to the Governor, when one of his fellow-claimants, Dr. Thomas Walker, told him that the lands close to Fort Pitt had been reserved for traders. Washington mentioned this in a postscript and added that if this were the case, the former soldiers would rather have good lands laid out for them elsewhere than await a final determination in England of their rights at the forks of the Ohio in competition with those of the traders.
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