The general shortage of specie was one of several reasons why some of the veterans who had claims under the proclamation of 1754 had been slow to pay their part of the cost of the surveys of the western lands. Other claimants were discouraged by the news that powerful interests in England most certainly would get the region they sought on the Ohio. “Our affairs, never in a very promising way,” Washington later wrote, “began to grow very alarming”; but that did not keep him from setting out March 2, 1771, for Winchester to participate in the meeting of those who, like himself, were willing to gamble for the stake of those two hundred thousand pledged acres.
Attendance was not large, but it included Col. Adam Stephen, Capt. Peter Hog, Doctor Craik, and several others. Washington reported on his visit to the Great Kanawha. His associates promised to meet another assessment, which amounted in the case of field officers to more than £11 each, and they cheerfully gave Washington full authority over Crawford as surveyor. He continued resolute in all that related to veterans’ lands, but, as he wrote one claimant, he realized that, “We have many difficulties and some uncertainties to struggle through, before our rights to these lands will be fully recognized.”
Back from Winchester March 13, he was eager to have news of the mill. The work was not complete. To speed it, Washington rode almost daily to the creek and on April 5 had the satisfaction of seeing the sluice opened. Soon it was operating on a scale that made the delivery of 497 barrels more an occasion of rejoicing than strain on mill and workers. The spring was as interesting on the river as at the mill. Washington had an immense catch at the spring “run.” In addition to herring kept for use on the plantation, 679,000 were sold to Carlyle & Adam. Shad caught and salted by Washington’s men numbered 7760.
The Colonel started for Williamsburg April 27 with Martha and Patsy. As usual, Martha’s plan was to stay at Eltham and, if special attraction offered, to go to Williamsburg for a few days. When the Bassett home at Eltham was reached, Washington halted with the others to enjoy the hospitality that always was superlative there and then went on to the capital on May 3 to meet the merchants and transact with them his business and that of the estate. Apparently he did not attempt to do anything about the soldiers’ lands under the proclamation of 1754, but he probably heard at least one thing that pleased him: The President of the Council told the members he had received a letter in which the Earl of Hillsborough promised that attention would be given the equitable claims of bona fide settlers under the grant to the Ohio Company and to “such [claims] as were passed in consequence of the instructions from his late Majesty or Lieut. Gov. Dinwiddie’s proclamation at the commencement of the late war.” Washington left Williamsburg May 11 and gave another ten days to the enjoyment of Eltham, visiting the Custis farms, hunting and fishing, and calling and dining.
The question of Jackie’s tour of Europe remained in doubt. Washington’s inclination to let the boy spend the money for the journey was challenged by his judgment. In reviewing all the arguments, he had come almost to the conclusion that Jack was too immature to profit greatly by the tour. Washington began to ponder whether Jack should not be taken from Boucher and sent to college. He himself had a poor opinion of William and Mary; Boucher was anxious that Jack should go to King’s College in New York. Boucher was of the opinion that one “general fault” of young men educated in America was “that they come out into the world furnished with a kind of smattering of everything and with very few exceptions, arrant coxcombs.” Jack Custis did not deserve that appellation, but the young gentleman was increasing his love of fine plumage and, as always, fond of luxuries in general.
For many Virginians the lifting of the ban on the importation of luxuries would mean little, if it came in 1771 or in 1772, because calamity had befallen them. The second and third weeks of May had been bright and almost cloudless in eastern Virginia. Then, overnight, such a flood as never had been known there swept down the valleys of the Rappahannock, the James and the Roanoke. The water rose rapidly to a height of forty feet. At some warehouses all the tobacco was swept away or was hurled ashore, mud-covered and watersoaked. On the James alone more than 2,300,000 pounds were lost or damaged. Houses rolled down the stream; frenzied animals struggled to keep afloat; dead bodies were tossed on the foaming surface. Direct loss was estimated at £2,000,000; the dead were reckoned at 150. Life on James River was shattered. Debt-ridden planters were bankrupted.
