511 



WASHINGTON, GEORGE. 



WASHINGTON, GEORGE. 



642 



and the exercise of practical surveying. George was introduced about 

 this time to the family of Lord Fairfax, his brother having married 

 the daughter of William Fairfax, a member of the colonial council, 

 and a distant relation of that nobleman. The immense tracts of wild 

 lands belonging to Lord Fairfax, in the valleys of the Alleghany 

 mountains, had never been surveyed : he had formed a favourable 

 estimate of the talents of young Washington, and entrusted the task 

 to him. His first essay was on some lands situated on the south 

 branch of the Potomac, seventy miles above its junction with the 

 main branch. Although performed in an almost impenetrable country/ 

 while winter yet lingered in the valleys, by a youth who had only a 

 month before completed his sixteenth year, it gave so much satisfac- 

 tion that he soon after received a commission as public surveyor, an 

 appointment which gave authority to his surveys, and enabled him 

 to enter them in the county offices. 



The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in 

 the winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in 

 Virginia, and the demand for their services was consequently great, 

 and their remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable 

 portion of these three years among the Alleghanies; the exposures and 

 hardships of the wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks 

 together. He recruited his strength by surveying at intervals tracts 

 and farms in the settled districts. Even at that early age his regular 

 habits enabled him to acquire some property ; and his probity and 

 business talent obtained for him the confidence of the leading men of 

 the colony. 



At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were 

 threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To 

 meet this danger the province was divided into military districts, to 

 each of which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was 

 appointed. George Washington was commissioned to one of these 

 districts, with a salary of 150Z. per annum. There were many pro- 

 vincial officers (his brother among the number) in Virginia who had 

 served in the expedition against Carthagena and in the West Indies. 

 Under them he studied military exercises and tactics, entering with 

 alacrity and zeal into the duties of his office. These pursuits were 

 varied by a voyage to Barbadoes, and a residence of some months in 

 that colony, in company with his brother Lawrence, who was sent 

 there by his physicians to seek relief from a pulmonary complaint. 

 Fragments of his journal kept by George Washington on this excur- 

 sion have been preserved ; they evince an interest in a wide range of 

 subjects, and habits of minute observation. At sea the logbook was 

 daily copied, and the application of his favourite mathematics to navi- 

 gation studied ; in the island, the soil, agricultural products, modes of 

 culture, fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications, manners of 

 the inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all were noted 

 in his journal. Lawrence Washington died in July 1752, leaving a 

 wife and infant daughter, and upon George, although the youngest 

 executor, was devolved the whole management of the property in 

 which he had a residuary interest. The affairs were extensive and 

 complicated, and engrossed much of his time and thoughts for several 

 months. His public duties were not however neglected. Soon after 

 the arrival of Governor Diuwiddie the number of military divisions 

 was reduced to four ; the northern division was allotted to Washington. 

 It included several counties, which he had to visit at stated intervals, 

 to train and instruct the military officers, inspect the men, arms, and 

 accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of manoeuvres and 

 discipline. 



In 1753 the French in Canada pushed troops across the lakes, and 

 at the same time bodies of armed men ascended from New Orleans to 

 form a junction with them, and establish themselves on the upper 

 waters of the Ohio. Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a com- 

 missioner, to confer with the French officer in command, and inquire 

 by what authority he occupied a territory claimed by the British. 

 This charge required a man of discretion, accustomed to travel in the 

 woods, and familiar with Indian manners. Washington was selected, 

 notwithstanding his youth, as possessed of these requisites. He set 

 out from Williamsburg on the 31st of October 1753, and returned on 

 the 16th of January 1754. He discovered that a permanent settle- 

 ment was contemplated by the French within the British territory, 

 and, notwithstanding the vigilance of the garrison, he contrived to 

 bring back with him a plan of their fort on a branch of French Creek, 

 1 5 miles south of Lake Erie, and an accurate description of its form, 

 size, construction, cannon, and barracks. 



In March 1754, the military establishment !pf the colony was in- 

 creased to six companies : Colonel Fry, an Englishman of scientific 

 acquirements and gentlemanly manners, was placed at the head of 

 them, and Washington was appointed second in command. His first 

 campaign was a trying but useful school for him. He was pushed 

 forward with three small companies to occupy the outposts of the 

 Ohio, in front of a superior French force, and unsupported by his 

 commanding officer. Relying upon his own resources and the friend- 

 ship of the Indians, Washington pushed boldly on. On the 27th of 

 May he encountered and defeated a detachment of the French army 

 under M. de Jumonville, who fell in the action. Soon after Colonel 

 Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington. 

 Inuis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true, 

 placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. 





An ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldier*, 

 but Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong 

 detachment would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as 

 Jumonville's defeat was known there, he entrenched himself on the 

 Great Meadows. The advance of the French in force obliged him to 

 retreat, but this operation he performed in a manner that elicited a 

 vote of thanks from the House of Burgesses. 



