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The True George Washington
I. FAMILY RELATIONS
by Ford, Paul Leicester
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Although Washington 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 class between sons of the nobility, "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
passing 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 asserted 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 assisted "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 title for the newly-fledged officer is supposed to have
been due to the reputation that John Washington had won for his name among
the Indians eighty years before.
[Illustration Removed: TABLET TO LAURENCE WASHINGTON 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 Washington's
round school-boy hand in the family Bible, to the effect that "Augustine
Washington and Mary Ball was Married the Sixth of March 17-30/31.
Augustine Washington Departed this Life ye 12th Day of April 1743, Aged 49
Years."
The mother, Mary Washington, 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 Washington owed his personal appearance to the Balls
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 passed 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 circumstances, 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
Washington, 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 circumstances it was with real indignation that Washington
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 Assembly, 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
assured 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 Assembly, 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 shilling 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 Washington, the "Old
Lady" and he had "a small battle every day." Once Washington 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 Washington'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 Washington 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
Washington with requests for loans. He angered him still more by conduct
concerning which Washington 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,
entitled 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."
[Illustration Removed: MRS FIELDING LEWIS (BETTY WASHINGTON)]
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
Washington, on his retirement from the Presidency, offered him a home at
Mount Vernon. This led to a marriage with Mrs. Washington's grandchild,
Eleanor Custis, a match which so pleased Washington 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 Washington's early life was passed 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, Washington 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, Washington
wrote to another brother, "In God'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 Washington. 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, Washington 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 Washington
discharged the debt.
To the family of Samuel, Washington 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 assumed 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, Washington 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 Washington "near five
thousand dollars."
An even greater trouble was their sister Harriot, whose care was assumed
in 1785, and who was a member of Washington'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
Washington 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 gratitude 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 Washington gave her
to buy wedding clothes $100."
His second and favorite brother, John Augustine, who was four years his
junior, Washington 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,
Washington said, "God 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 Washington 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
Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington's relations with his youngest brother, Charles, little can
be learned. He was the last of his brothers to die, and Washington
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,
Washington was particularly fond of George Augustine Washington. 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 Washington
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. Washington's, the marriage was made possible by Washington
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," Washington
promised them that on his death they should not be forgotten. When the
disease again developed, Washington wrote his nephew in genuine anxiety,
and ended his letter, "At all times and under all circumstances 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, Washington
served as executor, assumed 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 Washington was equally fond. Both alone and
with Mrs. Washington 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 assuredly it would." Washington was also
a frequent visitor at "Eltham," the home of Colonel Bassett, 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 shipped to him from London after he had
become their step-father, Washington ordered "10 shillings worth of Toys,"
"6 little books for children beginning to read," and "1 fashionable-dressed
baby to cost 10 shillings." When this latter shared the usual fate, he
further wrote for "1 fashionable 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," Washington 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," Washington
wrote, "entered into a more happy & peaceful abode than she has met with in
the afflicted Path she has hitherto 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."
[Illustration Removed: JOHN AND MARTHA PARKE CUSTIS]
The care of Jack Custis was a worry to Washington in quite another way. As
a lad, Custis signed his letters to him as "your most affectionate and
dutiful son," "yet I conceive," Washington wrote, "there is much greater
circumspection to be observed by a guardian than a natural parent." Soon
after assuming charge of the boy, a tutor was secured, who lived at Mount
Vernon, but the boy showed little inclination to study, and when fourteen,
Washington wrote that "his mind [is] ... more turned ... to Dogs, Horses
and Guns, indeed upon Dress and equipage." "Having his well being much at
heart," Washington 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]
sex." 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, Washington 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. Washington could not bear to
have the lad at such a distance, and Washington "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
Washington 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 passive, the couple journeyed with Mrs. Washington to
Cambridge, and visited at head-quarters for some months. The arrival of
children prevented the repetition 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 Washington 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." Washington,
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 Washington 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."
Owing to his public employment, Washington refused to be guardian for
these "little ones," writing "that it would be injurious to the children
and madness in me, to undertake, as a principle, a trust which I could
not discharge. Such aid, however, as it ever may be with me to give to the
children especially the boy, I will afford with all my heart, and on this
assurance you may rely." Yet "from their earliest infancy" two of Jack's
children, George Washington Parke and Eleanor Parke Custis, lived at Mount
Vernon, for, as Washington wrote in his will, "it has always been my
intention, since my expectation of having issue has ceased, to consider
the grandchildren of my wife in the same light as my own relations, and to
act a friendly part by them." Though the cares of war prevented his
watching their property interests, his eight years' absence could not make
him forget them, and on his way to Annapolis, in 1783, to tender Congress
his resignation, he spent sundry hours of his time in the purchase of
gifts obviously intended to increase the joy of his homecoming to the
family circle at Mount Vernon; set forth in his note-book as follows:
"By Sundries bo't. in Phil'a.
A Locket £5 5
3 Small Pockt. Books 1 10
3 Sashes 1 5 0
Dress Cap 2 8
Hatt 3 10
Handkerchief 1
Childrens Books 4 6
Whirligig 1 6
Fiddle 2 6
Quadrille Boxes 1 17 6."
Indeed, in every way Washington showed how entirely he considered himself
as a father, not merely speaking of them frequently as "the children," but
even alluding to himself in a letter to the boy as "your papa." Both were
much his companions during the Presidency. A frequent sight in New York
and Philadelphia was Washington taking "exercise in the coach with Mrs.
