Ibid., vol. 28, 12-8-1784. To Marquis de Lafayette. “Nothing of importance has occurred since I parted with you; I found my family well, and am now immersed in company....”
Ibid., vol. 28, 2-7-1785. To David Humphreys, “Mrs. Washington enjoys but indifferent health. My nephew Geo. A. Washington has been buffetting the seas from clime to clime, in pursuit of health, but, poor fellow! I believe in vain. At present, if alive, I expect he is at Charleston. All the rest of my family are perfectly well, and join me in best wishes for you....”
Ibid., vol. 28, 7-25-1785. To Marquis de Lafayette. “Mrs. Washington has but indifferent health; and the late loss of her mother, and only brother Mr. Barthw. Dandridge (one of the Judges of our Supreme Court) has rather added to her indisposition. My mother and friends enjoy good health. George has returned after his peregrination thro’ the West Indies, to Bermuda, the Bahama Islands, and Charlestown; at the last place he spent the winter. He is in better health than when he set out, but not quite recovered: He is now on a journey to the Sweet Springs, to procure a stock sufficient to fit him for a matrimonial voyage in the Frigate F. Bassett, on board which he means to embark at his return in October: how far his case is desperate, I leave you to judge, if it is so, the remedy however pleasing at first, will certainly be violent.”
Ibid., vol. 28, 10-1-1785. To Jonathan Trumbull. “My principal pursuits are of a rural nature, in which I have great delight, especially as I am blessed with the enjoyment of good health. Mrs. Washington on the contrary is hardly ever well, but thankful for your kind remembrance of her, and joins me in every good wish for you, Mrs. Trumbull and your family.”
30 Ibid., vol. 37, 3-26-1762. To Gov. Horatio Sharpe. “Sir: Be so good as to pardon the liberty I presume to take in recommending to your Excellency’s notice the Revd. Mr. West; a young Gentn. lately entered into Holy Orders, of a good Family, and unexceptionable Morals; this with truth I can venture to certifie as he is a neighbour of mine, and one of those few of whom every body speaks well. At present he is engagd to officiate as Curate to the Revd. Doctr. Swift of Port Tobo.; who it seems is in the last Stage of a Consumption, and attempting by a Voyage to England, the recovery of his health, but, shoud he fail in this (as most probably he will) and the Parish become vacant by his death. Mr. West woud think himself very happy in the honour of your presentment of him to the Cure, and I am fully persuaded that his endeavours woud merit the favour.”
Ibid., vol. 3, 8-28, 1774. To Mrs. Sarah Bomford. “Mrs. Washington also thanks you for your polite notice of her and begs your acceptance of her Compliments and that you will take the trouble of presenting them to Mrs. Savage at the same time to whom please also to make a tender of my best respects and inform her (as I have also done in a former Letter wch. I suppose to be miscarried) that the black Wax on my Letter was occasion’d by the death of Miss Custis whom we were unhappily deprivd of in June....”
Ibid., vol. 3, 6-18-1775. To Mrs. Martha Washington. “My Dearest: I am now set down to write to you on a subject, which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased, when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. ...As life is always uncertain, and common prudence dictates to every man the necessity of settling his temporal concerns, while it is in his power, and while the mind is calm and undisturbed, I have, since I came to this place (for I had not time to do it before I left home) got Colonel Pendleton to draft a will for me, by the directions I gave him, which will I now enclose. The provision made for you in case of my death will, I hope, be agreeable.” WGW, vol. 37, 9-22-1799. To Burges Ball. “Dear Sir: Your letter of the 16th. instt. has been received, informing me of the death of my brother [Charles Washington]. The death of near relations always produces awful and affecting emotions, under whatsoever circumstances it may happen. That of my brother’s has been so long expected, and his latter days so uncomfortable to himself, must have prepared all around him for the stroke; though painful in the effect. I was the first, and am now the last, of my fathers Children by the second marriage who remain. when I shall be called upon to follow them, is known only to the giver of life. When the summons comes I shall endeavour to obey it with a good grace.”
