The True George Washington Part 1

The True George Was.h.i.+ngton.

by Paul Leicester Ford.

Note

In every country boasting a history there may be observed a tendency to make its leaders or great men superhuman. Whether we turn to the legends of the East, the folk-lore of Europe, or the traditions of the native races of America, we find a mythology based upon the acts of man gifted with superhuman powers. In the unscientific, primeval periods in which these beliefs were born and elaborated into oral and written form, their origin is not surprising. But to all who have studied the creation of a mythology, no phase is a more curious one than that the keen, practical American of to-day should engage in the same process of hero-building which has given us Jupiter, Wotan, King Arthur, and others. By a slow evolution we have well-nigh discarded from the lives of our greatest men of the past all human faults and feelings; have enclosed their greatness in gla.s.s of the clearest crystal, and hung up a sign, "Do not touch."

Indeed, with such characters as Was.h.i.+ngton, Franklin, and Lincoln we have practically adopted the English maxim that "the king can do no wrong." In place of men, limited by human limits, and influenced by human pa.s.sions, we have demi-G.o.ds, so stripped of human characteristics as to make us question even whether they deserve much credit for their sacrifices and deeds.

But with this process of canonization have we not lost more than we have gained, both in example and in interest? Many, no doubt, with the greatest veneration for our first citizen, have sympathized with the view expressed by Mark Twain, when he said that he was a greater man than Was.h.i.+ngton, for the latter "couldn't tell a lie, while he could, but wouldn't" We have endless biographies of Franklin, picturing him in all the public stations of life, but all together they do not equal in popularity his own human autobiography, in which we see him walking down Market Street with a roll under each arm, and devouring a third. And so it seems as if the time had come to put the shadow-boxes of humanity round our historic portraits, not because they are ornamental in themselves, but because they will make them examples, not mere idols.

If the present work succeeds in humanizing Was.h.i.+ngton, and making him a man rather than a historical figure, its purpose will have been fulfilled.

In the attempt to accomplish this, Was.h.i.+ngton has, so far as is possible, been made to speak for himself, even though at times it has compelled the sacrifice of literary form, in the hope that his own words would convey a greater sense of the personality of the man. So, too, liberal drafts have been made on the opinions and statements of his contemporaries; but, unless the contrary is stated or is obvious, all quoted matter is from Was.h.i.+ngton's own pen. It is with pleasure that the author adds that the result of his study has only served to make Was.h.i.+ngton the greater to him.

The writer is under the greatest obligation to his brother, Worthington Chauncey Ford, not merely for his numerous books on Was.h.i.+ngton, of which his "Writings of George Was.h.i.+ngton" is easily first in importance of all works relating to the great American, but also for much ma.n.u.script material which he has placed at the author's service. Hitherto unpublished facts have been drawn from many other sources, but notably from the rich collection of Mr. William F. Havemeyer, of New York, from the Department of State in Was.h.i.+ngton, and from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

To Mr. S.M. Hamilton, of the former inst.i.tution, and to Mr. Frederick D.

Stone, of the latter, the writer is particularly indebted for a.s.sistance.

THE TRUE GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON

I

FAMILY RELATIONS

Although Was.h.i.+ngton wrote that the history of his ancestors was, in his opinion, "of very little moment," and "a subject to which I confess I have paid very little attention," few Americans can prove a better pedigree.

