The Governor answered the address of the House with the assurance that no commitments had been made and that no monopolies would be approved by him. Then, on December 15, in formal petition the officers and men of the expedition of 1754 asked His Excellency that the land promised them be granted “in one or more surveys” on the Monongahela, New River, the Great Kanawha, Sandy Creek and adjacent streams.
The response of Governor and Council on the question of allotting the land was one of hearty acquiescence: Virginia would keep her word. If one very large area of rich land could be located, all the grants might be within it, but if exploration showed that the men could do better for themselves by searching out individual stretches of good land, they would be free to do so. Then Council decided that claimants could make as many as twenty surveys but no more. In these twenty areas must be contained all the two hundred thousand acres the veterans were to receive. On lesser details, Council’s action conformed to the petitioners’ wishes: Washington was free to urge the College of William and Mary to appoint some properly qualified person to survey the land and authorized to say this would be agreeable to Council. He was directed to advertise that all claims should be attested by October 10, 1770. As he knew his old soldiers individually, they were to present their claims to him. He was to certify them to Council for final determination. Five years were to be allowed for surveying. No person could qualify “who entered the service after the Battle of the Meadows in 1754.”
So much legislation had Washington and his fellow-members to consider that it was December 21 when they were able to adjourn. Washington left Williamsburg that day, slept that night at Eltham, and on the twenty-second set out with his family for home. On the twenty-eighth, the Colonel and Martha and Patsy were back at Mount Vernon, where Jackie and Mr. Boucher joined in the festivities of the Year’s End.
It had been the best year of the eleven spent at Mount Vernon after Washington’s return from the French and Indian War. The collection of debts had been almost impossible; the burden of counselling the luckless had been heavy; a few loans had been made to embarrassed friends when it would have been more prudent to say “No.” In nearly every other aspect of Washington’s business affairs there had been success. More of the tenants were paying in cash; tobacco rents were still in excess of 8000 pounds, but this simply reflected increase in the number of farms leased to tenants. On Custis plantations a crop that had suffered from early drought had the prospect of a favorable market. Farm industries were thriving in a small way. Besides his weaving room and his smithy, Washington in 1769 developed his fisheries; a small consignment was available for shipment in the autumn to Antigua.
The main development of 1769 was in milling. Washington delivered to Carlyle & Adam 6241 bushels of wheat—almost six times as much as in 1765 when he first had undertaken large scale production. He had concluded in June that if there was a profit for Carlyle & Adam in selling his wheat to a miller, and a profit for the miller in dealing with the baker or merchant, he could make money by grinding his own wheat into flour. On December 30 he made an agreement with John Ball to build a mill in which he was feeling already an ambitious interest.
It would be a busy year, 1770! Washington’s largest stake was in the lands promised the volunteers of 1754. In apportionment of the acres, he might get 10,000 or even 15,000. There was another speculative opportunity under a royal proclamation of 1763. This authorized the Governors of the Colonies to grant “without fee or reward, to such reduced officers as have served in America during the late war, and to such private soldiers as have been, or shall be disbanded in America; and are actually residing there, and shall personally apply for the same, the following quantities of lands, subject at the expiration of ten years, to the same quitrents as other lands are subject to in the province within which they are granted, as also subject to the same conditions of cultivation and improvement, viz. To every person having the rank of a field officer, five thousand acres; to every Captain three thousand acres; to every subaltern or staff officer, two thousand acres; to every non-commissioned officer, two hundred acres; to every private man fifty acres.” There was doubt whether this was designed for soldiers of the Colonies as well as for those of the regular establishment. In either event, the initiative rested with the individual. Each veteran must make personal application. Few veterans knew what to expect or whether they actually would get anything. Former Lieut. Charles Mynn Thruston, for example, questioned Washington concerning this in a spirit of skepticism. Thruston would be entitled to two thousand acres under the proclamation but he was so discouraged that for £10 he forthwith sold his claim to Washington, who thought, for reasons of policy, that it would be well to have the transfer of the rights of Thruston made out to Lund Washington rather than to himself.
To Washington this was a gamble, nothing more nor less. “Could I purchase 12,000 or 15,000 acres upon the same terms,” he said, “I would do it, considering of it as a lottery only.” In telling his brother Charles of his plans to acquire additional claims under the proclamation of 1763, Washington wrote him to make inquiry about the willingness of former soldiers to sell their claims, and enjoined, “do not let it be known that I have any concern therein.” The form of agreement in the bargain with Thruston was to be followed. Charles was to act for his brother as Lund had done in the first purchase of rights.