Ibid., vol. 37, 11-6-1781 To Jonathan Trumbull Jr. “My dear Sir: I came here in time to see Mr. Custis breathe his last. About Eight o’clock yesterday Evening he expired. The deep and solemn distress of the Mother, and affliction of the Wife of this amiable young Man, requires every comfort in my power to afford them; the last rights of the deceased I must also see performed; these will take me three or four days; when I shall proceed with Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Custis to Mount Vernon. As the dirty tavern you are now at cannot be very comfortable; and in spite of Mr. Sterne’s observation the House of Mourning not very agreeable; it is my wish, that all of the Gentn of my family, except yourself, who I beg may come here and remain with me; may proceed on at their leizure to Mount Vernon, and wait for me there. Colo. Cobb will join you on the road at the Tavern we breakfasted at (this side Ruffens). My best wishes attend the Gentn. and with much sincerity and affectn. I remain,”
Ibid., vol. 23, 11-18-1781. To Robert Hanson Harrison. “I thank you for your kind Congratulations on the Capitulation of Cornwallis....Mr. Custis’ death has given much distress in this family.”
Ibid., vol. 29, 1-10-1787. To Bushrod Washington. “My Dear Bushrod: I condole most sincerely with you, my Sister and family, on the death of my Brother [John Augustine Washington]. I feel most sensibly for this event; but resignation being our duty, to attempt an expression of my sorrow on this occasion would be as feebly described, as it would be unavailing when related.”
Ibid., vol. 29, 2-15-1787. To Mary Washington. “I informed my brother John sometime ago, whose death I sincerely lament on many accounts, and on this painful event condole with you most sincerely.”
Ibid., vol. 29, 3-25-1787. “My Dear Marquis: I have lately lost a Brother (Colo. John Augt. Washington which I mention to account for the black Seal of this letter) the rest of my friends, and every individual in the Family are tolerably well and join most cordially in every vow that can contribute to the health and happiness of Madam La Fayette yourself and family. Esqr Tub will soon be able to offer you his own homage as he begins to write very prettily. I have no expression that can convey to you the warmth of my friendship and affectionate attachment. Adieu.”
Ibid., vol. 33, 10-27-1793. To William Pearce. “The season has been remarkably sickly, generally, but my family, except a few slight touches of the intermittant fever, chiefly among the blacks, have shared less of it, than I find from report, has been felt in most other places.”
Ibid., vol. 34, 5-10-1795. To William Pearce. “I am sorry to find by your last reports that there has been two deaths in the family since I left Mount Vernon; and one of them a young fellow. I hope every necessary care and attention was afforded him. I expect little of this from McKoy, or indeed from most of his class; for they seem to consider a Negro much in the same light as they do the brute beasts, on the farms; and often times treat them as inhumanly.”
Ibid., vol. 37, 9-22-1799. To Samuel Washington. “Dear Sir: Your letter, announcing the death of my Brother, came to hand last night. One from Colo. Ball, informing me of that event, arrived the evening before. I very sincerely condole with your mother and the family on this occasion. But as death, in this case, regular in its approaches; and evident, long before it happened; she, and all of you, must have been prepared for the stroke. Of course, though painful, it must have fallen much lighter on that account.”
31 Ibid., vol. 3, 8-28, 1774. To Mrs. Sarah Bomford. “...it would be a wrong to suffer the small pittance she reservd to herself the time of her unhappy Marriage to fall into the hands of a v — n [villain]who has not only endeavourd to wrong of it but would I suppose deprive her of the very means of Existance if he could do it.”
Ibid., vol. 29, 11-15-1786. To Mrs. Anne Ennis. Ibid., vol. 33, 9-6-1794. To Peter Trenor. Ibid., vol. 29, 4-28-1788. To Comte de Rochambeau. “My dear Count: I have just received the letter which you did me the honor to write to me on the 18th of January; and am sorry to learn that the Count de Grasse, our gallant coadjutor in the capture of Cornwallis, is no more. Yet his death is not, perhaps, so much to be deplored as his latter days were to be pitied. It seemed as if an unfortunate and unrelenting destiny pursued him, to destroy the enjoyment of all earthly comfort. For the disastrous battle of the 12th of April, the loss of the favor of his king, and the subsequent connection in marriage with an unworthy woman, were sufficient to have made him weary of the burden of life.”