The earliest of his forebears yet discovered was described as "gentleman,"

the family were granted lands by Henry the Eighth, held various offices of honor, married into good families, and under the Stuarts two were knighted and a third served as page to Prince Charles. Lawrence, a brother of the three thus distinguished, matriculated at Oxford as a "generosi filius"

(the intermediate cla.s.s between sons of the n.o.bility, "armigeri filius,"

and of the people, "plebeii filius"), or as of the minor gentry. In time he became a fellow and lector of Brasenose College, and presently obtained the good living of Purleigh. Strong royalists, the fortunes of the family waned along with King Charles, and sank into insignificance with the pa.s.sing of the Stuart dynasty. Not the least sufferer was the rector of Purleigh, for the Puritan Parliament ejected him from his living, on the charge "that he was a common frequenter of ale-houses, not only himself sitting dayly tippling there ... but hath oft been drunk,"--a charge indignantly denied by the royalists, who a.s.serted that he was a "worthy Pious man, ... always ... a very Modest, Sober Person;" and this latter claim is supported by the fact that though the Puritans sequestered the rich living, they made no objection to his serving as rector at Brixted Parva, where the living was "such a Poor and Miserable one that it was always with difficulty that any one was persuaded to accept of it."

Poverty resulting, John, the eldest son of this rector, early took to the sea, and in 1656 a.s.sisted "as second man in Sayleing ye Vessel to Virginia." Here he settled, took up land, presently became a county officer, a burgess, and a colonel of militia. In this latter function he commanded the Virginia troops during the Indian war of 1675, and when his great-grandson, George, on his first arrival on the frontier, was called by the Indians "Conotocarius," or "devourer of villages," the formidable but inappropriate t.i.tle for the newly-fledged officer is supposed to have been due to the reputation that John Was.h.i.+ngton had won for his name among the Indians eighty years before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TABLET TO LAURENCE WAs.h.i.+NGTON AND HIS FAMILY IN SULGRAVE CHURCH]

Both John's son, Lawrence, and Lawrence's son, Augustine, describe themselves in their wills as "gentlemen," and both intermarried with the "gentry families" of Virginia. Augustine was educated at Appleby School, in England, like his grandfather followed the sea for a time, was interested in iron mines, and in other ways proved himself far more than the average Virginia planter of his day. He was twice married,--which marriages, with unconscious humor, he describes in his will as "several Ventures,"--had ten children, and died in 1743, when George, his fifth child and the first by his second "Venture," was a boy of eleven. The father thus took little part in the life of the lad, and almost the only mention of him by his son still extant is the one recorded in Was.h.i.+ngton's round school-boy hand in the family Bible, to the effect that "Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton and Mary Ball was Married the Sixth of March 17-30/31.

Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton Departed this Life ye 12th Day of April 1743, Aged 49 Years."

The mother, Mary Was.h.i.+ngton, was more of a factor, though chiefly by mere length of life, for she lived to be eighty-three, and died but ten years before her son. That Was.h.i.+ngton owed his personal appearance to the b.a.l.l.s is true, but otherwise the sentimentality that has been lavished about the relations between the two and her influence upon him, partakes of fiction rather than of truth. After his father's death the boy pa.s.sed most of his time at the homes of his two elder brothers, and this was fortunate, for they were educated men, of some colonial consequence, while his mother lived in comparatively straitened circ.u.mstances, was illiterate and untidy, and, moreover, if tradition is to be believed, smoked a pipe. Her course with the lad was blamed by a contemporary as "fond and unthinking,"

and this is borne out by such facts as can be gleaned, for when his brothers wished to send him to sea she made "trifling objections," and prevented his taking what they thought an advantageous opening; when the brilliant offer of a position on Braddock's staff was tendered to Was.h.i.+ngton, his mother, "alarmed at the report," hurried to Mount Vernon and endeavored to prevent him from accepting it; still again, after Braddock's defeat, she so wearied her son with pleas not to risk the dangers of another campaign that Was.h.i.+ngton finally wrote her, "It would reflect dishonor upon me to refuse; and _that_, I am sure, must or _ought_ to give you greater uneasiness, than my going in an honorable command."

After he inherited Mount Vernon the two seem to have seen little of each other, though, when occasion took him near Fredericksburg, he usually stopped to see her for a few hours, or even for a night.

