Part 5

I did not like these people, and the Indians interested me more. Genn understood their tongue well enough to talk with them, and the way they had of sign-language pleased Lord Fairfax, because, he said, you could not talk too much in signs or easily abuse your neighbour; but I found they had a sign for cutting a man’s throat, and it seemed to me that was quite enough, and worse than abuse. Mr. Genn warned me that one of their great jokes was, when shaking hands with white men, to squeeze so as to give pain. Being warned, I gave the chief who was called Big Bear such a grip that, in his surprise, he cried out, and thus much amused the other warriors. This incident is not in my diary, and I find it remarkable that now, after so many years, it should come to mind, when even some more serious affairs are quite forgot.

XIV

Early in April, having completed our work, I crossed the mountains afoot to the Great Cacapehon, and, passing over the Blue Ridge, on April 12 found myself again at Mount Vernon. But before that I first rode on to Belvoir, that I might be prompt to answer his lordship’s questions. All he would talk about was how to get horse and man over rivers, and of a way I learned of an Indian to wade across a strong swift stream safely, even breast-high, by carrying a heavy stone to keep me on my feet. He advised me to learn the sign-language of the savages.

He was soon to set out for the valley, where he meant to lay out the manor of Greenway Court and there reside. He desired me to come and help to survey his great domain.

There must be some natural taste in man for the life in the woods, and, for my part, I longed ever to return to them, of which, sooner or later, I had many opportunities. Nor did the free life make me less, but rather more, practical, and I learned to observe the trees, and how the land lay, and the meadows, whether liable to flood or not, all of which enabled me not only to serve my employers well, but was of use to me when I became able to purchase land myself.

About this time the influence of Lord Fairfax and my brothers obtained for me the place of surveyor of the county of Culpeper. I saw, a few years ago, in the records of Culpeper Court House, under date of July 20, 1749, that George Washington, gentleman, produced a commission from the president and masters of William and Mary College appointing him to be a surveyor of the county, whereupon he took the oath to his Majesty’s person and government, and subscribed the abjuration oath, the test, etc.

I recall now the pleasure this formal appointment gave me. Although I was then but seventeen years old, I was much trusted and was soon busily employed, because of my exactness, and because it was known that I could not be bribed; and thus for over two years I pursued this occupation. His lordship had long since this time left his cousin’s house of Belvoir and gone to live in the valley, in his steward’s house, which now he bettered and enlarged for his own use, meaning soon to build a great mansion-house, which he never did.

His home was a long, low stone dwelling, with a sloped roof, and many coops where swallows came, and bird-cotes under the eaves, and around it on all sides a wide porch, with, in every direction, the great forest of gum and hickory and oaks, and the tulip-trees. I found the roads much improved on my first visit, and many outbuildings for slaves and others, with kennels for the hounds his lordship loved to follow. My own room was ever after kept for me. It had a wide dormer-window, and next to it a room with more books than I had ever seen before, except at Westover, Colonel Byrd’s great mansion.

I never passed the time more agreeably. When not absent laying out land, we hunted and shot game, especially wild turkeys, which abounded; and when the weather served us ill I read the history of England, and tried to please his lordship by reading Shakspere and other books of verse. But although I had by hard labor managed to lay out and plot verses to certain young women, I never found much pleasure in the use of the imagination, nor in what others made of it. It seemed to me tedious and without practical value, nor did it amuse me except when it was in a play.

For days at a time I sometimes saw nothing of this kind but eccentric nobleman. A woman in England was said to have wounded his life, and it was rare that we had any female guests at Greenway Court, except Anne Cary, the sister of George William Fairfax’s wife. I found it not good for me to be in her company, for in some way she brought to my mind a boy love, which I had resolved no more to entertain, but which I found it difficult to master.

Miss Cary stayed no long time, and others came and went, but for the most part I had his lordship to myself. There were days when he was absent in the woods with a servant, or alone. At others he would remain all day shut up in a small log house, not over fifteen feet square, where he slept, and, as he said, very ill. It was his custom, however, to join me at supper, and then to remain smoking, which I never learned, and taking his punch. He was either full of talk or so silent that we would not exchange a word while he sat staring into the fire. Sometimes, when tired, I fell asleep, and, on waking, found him gone to bed. When disposed for conversation, he was apt to be bitter about his native land, and once said that the best part of it had come away.

My brother Lawrence and he were the only persons of our own class I ever knew in those days who, to my surprise, foresaw serious trouble from the selfish policy of the crown and the greed of English merchants, who desired to keep us shut out of the natural way of sea trade. I should have been most ungrateful, which I never was, had I not felt my obligations to Lord Fairfax. His great wealth and high position kept even my mother satisfied that what pleased my patron could never be complained of, and so, for a season, I was let to go my own way.