William Nelson, President of Council and acting Governor, summoned the General Assembly to meet in Williamsburg July 11. Washington had seen nothing of the flood, because it had not swept the Potomac Valley. He did not lose a shilling either on his own property or on the Custis farms. In realization of the magnitude of the “great calamity,” he assumed it would mean higher prices for tobacco, and now he prepared to see what could be done for relief of the victims. He supervised his wheat harvest through June 11 and reached Williamsburg on the fifteenth. He found no disagreement in the House of Burgesses other than over the details of how the actual loss of planters’ tobacco was to be determined and compensated.
No other legislation of large importance was considered; but most of the men who sat by day as Burgesses discussed by night as “Associators” the future of the non-importation agreement. The compact of 1770 had been no more successful than that of 1769. When a decision was reached to drop the Association, abandonment of the agreement was quiet, almost sheepish. In one of the Gazettes the only notice to the public was a single paragraph that at “a general meeting of the gentlemen of the Association at the Capitol [on July 15], it was agreed upon to dissolve the same; except as to tea, paper, glass and painters’ colors of foreign manufacture upon which a duty is laid for the purpose of raising a revenue for America.”
Washington had said that he wished the Association of 1769 to be ten times as strict as it was. He preferred a strong to a weak agreement and he labored for the most effective terms that would be supported by the mass of Virginians. Now, if the Association was at an end, obligation was, also, except for the articles directly taxed. As soon as the Association was dissolved Washington prepared an elaborate invoice of the expensive English clothing, fittings and horse-furnishings he had been waiting to purchase. He ordered eight pairs of shoes and boots for himself, and for Jack a “very handsome and fashionable suit of clothes, made of superfine broadcloth” for dress, a thinner but similar suit for summer wear, together with sundry modish waistcoats and breeches, and “a fashionable sartout [surtout] coat of best, blue beaver coating.” He would adhere to the agreement if there was one; he would conform to fashion if that was not forbidden and look to his meadows and his mill and the western lands for the money with which to buy the best that London dealers would send.
A crisis in the affairs of Washington’s mother soon demanded his counsel and decision. Mrs. Washington continued to live at Ferry Farm, which was in reality George’s, and manage it according to her way. Ferry Farm had declined steadily. By September 1771 affairs had dropped to such an ebb that Washington was called to confer with his brother, Charles, and his brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis, on the disposition to be made of Mrs. Washington and of the property. It was decided that Mrs. Washington was to relinquish all care of the property. George was to take over the management through the overseer, was to supply her with such needed food and poultry as the place yielded, and was to pay her a fixed rent for the lower quarter and the Deep Run tract. She was to remove to Fredericksburg as soon as the proper residence could be chosen by her. In restored ownership of Ferry Farm, it doubtless was a relief to Washington to put affairs in such order as was possible and, on the fifteenth, to go back to Mount Vernon. After a few days at home and two days on the bench of the county court, he proceeded to Annapolis for the races and the plays staged in the town’s annual season of gaiety.
Washington had thought that when he went to Williamsburg for the fall meeting of the merchants he also would attend a session of the General Assembly, which had been prorogued to October 24
. The successor to Governor Botetourt arrived shortly before that date. He was John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, who had been Governor of New York. One of Dunmore’s first acts was to dissolve the Assembly and shortly afterward to issue writs of election. Washington consequently could look forward to a visit to Williamsburg during which he could devote himself to his private affairs and to presentation of the veterans’ surveys for the approval of Governor and Council.