Washington and the two children," and several times they were taken to the
theatre and on picnics.
For Eleanor, or "Nelly," who grew into a great beauty, Washington showed
the utmost tenderness, and on occasion interfered to save her from her
grandmother, who at moments was inclined to be severe, in one case to
bring the storm upon himself. For her was bought a "Forte piano,"
and later, at the cost of a thousand dollars, a very fine imported
harpsichord, and one of Washington's great pleasures was to have her play
and sing to him. His ledger constantly shows gifts to her ranging from
"The Wayworn traveller, a song for Miss Custis," to "a pr. of gold
eardrops" and a watch. The two corresponded. One letter from Washington
merits quotation:
[Illustration Removed: ELLANOR (NELLY) CUSTIS]
"Let me touch a little now on your Georgetown ball, and happy, thrice
happy, for the fair who assembled on the occasion, that there was a man to
spare; for had there been 79 ladies and only 78 gentlemen, there might, in
the course of the evening have been some disorder among the caps;
notwithstanding the apathy which one of the company entertains for the
'youth' of the present day, and her determination 'Never to give herself
a moment's uneasiness on account of any of them.' A hint here; men and
women feel the same inclinations towards each other now that they always
have done, and which they will continue to do until there is a new order
of things, and you, as others have done, may find, perhaps, that the
passions of your sex are easier raised than allayed. Do not therefore
boast too soon or too strongly of your insensibility to, or resistance of,
its powers. In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of
inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time, and like an
intimate acquaintance of yours, when the torch is put to it, that which
is within you may burst into a blaze; for which reason and especially
too, as I have entered upon the chapter of advices, I will read you a
lecture from this text."
Not long after this was written, Nelly, as already
mentioned, was married at Mount Vernon to Washington's
nephew, Lawrence Lewis, and in time became
joint-owner with her husband of part of that
place.
As early as 1785 a tutor was wanted for "little Washington," as the lad
was called, and Washington wrote to England to ask if some "worthy man of
the cloth could not be obtained," "for the boy is a remarkably fine one,
and my intention is to give him a liberal education." His training became
part of the private secretary's duty, both at Mount Vernon and New York
and Philadelphia, but the lad inherited his father's traits, and "from his
infancy ... discovered an almost unconquerable disposition to indolence."
This led to failures which gave Washington "extreme disquietude," and in
vain he "exhorted him in the most parental and friendly manner." Custis
would express "sorrow and repentance" and do no better. Successively he
was sent to the College of Philadelphia, the College of New Jersey, and
that at Annapolis, but from each he was expelled, or had to be withdrawn.
Irritating as it must have been, his guardian never in his letters
expressed anything but affection, shielded the lad from the anger of his
step-father, and saw that he was properly supplied with money, of which he
asked him to keep a careful account,--though this, as Washington wrote,
was "not because I want to know how you spend your money." After the last
college failure a private tutor was once more engaged, but a very few
weeks served to give Washington "a thorough conviction that it was in vain
to keep Washington Custis to any literary pursuits, either in a public
Seminary or at home," and, as the next best thing, he procured him a
cornetcy in the provisional army. Even here, balance was shown; for, out
of compliment and friendship to Washington, "the Major Generals were
desirous of placing him as lieutenant in the first instance; but his age
considered, I thought it more eligible that he should enter into the
lowest grade."
In this connection one side of Washington's course with his relations
deserves especial notice. As early as 1756 he applied for a commission in
the Virginia forces for his brother, and, as already shown, he placed
several of his nephews and other connections in the Revolutionary or
provisional armies. But he made clear distinction between military and
civil appointments, and was very scrupulous about the latter. When his
favorite nephew asked for a Federal appointment, Washington answered,--
"You cannot doubt my wishes to see you appointed to any office of honor or
emolument in the new government, to the duties of which you are competent;
but however deserving you may be of the one you have suggested, your
standing at the bar would not justify my nomination of you as attorney to
the Federal District Court in preference to some of the oldest and most
esteemed general court lawyers in your State, who are desirous of this
appointment. My political conduct in nominations, even if I were
uninfluenced by principle, must be exceedingly circumspect and proof
against just criticism; for the eyes of Argus are upon me, and no slip
will pass unnoticed, that can be improved into a supposed partiality for
friends or relations."
And that in this policy he was consistent is shown by a letter of
Jefferson, who wrote to an office-seeking relative, "The public will never
be made to believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground
of merit alone, uninfluenced by family views; nor can they ever see with
approbation offices, the disposal of which they entrust to their
Presidents for public purposes, divided out as family property. Mr. Adams
degraded himself infinitely by his conduct on this subject, as Genl.
Washington had done himself the greatest honor. With two such examples to
proceed by, I should be doubly inexcusable to err."
There were many other more distant relatives with whom pleasant relations
were maintained, but enough has been said to indicate the intercourse.
Frequent were the house-parties at Mount Vernon, and how unstinted
hospitality was to kith and kin is shown by many entries in Washington's
diary, a single one of which will indicate the rest: "I set out for my
return home--at which I arrived a little after noon--And found my Brother
Jon Augustine his Wife; Daughter Milly, & Sons Bushrod & Corbin, & the
Wife of the first. Mr. Willm Washington & his Wife and 4 Children."
His will left bequests to forty-one of his own and his wife's relations.
"God left him childless that he might be the father of his country."
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