He led me to feel sure that, soon or late, we must be at war with both France and the Indians, or else submit to be shut out of the fertile lands to the westward. He was almost the only Englishman of high rank whom we saw in Virginia. There were governors with their secretaries, and officers of the army, but, except my lord, all of them regarded the gentlemen of the colonies as inferior persons. This feeling was, I apprehend, due to the fact that we looked to England for everything, and were in many ways kept as dependent as children. He once said to me that we were like slow bullocks that did not know their power to resist. This was all strange to a young Virginian in those days. I have lived to see its wisdom, and now, as I think of it, am reminded that Mr. Hamilton once wrote to me, “a colony was always a colony, and never could be a country until it had altogether to stand on its own legs.”

This was spoken of Canada, which unwisely refused to make common cause with us, and will now be for us at least a troublesome, if not a dangerous neighbour.

But to see her in the hands of France was not, as the matter presented itself, to be desired, for which reason I did not at a later time encourage Marquis Lafayette in his design upon Canada, knowing that if we succeeded in the war, and with French troops were able to take Canada, France would claim it as her share of the spoils, and thus hem us in from Louisiana to the Great Lakes. Indeed, this was very early a constant fear throughout all the colonies, and especially in New England, where the notion of being shut in by a popish nation added to their uneasiness.

When considering this matter, I recall the effect of the capitulations of 1759, for at that time, in order to quiet the French after England had taken Canada, and to get the Canadians to accept willingly English rule, vast and unwise privileges were granted to the Church of Rome. Still later the Quebec Act of 1774 decreed that Quebec should be held to extend over all the country west of the Ohio and up to the lakes, and thus that the privileges enjoyed by the Romish Church should prevail over all this great dominion.

While the Stamp Act and the laws restrictive of trade did variously annoy the separate colonies, the Quebec Act produced a still more general dissatisfaction.

XV

While at Greenway Court I had other teachers besides his lordship, for many Indians, frontier traders, and trappers came to claim food and shelter, which were never denied them. Often the woods were lighted up by their fires, and I found it of use, and interesting, to hear what was said and to learn something of the uncertain ways of the savages.

I heard how the Delawares, Shawnees, and Iroquois had wandered from the north and taken to the lands about the Ohio, and how the French protected them and claimed all the country up to the Alleghanies.

To these camps came the rude, lawless traders from Pennsylvania, who had stories to tell of the Indians and of the French beyond the Ohio. These men foresaw a war on the frontier when scarce any others did, and, by their accounts of the fertility of the wide savannas beyond the Ohio, filled me with desire to explore this rich wilderness. I learned that already the French had warned the fur-traders to leave and had driven away their hunters, and when I mentioned this to Lawrence he said we were not easy folk to drive, and, least of all, Pennsylvania Quakers, and that there would be trouble, which there was soon enough. We were on the edge of a struggle in which all the world was to share. Meanwhile, time went on, and what Lord Fairfax called the “frontier pot” was boiling.

I was often back at home, sometimes with my mother, or at Belvoir, or at Mount Vernon, riding to hounds, surveying, and making more than I needed in the way of money, and enough to keep me in horseflesh and to give me better clothes, for which I have always had a fancy. Only in the woods I liked best such dress as our rangers wear, and good moccasins are the best of foot-gear. But as to clothing, when not in the woods, I found in myself a liking for a plain genteel dress of the best, without lace or embroidery. Fine clothes do not make fine men, and the man must be foolish who has a better opinion of himself because his clothes are such as the truly judicious and sensible do not advise.

Until I had money of my own I did not venture much at cards; but now I played a little, although I was never fond of it, and lost more than I made. I was more inclined to the game of billiards.

If at times I was in danger of leaning towards the rough ways of the wilderness, I had the advantage of seeing at Mount Vernon, or at the homes of the Carters and Lees, or among the Lewises of Warner Hall, and elsewhere, the older gentry, who were orderly and ceremonious, and who reminded me anew of his lordship’s lesson as to the value of good manners.

Sometimes on these great plantations I was employed in surveys, but at others, as at Shirley and the Corbins’, I was only a guest. I was, I conceive, unlike the idle young men of some of these houses, for I was over-grave and cared less for card-playing and hard drinking than suited them.

I found myself at this time preferring the society of women, who are always amiably disposed to overlook the shyness of men like myself, and with whom it is possible to be agreeable without either punch or tobacco; but racing of horses I always liked, and dancing.