Though Was.h.i.+ngton always wrote to his mother as "Honored Madam," and signed himself "your dutiful and aff. son," she none the less tried him not a little. He never claimed from her a part of the share of his father's estate which was his due on becoming of age, and, in addition, "a year or two before I left Virginia (to make her latter days comfortable and free from care) I did, at her request, but at my own expence, purchase a commodious house, garden and Lotts (of her own choosing) in Fredericksburg, that she might be near my sister Lewis, her only daughter,--and did moreover agree to take her land and negroes at a certain yearly rent, to be fixed by Colo Lewis and others (of her own nomination) which has been an annual expence to me ever since, as the estate never raised one half the rent I was to pay. Before I left Virginia I answered all her calls for money; and since that period have directed my steward to do the same." Furthermore, he gave her a phaeton, and when she complained of her want of comfort he wrote her, "My house is at your service, and [I] would press you most sincerely and most devoutly to accept it, but I am sure, and candor requires me to say, it will never answer your purposes in any shape whatsoever. For in truth it may be compared to a well resorted tavern, as scarcely any strangers who are going from north to south, or from south to north, do not spend a day or two at it. This would, were you to be an inhabitant of it, oblige you to do one of 3 things: 1st, to be always dressing to appear in company; 2d, to come into [the room] in a dishabille, or 3d to be as it were a prisoner in your own chamber. The first you'ld not like; indeed, for a person at your time of life it would be too fatiguing. The 2d, I should not like, because those who resort here are, as I observed before, strangers and people of the first distinction. And the 3d, more than probably, would not be pleasing to either of us."

Under these circ.u.mstances it was with real indignation that Was.h.i.+ngton learned that complaints of hers that she "never lived soe poore in all my life" were so well known that there was a project to grant her a pension.

The pain this caused a man who always showed such intense dislike to taking even money earned from public coffers, and who refused everything in the nature of a gift, can easily be understood. He at once wrote a letter to a friend in the Virginia a.s.sembly, in which, after reciting enough of what he had done for her to prove that she was under no necessity of a pension,--"or, in other words, receiving charity from the public,"--he continued, "But putting these things aside, which I could not avoid mentioning in exculpation of a presumptive want of duty on my part; confident I am that she has not a child that would not divide the last sixpence to relieve her from real distress. This she has been repeatedly a.s.sured of by me; and all of us, I am certain, would feel much hurt, at having our mother a pensioner, while we had the means of supporting her; but in fact she has an ample income of her own. I lament accordingly that your letter, which conveyed the first hint of this matter, did not come to my hands sooner; but I request, in pointed terms, if the matter is now in agitation in your a.s.sembly, that all proceedings on it may be stopped, or in case of a decision in her favor, that it may be done away and repealed at my request."

Still greater mortification was in store for him, when he was told that she was borrowing and accepting gifts from her neighbors, and learned "on good authority that she is, upon all occasions and in all companies, complaining ... of her wants and difficulties; and if not in direct terms, at least by strong innuendoes, endeavors to excite a belief that times are much altered, &c., &c., which not only makes _her_ appear in an unfavorable point of view, but _those also_ who are connected with her."

To save her feelings he did not express the "pain" he felt to her, but he wrote a brother asking him to ascertain if there was the slightest basis in her complaints, and "see what is necessary to make her comfortable,"

for "while I have anything I will part with it to make her so;" but begging him "at the same time ... to represent to her in delicate terms, the impropriety of her complaints, and _acceptance_ of favors, even when they are voluntarily offered, from any but relations." Though he did not "touch upon this subject in a letter to her," he was enough fretted to end the renting of her plantation, not because "I mean ... to withhold any aid or support I can give from you; for whilst I have a s.h.i.+lling left, you shall have part," but because "what I shall then give, I shall have credit for," and not be "viewed as a delinquent, and considered perhaps by the world as [an] unjust and undutiful son."