32 Ibid., vol. 33, 9-14, 1794. To Elizabeth Parke Custis. “My dear Betcy: Shall I, in answer to your letter of the 7th. instant say, when you are as near the Pinnacle of happiness as your sister Patcy conceives herself to be; or when your candour shines more conspicuously than it does in that letter, that I will then, comply with the request you have made, for my Picture?
No: I will grant it without either: for if the latter was to be a preliminary, it would be sometime I apprehend before that Picture would be found pendant at your breast; it not being within the bounds of probability that the contemplation of an inanimate thing, whatever might be the reflections arising from the possession of it, can be the only wish of your heart.
Respect may place it among the desirable objects of it, but there are emotions of a softer kind, to wch. the heart of a girl turned of eighteen, is susceptible, that must have generated much warmer ideas, although the fruition of them may, apparently, be more distant than those of your Sister’s.
Having (by way of a hint) delivered a sentiment to Patty, [Martha Parke Custis, who became Mrs. Thomas Peter] which may be useful to her (if it be remembered after the change that is contemplated, is consummated) I will suggest another, more applicable to yourself.
Do not then in your contemplation of the marriage state, look for perfect felicity before you consent to wed. Nor conceive, from the fine tales the Poets and lovers of old have told us, of the transports of mutual love, that heaven has taken its abode on earth: Nor do not deceive yourself in supposing, that the only mean by which these are to be obtained, is to drink deep of the cup, and revel in an ocean of love. Love is a mighty pretty thing; but like all other delicious things, it is cloying; and when the first transports of the passion begins to subside, which it assuredly will do, and yield, oftentimes too late, to more sober reflections, it serves to evince, that love is too dainty a food to live upon alone, and ought not to be considered farther than as a necessary ingredient for that matrimonial happiness which results from a combination of causes; none of which are of greater importance, than that the object on whom it is placed, should possess good sense, good dispositions, and the means of supporting you in the way you have been brought up. Such qualifications cannot fail to attract (after marriage) your esteem and regard, into wch. or into disgust, sooner or later, love naturally resolves itself; and who at the sametime, has a claim to the respect, and esteem of the circle he moves in. Without these, whatever may be your first impressions of the man, they will end in disappointment; for be assured, and experience will convince you, that there is no truth more certain, than that all our enjoyments fall short of our expectations; and to none does it apply with more force, than to the gratification of the passions. You may believe me to be always, and sincerely Your Affectionate.”
33 Ibid., vol. 3, 4-3-1773. “Dear Sir: I am now set down to write to you on a Subject of Importance, and of no small embarrassment to me. My Son in Law and Ward, Mr. Custis, has, as I have been informed, paid his Addresses to your Second Daughter, and having made some progress in her Affections has required her in Marriage. How far a union of this Sort may be agreeable to you, you best can tell, but I should think myself wanting in Candor was I not to acknowledge, that, Miss Nellie’s amiable qualifications stands confess’d at all hands; and that, an alliance with your Family, will be pleasing to his. [Note: Eleanor Calvert. She married John Parke Custis Feb. 3, 1774, and, after his death, Dr. David Stuart. By her first husband she had Eleanor Parke (Nellie) Custis, two other daughters, and George Washington Parke Custis.]
“This acknowledgment being made you must permit me to add Sir, that at this, or in any short time, his youth, inexperience, and unripened Education, is, and will be insuperable obstacles in my eye, to the completion of the Marriage. As his Guardian, I conceive it to be my indispensable duty (to endeavor) to carry him through a regular course of Education, many branches of which, sorry I am to add, he is totally deficient of; and to guard his youth to a more advanced age before an Event, on which his own Peace and the happiness of another is to depend, takes place; not that I have any doubt of the warmth of his Affections, nor, I hope I may add, any fears of a change in them; but at present, I do not conceive that he is capable of bestowing that due attention to the Important consequences of a marriage State, which is necessary to be done by those, who are Inclin’d to enter into it; and of course, am unwilling he should do it till he is. If the Affection which they have avowd for each other is fixd upon a Solid Basis, it will receive no diminution in the course of two or three years, in which time he may prosecute his Studies, and thereby render himself more deserving of the Lady, and useful to Society; If unfortunately, (as they are both young) there should be an abatement of Affection on either side, or both, it had better precede, than follow after, Marriage.