In those days cock-fighting was also to my liking. I remember well, because it was at Yorktown, a great main of cocks in 1752 between Gloucester and York for five pistoles each battle, and one hundred the odd. I was disappointed to leave before it was decided. I saw there a greater cock-fight in after days.

I recall now that my brother Lawrence once wrote home from Appleby School that each boy must pay to the master on Easter Tuesday a penny to provide the school with a cock-fight.

As to the hard drinking of rum and bumbo, Madeira and sangaree, I never had a head for it, or any liking, nor for the English way of locking doors until the half were under the table. These things were not encouraged in the better houses, but sometimes they were not to be avoided without giving offence. The great war helped to better these foolish customs, and now they are more rare.

I remember, about this time, to have seen such an occasion on a hot day in July at L―――― Hall, where I was come to survey a plot of meadow-land. I arrived about 7 P.M., and I must needs go at once to sup with a gay company of men, very fine in London clothes. I would have excused myself to be of the party, but no one would listen to me, and, although dusty and tired, I was pulled in whether I would or not. We had a great supper, and Madeira wine, and much rum punch, with wine-glasses which had no stands or bottoms and must, therefore, be kept in the hand until emptied. When it became very warm, negroes were sent for to fan us and to keep off the flies. At last there was a dispute as to gamecocks, and two were fetched in, very sleepy, and set on the table to fight, which they were little of a mind to, but were urged until feathers and blood were all over the table. When songs were sung, and most very drunk, and the King toasted, I slipped away, and would have got out the door, but found it locked. Being unable to escape, I was forced to return to the table. At last a lighted candle having been set before each guest, our host called on us to rise, and when he cried out his toast, “The Ladies, God bless them!” each gentleman, having drained his glass, used it to extinguish the candle-light set before him. It seemed to me a strange custom. I took advantage of the darkness to get out of an open window, and was pursued by two or three, who fell on the way, so that I got back to the house and to bed, liking none of it. But now all this is much amended, and there is more moderation in drinking, but still too much of this evil custom.

I am led here to remark that in the War of Independency many officers who were otherwise competent failed because of drunkenness, and, indeed, at Germantown this was one cause of our losing the battle. When it became needful after St. Clair’s defeat in 1791 to appoint general officers, I furnished my cabinet with a statement of the names and characters of such officers as, having served under me, I knew should be considered. As concerned most of them, I found it well to state whether or not they were addicted to spirits, so common was this practice.

It seems very remarkable that so few gentlemen should have foreseen what was plain to the trappers and dealers in furs. All of the Ohio country was claimed by both French and English. The Indians, although cheated and made drunk, were still in possession of the woods they considered to be their own. Virginia claimed what Pennsylvania, and even Connecticut, said was theirs; Pennsylvania was reaping the only harvest of the wilderness, of the value of some fifty thousand pounds a year, the trade in furs; last of all, in 1749, some enterprising gentlemen in England and Virginia planned the Ohio Company, meaning to colonize even north of the Ohio.

When Mr. Thomas Lee, president of the council, died, my brother Lawrence became the head of the Ohio Company, and all of this, as I now see, had much to do with the next change in my life. I find it pleasant again to dwell here on the good sense and liberal spirit of my brother, who, had his life been spared, would surely have been chosen to do that which has fallen to me. His character is well seen in his desire that the Dutch from Pennsylvania, whom he invited as settlers, being dissenters and having come into the jurisdiction of Virginia, should not be forced to pay parish rates and support clergymen of the Church of England, as all dissenters were obliged to do. He urged that restraints of conscience were cruel, and injurious to the country imposing them, and he wrote:

I may quote as example England, Holland, and Prussia, and, much more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled, whereas Virginia has increased by slow degrees, although much older.

There, on our borders, as Lord Fairfax said, was much powder, and only one spark needed to set it off. Meanwhile Mr. Gist set out to survey the grant of the Ohio Company, on the south side of the Ohio River, all of which was greatly to concern my life.

Virginia and Pennsylvania were, at that time, much stirred up by the hostile threats of France, and efforts began to be made to prepare for hostilities on the frontier. About this time, but the exact date I fail to recall, my brother Lawrence abandoned all concern in the military line of life, and arranged that his place of major in the militia should be given up to me, and that I should also take his position as district adjutant.

XVI

During the summer of 1751 I saw with affectionate anxiety a great change in the health of my brother Lawrence. I remember no event of my life which caused me more concern. Since our father’s death he had been both father and friend. Had it not been for him, I should not have known Mr. Fairfax and his cousin, Lord Fairfax, nor without their help could I have become employed in a way which brought about my service on the frontier and all that came after. Thus, in the providence of the Ruler of the events of this world, one step leads on to another, and we are always being educated for that which is to come.