In the last years of her life a cancer developed, which she refused to have "dressed," and over which, as her doctor wrote Was.h.i.+ngton, the "Old Lady" and he had "a small battle every day." Once Was.h.i.+ngton was summoned by an express to her bedside "to bid, as I was prepared to expect, the last adieu to an honored parent," but it was a false alarm. Her health was so bad, however, that just before he started to New York to be inaugurated he rode to Fredericksburg, "and took a final leave of my mother, never expecting to see her more," a surmise that proved correct.

Only Elizabeth--or "Betty"--of Was.h.i.+ngton's sisters grew to womanhood, and it is said that she was so strikingly like her brother that, disguised with a long cloak and a military hat, the difference between them was scarcely detectable. She married Fielding Lewis, and lived at "Kenmore House" on the Rappahannock, where Was.h.i.+ngton spent many a night, as did the Lewises at Mount Vernon. During the Revolution, while visiting there, she wrote her brother, "Oh, when will that day arrive when we shall meet again. Trust in the lord it will be soon,--till when, you have the prayers and kind wishes for your health and happiness of your loving and sincerely affectionate sister." Her husband died "much indebted," and from that time her brother gave her occasional sums of money, and helped her in other ways.

Her eldest son followed in his father's footsteps, and displeased Was.h.i.+ngton with requests for loans. He angered him still more by conduct concerning which Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to him as follows:

"Sir, Your letter of the 11th of Octor. never came to my hands 'till yesterday. Altho' your disrespectful conduct towards me, in coming into this country and spending weeks therein without ever coming near me, ent.i.tled you to very little notice or favor from me; yet I consent that you may get timber from off my Land in Fauquier County to build a house on your Lott in Rectertown. Having granted this, now let me ask you what your views were in purchasing a Lott in a place which, I presume, originated with and will end in two or three Gin shops, which probably will exist no longer than they serve to ruin the proprietors, and those who make the most frequent applications to them. I am, &c."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS FIELDING LEWIS (BETTY WAs.h.i.+NGTON)]

Other of the Lewis boys pleased him better, and he appointed one an officer in his own "Life Guard." Of another he wrote, when President, to his sister, "If your son Howell is living with you, and not usefully employed in your own affairs, and should incline to spend a few months with me, as a writer in my office (if he is fit for it) I will allow him at the rate of three hundred dollars a year, provided he is diligent in discharging the duties of it from breakfast until dinner--Sundays excepted. This sum will be punctually paid him, and I am particular in declaring beforehand what I require, and what he may expect, that there may be no disappointment, or false expectations on either side. He will live in the family in the same manner his brother Robert did." This Robert had been for some time one of his secretaries, and at another time was employed as a rent-collector.

Still another son, Lawrence, also served him in these dual capacities, and Was.h.i.+ngton, on his retirement from the Presidency, offered him a home at Mount Vernon. This led to a marriage with Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton's grandchild, Eleanor Custis, a match which so pleased Was.h.i.+ngton that he made arrangements for Lawrence to build on the Mount Vernon estate, in his will named him an executor, and left the couple a part of this property, as well as a portion of the residuary estate.

As already noted, much of Was.h.i.+ngton's early life was pa.s.sed at the homes of his elder (half-) brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, who lived respectively at Mount Vernon and Wakefield. When Lawrence developed consumption, George was his travelling companion in a trip to Barbadoes, and from him, when he died of that disease, in 1752, came the bequest of Mount Vernon to "my loveing brother George." To Augustine, in the only letter now extant, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, "The pleasure of your company at Mount Vernon always did, and always will afford me infinite satisfaction,"

and signed himself "your most affectionate brother." Surviving this brother, he left handsome bequests to all his children.