Washington thus broadened his plans for the acquisition of western lands to embrace: first, his own claims and such others as he might procure for the bounty-lands promised in 1754; second, similar personal claims and those of indifferent or necessitous veterans under the proclamation of 1763; third, such patents of desirable land as might be taken out for him in Pennsylvania by Crawford; fourth, any further patents of large, well-watered fertile tracts that Crawford might find outside districts where grants already had been made, and finally, any rival or established claims that could be bought up at a low figure to assure a good title or single, sure ownership of wide stretches. Bold plans these were, and all the bolder because they might call for large outlays of cash when, as one merchant wrote, “the scarcity of money is so great in this country that it is impossible for ablest men to comply with their engagements.” Washington was willing to take the risk.
When he went to Williamsburg in May Washington had the advancement of the claims of the veterans of 1754 as one of his principal duties. He found little legislation of importance in prospect but much concern over the violence with which British troops in Boston on March 5 had fired on a crowd of about sixty rioters who had been engaged in a fight with a squad of soldiers. New England had been outraged and the other Colonies alarmed by this “Boston Massacre.” Another cause of concern in Williamsburg was the failure of the Association of May 18, 1769, to scare Parliament. Lord North, on May 1, 1769, had prevailed on the British Cabinet, by a majority of one, to keep the tax on tea, and seven months later, as First Lord of the Treasury, he took over the direction of affairs. This was not encouraging. In addition, there were in Virginia known and suspected cases of importation and purchase of goods contrary to the terms of the Association. Many planters had found the terms too exacting, and some had confused the provisions of the complicated document. Others may have professed ignorance to cover design. Even the most enthusiastic had to admit that if the non-importation agreement was to be kept alive, it had to be revised.
On May 25 Washington attended a meeting of the Association, where so many divergent opinions were expressed that a committee of twenty was appointed to formulate a new association on which general agreement might be reached. Washington was named to this committee, which uncovered opposition of such stubborn temper that hours of debate did not bring a meeting of minds.
The dispute on importation was dual—whether there should be any association at all, and, if so, whether it should be stern or moderate in its terms. Edmund Pendleton and others argued at least inferentially that the Association should be abandoned. Parliament, they said, had compromised; the Colonies shou
ld be equally reasonable. Landon Carter recorded this proposal and gave the answering argument: “Fine language this, as if there could be any half way between slavery; certainly one link of the former preserved might be the hold to which the rest of the chain might at any time be joined when the forging smiths thought proper to add to it.” Washington was for the sternest of non-importation agreements—“I could wish it to be ten times as strict,” he said later, but he felt that a covenant which did not command support of the merchants and supply the minimum requirements of planters would fail.
Final agreement was reached June 22, 1770, on a more moderate compact than the one of the previous year. Instead of denouncing prospective violators, it promised support to those “truly worthy merchants, traders, and others, inhabitants of this Colony, who shall hereafter conform to the spirit of this association.” Prohibited goods were limited, in the main, to luxuries and to expensive products. Washington signed this Association, resolved to conform fully to it, and did not deceive himself concerning the terms. It was, he said, “the best that the friends to the cause could obtain here, and though too much relaxed from the spirit with which a measure of this sort ought to be conducted, yet will be attended with better effects (I expect) than the last, inasmuch as it will become more general and adopted by the trade.”
In the House of Burgesses that sat while the Association was being revised, Washington was able to do no more in furtherance of the claim of the veterans of 1754 than to arrange for a meeting of beneficiaries in Fredericksburg. At this meeting, August 2, Washington met comrades whom he had not seen after he had left Wills Creek in 1754. He was less military now, of course, but not less businesslike. Agreement was reached on the percentage of the whole that would go to men of each rank. All participants were called upon to make a pro rata payment for surveys and other expenses. Washington was prevailed upon to assume the handling of this thorny business. He had a pleasant round of visits with Martha and Patsy in the Fredericksburg district. The only disappointment was that the girl gained nothing from the treatment of Dr. Hugh Mercer, whose professional reputation perhaps led the Colonel and Mrs. Washington to hope for more than any physician could accomplish.
When Washington brought Patsy and her mother back to Mount Vernon August 9, he had made one firm resolution on the whole question of western claims: he would go to the Ohio and Great Kanawha and make his own choice of vacant lands as soon as the dispatch of his business and the fall of the leaves favored the journey. Much had to be done in advance. First was the duty of having the planters and merchants in Fairfax sign the new Association, printed copies of which were available with the names of the original signers attached. Washington circulated these papers among his neighbors and doubtless entrusted to other hands copies for Alexandria and Dumfries. Nearly everyone signed; until the total reached 420. This done, the Colonel was ready to accept duty on the Fairfax Associators’ Committee whenever it was formed. Next was the building of the mill, a troublesome task that involved a controversy over encroachments on his land and a dispute over riparian rights. There were half-a-score of lesser, time-consuming matters to settle—invoices to be made out subject to the repeal of the British tax, a troublesome arbitration to be undertaken for friends, preparations for the shipment of a cargo of herring to the West Indies, a discussion of the possible navigation of the upper Potomac, and a review of a long, earnest correspondence with Boucher regarding Jackie’s immediate future.