At last, in September, Lawrence, who had been long ill of a phthisical complaint, asked me to go with him to the Barbados. Therefore, while Mr. Gist’s surveys on the Ohio went on, and both English and French were making bids to secure the Indians, we were on the sea. It is far from my purpose to recall what, after a constant habit, is set down in my diary. I lost in the Barbados what good looks a clear skin gave me, because of a mild attack of smallpox, such as a third of the human race must expect, and I remain slightly pitted to this day.

What most struck me in the islands was the richness of the soil, and yet that nearly all the planters were in debt, and estates over-billed and alienated. They were all spendthrifts, and I remind myself that I resolved at that time never to be in the grasp of the enemy called Debt. How persons coming to estates of three hundred or four hundred acres could want was to me most wonderful.

Lawrence now declared for Bermuda, and as he seemed better, I felt able to leave him and return. To be torn by the demands of public duty on the one hand and by the call of affection on the other, I have many times been subjected to. Lawrence insisted that matters at home made urgent my return, and, indeed, through life I have always held that the public service comes first.

I reached home in the ship _Industry_, in February, 1752, having had enough of the sea in a five weeks’ voyage, and very stormy.

Lawrence was at times better and desired to remain a year in Bermuda, and for me to fetch his wife. But soon his mind changed, and he wrote that he was resolved to hurry home, as he said, to his grave.

In the little time that was between his return and his passing away, I was much in his company――nor have I ever since been long without thought of him; for, although I am not disposed to speak much of sorrow, nor ever was, his great patience under suffering, and how he would never complain, but comfort his wife and me as if we were those in pain, and not he, have often been in my mind, and particularly of late, since the increase of my own infirmities has reminded me that the end of life cannot be very remote.

I am of opinion that I must have seemed, when younger, to be a dull, plodding lad; but, as time went on, Lawrence came to think more of me than did any, except Lord Fairfax, and in this his last illness gave me such evidence of his esteem as greatly strengthened my hope that I should justify his belief in me.

General Hamilton once asked me whether I did not think that at the approach of death men seem sometimes to acquire such clearness of mind as they might be thought to obtain beyond the grave. I had to reply that such considerations were remote from my usual subjects of reflection; but what he then said, although I had no suitable reply, reminded me of certain things Lawrence said to me, and of his certainty that I should attain honourable distinction. I thought him then more affectionate than just, for I have never esteemed myself very highly; but I know that I have never ceased to do what I believed to be my duty, and as to this my conscience is clear.

My dear Lawrence died at Mount Vernon, July 12, 1752, aged thirty-five years, and thus I lost the man who had most befriended me. As his infant daughter Sarah inherited his estate, and I, although only twenty years old, was one of his executors, my time was fully occupied by this and by the increase of public duties, which were made heavy by the want of good officers and by the insubordination and drunkenness of their men. Even then I saw what must come of it all if we had a serious war, for the militia could not by law be used more than five miles outside of the colony, and we should have to rely upon volunteers for more extended service.

The little maid, my niece, at Mount Vernon, did not live long after her father’s death, and thus, as I have before stated, in 1754 the estate fell to me under the will of my father. It was charged with a life-interest in favour of my brother’s wife, who soon married Mr. George Lee of Westmoreland. I was obligated to pay her fifteen thousand pounds of tobacco yearly; and as the estate, because of Lawrence’s illness, had fallen away, I was little the better for the property until her death in 1761.

XVII

On my brother’s return, although very ill, he interested himself in my future, and it was, no doubt, in part due to his influence that, before his death, I was called to Williamsburg, the seat of government, by Governor Dinwiddie, who told me he was advised to make me one of the adjutant-generals. To my surprise, he seemed to consider me competent, and, owing to my brother, and probably also to the advice of the Fairfaxes, I received this appointment for the Northern Division, one of the four now newly created, with the rank of major and one hundred and fifty colonial pounds a year.

To this day I do not fully understand why I so easily secured this important appointment. I was only nineteen and knew nothing of war. As I consider the matter, there were many more experienced men, who, like Lawrence, had served at sea and on land. The other adjutants were older than I. One of them said I would have a bitter business, for the chief use of the militia was to search negro cabins for arms and to get drunk on training-days. Nevertheless, as I knew well enough, there was good stuff in the men of Virginia, and no better could be found than the men of the frontier, who were expert with the rifle and were more than a match for the Indians. As I learned from Lawrence, the candidates for these places of adjutant were either too old or were men of drunken habits; and as to the wandering soldiers of fortune who had had experience in war, they were not gentlemen of our own class, and this, I understood, was a question which the governor and council considered important.