Samuel, the eldest of his own brothers, and his junior by but two years, though constantly corresponded with, was not a favorite. He seems to have had extravagant tendencies, variously indicated by five marriages, and by (perhaps as a consequence) pecuniary difficulties. In 1781, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to another brother, "In G.o.d's name how did my brother Samuel get himself so enormously in debt?" Very quickly requests for loans followed, than which nothing was more irritating to Was.h.i.+ngton. Yet, though he replied that it would be "very inconvenient" to him, his ledger shows that at least two thousand dollars were advanced, and in a letter to this brother, on the danger of borrowing at interest, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, "I do not make these observations on account of the money I purpose to lend you, because all I shall require is that you return the net sum when in your power, without interest." Better even than this, in his will Was.h.i.+ngton discharged the debt.

To the family of Samuel, Was.h.i.+ngton was equally helpful. For the eldest son he obtained an ensigncy, and "to save Thornton and you [Samuel] the expence of buying a horse to ride home on, I have lent him a mare." Two other sons he a.s.sumed all the expenses of, and showed an almost fatherly interest in them. He placed them at school, and when the lads proved somewhat unruly he wrote them long admonitory letters, which became stern when actual misconduct ensued, and when one of them ran away to Mount Vernon to escape a whipping, Was.h.i.+ngton himself prepared "to correct him, but he begged so earnestly and promised so faithfully that there should be no cause for complaint in the future, that I have suspended punishment."

Later the two were sent to college, and in all cost Was.h.i.+ngton "near five thousand dollars."

An even greater trouble was their sister Harriot, whose care was a.s.sumed in 1785, and who was a member of Was.h.i.+ngton's household, with only a slight interruption, till her marriage in 1796. Her chief failing was "no disposition ... to be careful of her cloathes," which were "dabbed about in every hole and corner and her best things always in use," so that Was.h.i.+ngton said "she costs me enough!" To her uncle she wrote on one occasion, "How shall I apologise to my dear and Honor'd for intruding on his goodness so soon again, but being sensible for your kindness to me which I shall ever remember with the most heartfelt grat.i.tude induces me to make known my wants. I have not had a pair of stays since I first came here: if you could let me have a pair I should be very much obleiged to you, and also a hat and a few other articles. I hope my dear Uncle will not think me extravagant for really I take as much care of my cloaths as I possibly can." Probably the expense that pleased him best in her case was that which he recorded in his ledger "By Miss Harriot Was.h.i.+ngton gave her to buy wedding clothes $100."

His second and favorite brother, John Augustine, who was four years his junior, Was.h.i.+ngton described as "the intimate companion of my youth and the friend of my ripened age." While the Virginia colonel was on the frontier, from 1754 to 1759, he left John in charge of all his business affairs, giving him a residence at and management of Mount Vernon. With this brother he constantly corresponded, addressing him as "Dear Jack,"

and writing in the most intimate and affectionate terms, not merely to him, but when John had taken unto himself a wife, to her, and to "the little ones," and signing himself "your loving brother." Visits between the two were frequent, and invitations for the same still more so, and in one letter, written during the most trying moment of the Revolution, Was.h.i.+ngton said, "G.o.d grant you all health and happiness. Nothing in this world could contribute so to mine as to be fixed among you." John died in 1787, and Was.h.i.+ngton wrote with simple but undisguised grief of the death of "my beloved brother."

The eldest son of this brother, Bushrod, was his favorite nephew, and Was.h.i.+ngton took much interest in his career, getting the lad admitted to study law with Judge James Wilson, in Philadelphia, and taking genuine pride in him when he became a lawyer and judge of repute. He made this nephew his travelling companion in the Western journey of 1784, and at other times not merely sent him money, but wrote him letters of advice, dwelling on the dangers that beset young men, though confessing that he was himself "not such a Stoic" as to expect too much of youthful blood. To Bushrod, also, he appealed on legal matters, adding, "You may think me an unprofitable applicant in asking opinions and requiring services of you without dousing my money, but pay day may come," and in this he was as good as his word, for in his will Was.h.i.+ngton left Bushrod, "partly in consideration of an intimation to his deceased father, while we were bachelors and he had kindly undertaken to superintend my Estates, during my military services in the former war between Great Britain and France, that if I should fall therein, Mt. Vernon ... should become his property,"

the home and "mansion-house farm," one share of the residuary estate, his private papers, and his library, and named him an executor of the instrument.