“Delivering my Sentiments thus, will not, I hope, lead you into a belief that I am desirous of breaking off the Match; to postpone it, is all I have in view; for I shall recommend it to the young Gentleman with the warmth that becomes a man of honour, (notwithstanding he did not vouchsafe to consult either his Mother or me, on the occasion) to consider himself as much engaged to your Daughter as if the indissoluble Knot was tied; and, as the surest means of effecting this, to stick close to his Studies, (in which I flatter myself you will join me) by which he will, in a great measure, avoid those little Flirtations with other Girls which may, by dividing the Attention, contribute not a little to divide the Affection.
“It may be expected of me perhaps to say something of Fortune, But, to discend to particulars, at this time, may seem rather premature. In general therefore I shall inform you that Mr. Custis’s Estate consists of about 15,000 Acres of Land, good part of it adjoining to the City of Williamsburg, and none 40 Miles from it; several Lotts in the said City; between two and three hundred Negroes; and about Eight or ten thousand Pounds upon Bond, and in the hands of his Merchants. This Estate he now holds Independent of his Mother’s Dower, which will be an acquisition to it at her Death, and upon the whole such an one as you will readily acknowledge ought to entitle him to a handsome Portion in a Wife; But, as I should never require a Child of my own to make a Sacrifice of himself to Interest, so, neither do I think it incumbent on me to recommend it as a Guardian; but as I know you are full able, I should hope, and expect, if we were now upon the point of Settling these Preliminaries, that you would also be willing to do something genteel by your Daughter.
“At all times when you, Mrs. Calvert, or the young Ladies can make it convenient to favor us with a visit we should be happy in seeing you at this place. Mrs. Washington and Miss Custis join me in respectful Compliments and I am, dear Sir, etc.” Ibid., vol. 3, 4-25, 1773. To Burwell Bassett, “Mrs. Washington, in her letter to Mrs. Bassett, informs her of Jack Custis’s engagement with Nelly Calvert, second daughter of Benedict Calvert, Esq., of Maryland. I shall say nothing further therefore on the subject than that I could have wished b e had postponed entering into that engagement till his studies were finished. Not that I have any objection to the match, as she is a girl of exceeding good character; but because I fear, as he has discovered much fickleness already, that 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 and he perhaps wishing to be at liberty again before he is fairly embarked on those important duties.”
34 Ibid., vol. 3, 2-15, 1773. To Burwell Bassett. “Our celebrated fortune, Miss French, whom half the world was in pursuit of, bestowed her hand on Wednesday last, being her birthday (you perceive I think myself under a necessity of accounting for the choice) upon Mr. Ben Dulany, who is to take her to Maryland in a month from this time. Mentioning of one wedding puts me in mind of another, tho’ of less dignity; this is the marriage of Mr. Henderson (of Colchester) to a Miss More (of the same place) remarkable for a very frizzled head, and good singing, the latter of which I shall presume it was that captivated our merchant.”
35 Ibid., vol. 11, 3-11-1778. WGW, vol. 9, 8-18-1777. To Capt. Thomas Nelson, Jr. Ibid., vol. 23, 2-8-1782. To William Fitzhugh. Ibid., vol. 27, 10-2-1783. To Lt. Col. Tench Tilghman. Ibid., vol. 28, 9-1-1785. To Marquis de Lafayette. Ibid., vol. 28, 8-10-1786. To Charles Armand-Tuffin. Ibid., vol. 37, 12-27-1780. To Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton. Ibid., vol. 3, 2-15-1773. To Burwell Bassett. Ibid., vol. 3, 12-15-1773. To Reverend Myles Cooper. Ibid., vol. 2, 9-30-1757.