In 1755 Colonel Washington acceded to the request of General 

 Braddock to take part in the campaign as one of his military family, 

 retaining his former rank. When privately consulted by Braddock, 

 " I urged him," wrote Washington, " in the warmest terms I wag able, 

 to push forward, if he even did it with a small but chosen band, with 

 such artillery and light stores as were necessary, leaving the heavy 

 artillery and baggage to follow with the rear division by slow and 

 easy marches." This advice prevailed. Washington was however 

 attacked by a violent fever, hi consequence of which he was only able 

 to rejoin the army on the evening before the battle of the Mononga- 

 hela. In that fatal affair he exposed himself with the most reckless 

 bravery, and when the soldiers were finally put to the rout, hastened 

 to the rear division to order up horses and waggons for the wounded. 

 The panic-struck army dispersed on all sides, and Washington retired 

 to Mount Vernon, which had now, by the death of his brother's 

 daughter without issue, become his own property. His bravery was 

 universally admitted, and it was known that latterly his prudent 

 counsels had been disregarded. 



In the autumn of the same year he was appointed to re-organise the 

 provincial troops. He retained the command of them till the close of 

 the campaign of 1758. The tardiness and irresolution of provincial 

 assemblies and governors confined him to act during much of this 

 time upon the defensive ; but to the necessity hence imposed upon 

 him of projecting a chain of defensive forts for the Ohio frontier, he 

 was indebted for the mastery in this kind of war, which afterwards 

 availed him so much. Till 1758 the Virginia troops remained on the 

 footing of militia, and Washington had ample opportunities to con- 

 vince himself of the utter worthlessness of a militia in time of war : in 

 the beginning of that year he prevailed upon government to organise 

 them on the same footing as the royal forces. At the same time that 

 Washington's experience was extending, his sentiments of allegiance 

 were weakened by the reluctance with which the claims of the pro- 

 vincial officers were admitted, and the unreserved preference uniformly 

 given to the officers of the regular army. At the close of 1758 he 

 resigned his commission, and retired into private life. 



On the 6th of January 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a young 

 widow, with two children. " Mr. Custis," says Mr. Sparkcs, "had left 

 large landed estates, and 45,OOOZ; sterling in money. One-third of 

 this property she held in her own right; the other two-thirds being 

 equally divided between her two children." Washington had a con- 

 siderable fortune of his own at the time of his marriage the estate at 

 Mount Vernon, and large tracts of excellent land, which he had 

 selected during his surveying expeditions, and obtained grants of at 

 different times. He now devoted himself to the management of this 

 extensive property and to the guardianship of Mrs. Washington's 

 children, and till the commencement of 1763 was, in appearance at least, 

 principally occupied with these private engagements. He found time 

 however for public civil duties. He had been elected a member of the 

 House of Burgesses before he resigned his commission ; and although 

 there were commonly two and sometimes three sessions in every year, 

 he was punctual in his attendance from the beginning to the end of 

 each. During the periods of his attendance in the legislature, he was 

 frequent in hia attendance on such theatrical exhibitions as were then 

 presented in America, and lived on terms of intimacy with the most 

 eminent men of Virginia. At Mount Vernon he practised on a large 

 scale the hospitality for which the southern planters have ever been 

 distinguished. His chief diversion in the country was the chace. He 

 exported the produce of his estates to London, Liverpool, and Bristol, 

 and imported everything required for his property and domestic 

 establishment. His industry was equal to his enterprise ; his day- 

 books, ledgers, and letter-books were all kept by himself; he drew up 

 his own contracts and deeds. In the House of Burgesses he seldom 

 spoke, but nothing escaped his notice, and his opinion was eagerly 

 sought and followed. He assumed trusts at the solicitation of friends, 

 and was much in request as an arbitrator. He was, probably without 

 being himself aware of it, establishing a wide and strong influence, 

 which no person suspected till the time arrived for exercising it. 



On the 4th of March, 1773, Lord Dunmore prorogued the intractable 

 House of Burgesses. Washington had been a close observer of every 

 previous movement in . his country, though it was not in his nature to 

 play the agitator. He had expressed his disapprobation of the stamp- 

 act in unqualified terms. The non-importation agreement, drawn up 

 by George Mason, in 1769, was presented to the members of the dis- 

 solved House of Burgesses by Washington. In 1773 he supported the 

 resolutions instituting a committee of correspondence and recom- 

 mending the legislatures of the other colonies to do the same. He 

 represented Fairfax county in the Convention which met at Williams- 

 burg, in August 1774, and was appointed by it one of the six Virginian 

 delegates to the first general Congress. On his return from Congress 

 he was virtually pkced in command of the Virginian Independent 

 Companies. In the spring of 1775 he devised a plan for the more 