Of Was.h.i.+ngton's relations with his youngest brother, Charles, little can be learned. He was the last of his brothers to die, and Was.h.i.+ngton outlived him so short a time that he was named in his will, though only for a mere token of remembrance. "I add nothing to it because of the ample provision I have made for his issue." Of the children so mentioned, Was.h.i.+ngton was particularly fond of George Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton. As a mere lad he used his influence to procure for him an ensigncy in a Virginia regiment, and an appointment on Lafayette's staff. When in 1784 the young fellow was threatened with consumption, his uncle's purse supplied him with the funds by which he was enabled to travel, even while Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, "Poor fellow! his pursuit after health is, I fear, altogether fruitless." When better health came, and with it a renewal of a troth with a niece of Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton's, the marriage was made possible by Was.h.i.+ngton appointing the young fellow his manager, and not merely did it take place at Mount Vernon, but the young couple took up their home there. More than this, that their outlook might be "more stable and pleasing," Was.h.i.+ngton promised them that on his death they should not be forgotten. When the disease again developed, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote his nephew in genuine anxiety, and ended his letter, "At all times and under all circ.u.mstances you and yours will possess my affectionate regards." Only a few days later the news of his nephew's death reached him, and he wrote his widow, "To you who so well know the affectionate regard I had for our departed friend, it is unnecessary to describe the sorrow with which I was afflicted at the news of his death." He asked her and her children "to return to your old habitation at Mount Vernon. You can go to no place where you can be more welcome, nor to any where you can live at less expence and trouble," an offer, he adds, "made to you with my whole heart." Furthermore, Was.h.i.+ngton served as executor, a.s.sumed the expense of educating one of the sons, and in his will left the two children part of the Mount Vernon estate, as well as other bequests, "on account of the affection I had for, and the obligation I was under to their father when living, who from his youth attached himself to my person, and followed my fortunes through the vicissitudes of the late Revolution, afterwards devoting his time for many years whilst my public employments rendered it impracticable for me to do it myself, thereby affording me essential services and always performing them in a manner the most filial and respectful."

Of his wife's kith and kin Was.h.i.+ngton was equally fond. Both alone and with Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton he often visited her mother, Mrs. Dandridge, and in 1773 he wrote to a brother-in-law that he wished "I was master of Arguments powerful enough to prevail upon Mrs. Dandridge to make this place her entire and absolute home. I should think as she lives a lonesome life (Betsey being married) it might suit her well, & be agreeable, both to herself & my Wife, to me most a.s.suredly it would." Was.h.i.+ngton was also a frequent visitor at "Eltham," the home of Colonel Ba.s.sett, who had married his wife's sister, and constantly corresponded with these relatives. He asked this whole family to be his guests at the Warm Springs, and, as this meant camping out in tents, he wrote, "You will have occasion to provide nothing, if I can be advised of your intentions, so that I may provide accordingly." To another brother-in-law, Bartholomew Dandridge, he lent money, and forgave the debt to the widow in his will, also giving her the use during her life of the thirty-three negroes he had bid in at the bankruptcy sale of her husband's property.