Washington renewed his plea that Council fix the allotments and remove the limit on the number of surveys that could be made. The Councillors were ready enough to fix the allotments and did so generously. Field officers were to have 15,000 acres each, captains 9000, lieutenants 6000, cadets 2500, sergeants 600, corporals 500, privates 400. Inasmuch as many men in the ranks had not filed their claims, 30,000 acres were reserved for them and for those who bore the expense of making the surveys and of assuring their comrades’ rights, but on the question of the number of surveys Council refused to yield. Its original action had provided “not more than twenty”; that number must suffice. Ten surveys had yielded less than a third of the total promised. There had to be careful exploration before the other ten surveys were undertaken, so that a minimum of poor lands would be included with the good.
In the late autumn, Washington received news of the death of Joseph Valentine, who had been in charge of all the Parke and Custis plantations on the York and its tributaries when Washington married Martha. In that position Valentine remained to the end of his days, the steward of properties left almost completely in his care. Washington could not hope to find another such man, but his choice was to fall eventually on James Hill. Before many months, Washington could be reasonably sure that every letter from Hill would catalogue so many agricultural calamities that it seemed miraculous the farms themselves had not disappeared.
Washington himself was of different temper. Now that he was closing the books of 1771 and was approaching his fortieth birthday, he was inured to such vexations as debtors who could not pay, tenants behind on their rent, unreasonable applicants for counsel or assistance, Jack’s procrastination, and the idolatry of the mother for the boy. Patsy’s illness was hard to bear, the more so because physicians seemed unable to do anything to relieve her. Washington again was elected to the House of Burgesses on December 1 and was host at the usual ball. The mill was working profitably; all the farm industries, the fisheries in particular, were thriving; tobacco was certain to bring a good price. He held 12,463 acres and might look forward, not unreasonably, to doubling his land holdings. In nearly all respects, Washington could say, at the beginning of 1772, that life never had been so rich or the promise of the future so bright in all that made for the opulent comfort of a restored plantation.
On January 26, 1772, snow began to fall in tons, as if the gods of wind and rain had repented the mercy they had shown the Potomac Valley during the floods of the previous May. By the twenty-ninth, snow was “up to the breast of a tall horse everywhere.” The fall was, Washington wrote, “the deepest . . . I suppose the oldest man living ever remembers to have seen in this country.” Not until February 21 could an open boat cross the Potomac. Even on the twenty-sixth, when Washington started to Williamsburg to attend a session of the General Assembly that had begun on February 10, Accotink Creek was so high from rains which had washed away the deep snow that he had to turn back and wait a day for the water to fall.
When Washington arrived at the capital March 2, little had been done by the House of Burgesses, and little of importance was done thereafter. The theatre was open; entertainment was extensive, though somewhat below the activity of most sessions. Personal and distinctly painful was the work of Surgeon-Dentist Baker who extracted £4 and perhaps several teeth in an effort to save what was left of Washington’s feeblest physical equipment. By April 9 the dentist had done his best and the Assembly had nearly reached the end of its calendar. Washington prepared to start home.
The weeks that followed were full of activities which showed that the life of a speculating planter of station could not be spent in ease and idleness. Always something demanded attention at home or a journey from the plantation. Most particularly, Charles Willson Peale, who lived then at Annapolis, had succeeded so well in portrait-painting that to sit for him had become the fashion of the Potomac Valley. Washington of course was one of those whose countenance must be put on canvas for the delight of his household and the adornment of his walls, but it proved a new and not entirely pleasant experience. The sittings ended May 22; soon the portrait was finished. It was a success in every way except, perhaps, that the “grave mood” made the line of the mouth a little too taut. All the while, Washington continued to prod the men who could help in bringing to a conclusion the grant of the Ohio lands he wanted. He attended, also, to his part of a new transaction, shipment of 273 barrels of his flour to the West Indies. The proceeds were to be laid out in Negroes, provided the cost of “choice ones” was less than £40 sterling. Washington was planning to increase his slaves because he wanted workers for the lands he hoped to acquire.