The reverend instructor had concluded that a tour of Europe, with himself as mentor, would be a proper part of the education of Jackie who, the minister admitted, was proving himself, at seventeen, “constitutionally too warm, indolent and voluptuous.” Washington recoiled. Boucher had said that the travel would cost £1500 or £1600 a year; Washington explained that the sum exceeded the boy’s annual income, that he did not wish to expose himself to censure for reckless use of Jackie’s property and, in general, that while young Custis had “what is called a good estate, it is not a profitable one.” It was the first time Washington ever had made any such confession regarding the proudly held Custis plantations. He did not say that Jackie could not go; he left the question in abeyance with the probabilities somewhat against his approval of the “grand tour.”
By the time Washington had most of these matters behind him, autumn had come and the range of vision in western forests would be far enough to show where the axe might widen meadows or open new fields. Crawford had reported continued uncertainty about lines and boundaries, though he had selected for Washington, Lund, and two of George’s brothers what he considered patentable tracts. Washington had lacked information concerning the Walpole Grant and had written the Governor to inquire whether it was true, as rumored, that the grant had been made for a separate colony. Botetourt had replied, through the Clerk of the Council, and had enclosed some extract from correspondence that showed where the proposed new colony was to be established. Before leaving for the Ohio Washington concluded that he should make formal reply of such a nature that Botetourt, if willing, could dispatch it to England, as in effect a petition to the Crown to protect the rights of the volunteers of 1754. The Walpole Grant, he told the Governor, would devour four-fifths of the territory Virginia had voted to purchase from the Cherokees and to survey at a combined cost of £2500. He argued for full recognition of the grant of the two hundred thousand acres. The day Washington finished this letter, October 5, he set out with his friend and wartime Surgeon, Dr. James Craik, three servants and a packhorse. After an absence of nine weeks and one day Washington returned home on December 1. The journey and voyage had been expensive, in large part tedious and not altogether satisfying. Again and again Washington had used the words “exceeding fine” to describe particular tracts, but he had seen much poor land along with the good and a great deal that was neither better nor worse than the average new ground of eastern Virginia. There nowhere appeared such rolling, rich dark earth, mile on mile, as had been desired for division among the veterans of 1754. In fact, Washington had not grown as enthusiastic over any land he had seen on the lower Ohio and Kanawha as he had over acreage Crawford had procured for him near the Youghiogheny. Next that, the finest land Washington had seen in a single large tract was that which George Croghan was offering between Raccoon Creek and the Monongahela. Washington resolved to buy fifteen thousand acres of this at £50 per thousand if Crawford could find that much of quality in a single tract to which Croghan could give title.
The patenting of the Kanawha lands for the veterans of 1754 must be pressed. Perhaps as many as ten of the allotted twenty surveys would have to be used to provide even a third of the two hundred thousand acres wanted. Land-hunters from Virginia and elsewhere already had reached the Little Kanawha; in another summer they would get at least as far as the Great Kanawha. Then, Washington reasoned, “a few settlements in the midst of some of the large bottoms would render it impracticable to get any large quantity.” Behind these difficulties was doubt concerning the new boundary line in the Cherokee country and the boundaries that would be set for the Walpole Grant if it should be perfected. During Washington’s absence something had occurred that made all the obstacles harder to surmount: Lord Botetourt had died October 15. It would be necessary for Washington to start again under a new Governor.
A further exchange had to be completed with Boucher on Jackie’s behavior. The boy was growing up: he required the most friendly aid and counsel, Washington thought, especially as Boucher was now operating his school at Annapolis, where temptation would be greater than in Caroline County. “I would beg leave to request,” Washington wrote the teacher, “that he may not be suffered to sleep from under your own roof, unless it be at such places as you are sure he can have no bad examples set him; nor allow him to be rambling about of nights in company with those who do not care how debauched and vicious his conduct may be.” Boucher was back promptly in a long letter with the somewhat disconcerting central theme: “I must confess to you I never did in my life know a yout
h so exceedingly indolent or so surprisingly voluptuous: one would suppose Nature had intended him for some Asiatic Prince.”
But for that unhappy affirmation and Patsy’s continued fits, Christmas, 1770, would have been one of the best that had been spent at Mount Vernon. Nearly everything was going well on the farms. The fisheries had done well. The weaving had developed now to include woolen plaid, striped wool, wool and cotton, broadcloth, dimity, thread and cotton, jump stripe, calico, barricum, striped silk and cotton, and other fabrics. Even of hemp, though it was not flourishing, enough had been grown to bring a bounty of almost £5. Far more interesting to Washington was the fact that the new mercantile flour mill was nearing completion. The contract for the delivery of wheat to Carlyle & Adam had expired; a miller, William Roberts, had been employed at £80 per year. Washington now had ground enough to grow wheat for half-a-dozen such mills—9263 acres—and he hoped to add many other thousands. He soon would be a planter of the very front rank.
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