The pleasantest glimpses of family feeling are gained, however, in his relations with his wife's children and grandchildren. John Parke and Martha Parke Custis--or "Jack" and "Patsey," as he called them--were at the date of his marriage respectively six and four years of age, and in the first invoice of goods to be s.h.i.+pped to him from London after he had become their step-father, Was.h.i.+ngton ordered "10 s.h.i.+llings worth of Toys,"

"6 little books for children beginning to read," and "1 fas.h.i.+onable-dressed baby to cost 10 s.h.i.+llings." When this latter shared the usual fate, he further wrote for "1 fas.h.i.+onable dress Doll to cost a guinea," and for "A box of Gingerbread Toys & Sugar Images or Comfits." A little later he ordered a Bible and Prayer-Book for each, "neatly bound in Turkey," with names "in gilt letters on the inside of the cover," followed ere long by an order for "1 very good Spinet" As Patsy grew to girlhood she developed fits, and "solely on her account to try (by the advice of her Physician) the effect of the waters on her Complaint," Was.h.i.+ngton took the family over the mountains and camped at the "Warm Springs" in 1769, with "little benefit," for, after ailing four years longer, "she was seized with one of her usual Fits & expired in it, in less than two minutes, without uttering a word, or groan, or scarce a sigh." "The Sweet Innocent Girl," Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, "entered into a more happy & peaceful abode than she has met with in the afflicted Path she has. .h.i.therto trod," but none the less "it is an easier matter to conceive than to describe the distress of this family" at the loss of "dear Patsy Custis."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN AND MARTHA PARKE CUSTIS]

The care of Jack Custis was a worry to Was.h.i.+ngton in quite another way. As a lad, Custis signed his letters to him as "your most affectionate and dutiful son," "yet I conceive," Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, "there is much greater circ.u.mspection to be observed by a guardian than a natural parent." Soon after a.s.suming charge of the boy, a tutor was secured, who lived at Mount Vernon, but the boy showed little inclination to study, and when fourteen, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote that "his mind [is] ... more turned ... to Dogs, Horses and Guns, indeed upon Dress and equipage." "Having his well being much at heart," Was.h.i.+ngton wished to make him "fit for more useful purposes than [a] horse racer," and so Jack was placed with a clergyman, who agreed to instruct him, and with him he lived, except for some home visits, for three years. Unfortunately, the lad, like the true Virginian planter of his day, had no taste for study, and had "a propensity for the [fair]

s.e.x." After two or three flirtations, he engaged himself, without the knowledge of his mother or guardian, to Nellie Calvert, a match to which no objection could be made, except that, owing to his "youth and fickleness," "he may either change and therefore injure the young lady; or that it may precipitate him into a marriage before, I am certain, he has ever bestowed a serious thought of the consequences; by which means his education is interrupted." To avoid this danger, Was.h.i.+ngton took his ward to New York and entered him in King's College, but the death of Patsy Custis put a termination to study, for Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton could not bear to have the lad at such a distance, and Was.h.i.+ngton "did not care, as he is the last of the family, to push my opposition too far." Accordingly, Jack returned to Virginia and promptly married.

The young couple were much at Mount Vernon from this time on, and Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to "Dear Jack," "I am always pleased with yours and Nelly's abidance at Mount Vernon." When the winter snows made the siege of Boston purely pa.s.sive, the couple journeyed with Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton to Cambridge, and visited at head-quarters for some months. The arrival of children prevented the repet.i.tion of such visits, but frequent letters, which rarely failed to send love to "Nelly and the little girls," were exchanged. The acceptance of command compelled Was.h.i.+ngton to resign the care of Custis's estate, for which service "I have never charged him or his sister, from the day of my connexion with them to this hour, one farthing for all the trouble I have had in managing their estates, nor for any expense they have been to me, notwithstanding some hundreds of pounds would not reimburse the moneys I have actually paid in attending the public meetings in Williamsburg to collect their debts, and transact these several matters appertaining to the respective estates." Was.h.i.+ngton, however, continued his advice as to its management, and in other letters advised him concerning his conduct when Custis was elected a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. In the siege of Yorktown Jack served as an officer of militia, and the exposure proved too much for him. Immediately after the surrender, news reached Was.h.i.+ngton of his serious illness, and by riding thirty miles in one day he succeeded in reaching Eltham in "time enough to see poor Mr. Custis breath his last," leaving behind him "four lovely children, three girls and a boy."