Affairs of duty and of business punctuated one of the most delightful seasons the family at Mount Vernon ever enjoyed. There was hunting, fishing, and visiting in Maryland and in Virginia, entertainment of numerous guests and a journey to Annapolis for the races, the plays and much feasting. After that came ten days at home and then on October 21 Washington left with Martha and the young Custises for Eltham, where once more they enjoyed the hospitality of the Bassetts. In addition, Washington worked there with Crawford, who was to bring with him the field notes of the new surveys of soldiers’ lands. From these Washington was to make plats of the tracts on the Ohio and on the Great Kanawha, take them to Williamsburg, lay them before the Governor and Council, and try to procure final orders for the patents.
Crawford and Washington labored from October 25 through the thirtieth over the surveys. The notes were adequate, and all the lines could be drawn, but Crawford had been able to cover 127,899 acres only. Including those surveyed the previous year, there now were thirteen tracts, one of which covered 51,302 acres, another 28,627, and another 13,532. From what Washington had seen of the country, he apprehended trouble in dividing these tracts because good land and bad would be mingled. How was justice to be assured all the officers and men? Washington decided he would make another plea for free choice in the form of a large increase in the number of permissible surveys.
Council held its ground without compromise: It had declined previously to increase the permissible number of surveys; twenty it would remain. The Council was of one mind with Washington on his basic proposition—that the private soldiers should receive their full allotment forthwith and that the officers should have their acreage in proportion to the financial support they had given the effort to establish their claims. Those who had met the assessments were to receive all the land due them; those who had contributed nothing must await the second distribution of land. Where a man had paid half, he would get 50 per cent of his allotment.
Then the Council took up the suggestions Washington had prepared for apportioning the different tracts among the individuals according to their respective shares. He sought his own allowance of 15,000 acres as a field officer and he had bought the claim to 5000 of the 15,000 acres due George Muse, together with the claim of “Sergeant Brickner” for 600 acres—a total of 20,600 acres. For the satisfaction of these claims, Washington asked one surveyed tract of 10,990 acres, another of 4395, a third of 2448, and a fourth of 2314. The total of these, 20,147, was 453 below Washington’s claim. Like the other officers he would wait to have this remainder filled out from the subsequent allotment; but if he got these four tracts, he would have no more surveying to do and could proceed as quickly as he might to occupy, “seat,” clear and develop.
After these allotments to Washington were passed, those to the noncommissioned officers and the privates were made easily. Then came the question, Was the distribution equitable as respected the quality of the
land? Washington answered that a conference of the officers of the First Virginia was to be held November 23 at Fredericksburg: If complaint then were made that the distribution of land was inequitable in quality, he would bring the allegations before Council, and if Council found complaint justified “he would give up all his interest under his patent and submit to such regulations as the Board may see fit to prescribe.” This was enough for Council. If the officers and men themselves were satisfied with the distribution, nobody else had any right to protest.
Until the veterans’ meeting, there was pleasure in Williamsburg and ample work with the new steward of the Custis plantations. On November 20 Washington carefully paid the fees for patenting the two hundred thousand acres, so there could be no future question about the entry. That afternoon he left the town and on the twenty-second stepped out of his chariot at Fielding Lewis’s in Fredericksburg. The next day and the next, Washington explained the surveys to the officers, answered their questions, and reviewed the proceedings before the Council. When he had made everything plain, the officers approved the distribution he had recommended. More than that, the veterans who had known him since 1754 passed a resolution in which they asked Council to relieve him of the offer to turn back his own lands if complaint were made and Council found it justified.
It was the afternoon of the twenty-ninth when the driver pulled up the horses at Mount Vernon. Washington was anxious to be afield, but he had to report the result of the meeting in Fredericksburg. Word from Williamsburg came about December 13. Unless Council by June 1773 received and affirmed the justice of a complaint that the land had been allotted with disregard of quality, then all that Washington had included in those four grants would be his! Later in the month he received the formal patents, duly signed and sealed. Together they would increase Washington’s patiently accumulated acres to a total of 32,885.
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