36 Ibid., vol. 5-23-1785. To Burwell Bassett. Cf. Ibid., vol. 27, 9-20-1783.
37 Fitzpatrick, Diaries of George Washington, Nov. 17, 1751. vol. 1, p. 25.
38 Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 152-153.
39 Fields, Worthy Partner, p. 153-154 footnote. “Mrs. Washington is alleged to have written a sentimental letter to Eleanor Calvert Custis. The text of the letter first appeared in Lossing, Mary and Martha, the Mother and the Wife of George Washington, p. 126, New York 1886. The text as given by Lossing is as follows: “My dear Nelly: God took from my Daughter when June Roses were blooming. He has now given me another daughter about her age when winter winds are blowing, to warm my heart again. I am as happy as one so afflicted and blest can be. Pray receive my benediction and a wish that you may long live the loving, wife of my happy son and a loving daughter of your affectionate mother, M Washington.” Martha Washington did not attend the marriage ceremony, since she was in mourning and did not wish to detract from the gaiety of the occasion. Lossing states George Washington was instructed to present the letter to the bride immediately after the ceremony....”
40 Cf. Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997) p. 256.
41 See John Corbin, The Unknown Washington: Biographic Origins of the Republic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), pp. 51-75. Corbin writes, “In 1877, two love letters written by Washington to Mrs. George William Fairfax were published for the first time and caused a sensation which, though masked for decades by biographers, has steadily increased. They had been found among Mrs. Fairfax’s papers upon her death in England in 1811, and her kinsfolk in America had treasured them through two generations in the awed silence of Victorian propriety. The Fairfaxes were Washington’s nearest friends until shortly before the Revolution, their house, Belvoir, being five miles down the Potomac from Mount Vernon and in full view of it. Though George Fairfax was eight years older, the two men had been intimate, surveying electioneering and fox-hunting together, from the time Washington, aged sixteen, came to live with his brother Lawrence. There is abundant evidence, notably in Washington’s diaries, that Mrs. Fairfax and Mrs. Washington were neighborly always, dining and visiting with each other, and were the first to offer sympathy in illness and bereavement. The letters were written in 1758, when Washington, aged twenty-six, was engaged to Martha Custis. Though they are reticently worded and indeed seem intentionally vague and obscure, they are now generally accepted as showing that he was passionately in love with Mrs. Fairfax. One of them speaks of the ‘the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them’—and what follows, as we shall see, is proof enough that these passages were not with Martha. In two later letters, one of them written only nineteen months before he died, he declared that the moments he had spent in her company were ‘the happiest in my life.’ We have here, obviously, something very different from the legend of idyllic love which the Victorians wove about the lives of George and Martha Washington. Whether it is in the way of scandal depends upon the nature of the ‘thousand tender passages.’ That question has obsessed recent biographers.” Pp. 51-52. Corbin then adds, “Every record of Washington’s married life bespeaks affection and happiness, a loyal and unflagging co-operation in the high art of living—but also bespeaks, though in the highest sense of the word, a marriage of convenience. Knowing what we do of his instinctive wisdom and integrity, we may well believe that, so far as he as in honor bound, he did not conceal or embellish the state of his heart. It was literal truth that their lives were ‘inseparable’; nor can we doubt that he cherished her always as ‘another self.’ In a very different view are his two letters of the following September to Sally, letters which she treasured to her death. Paul Leicester Ford’s objection that the evidence of their authenticity ‘has not been produced’ is scarcely worthy of consideration. In writing the first daft of his little biography, Captain Cary, a devoted antiquary and genealogist, had access to Sally’s papers and copied them. The final draft was prepared as an answer to Ford, but was still in manuscript when Captain Cary died...In such matters family tradition is of great weight, and in this case it is of the clearest and most substantial. It is sustained, moreover, by evidence both external and internal, which is beyond the power of the cleverest impostor to invent. The letters as also that written in 1757 on Washington’s return from the front to Mount Vernon fall in perfectly with all the evidence as to his mood and movements, most of which is now for the first time assembled; and they bear the stamp of his character and habit down to the unrevised sentence-structure and elaborate punctuation. The autograph originals could scarcely be more convincing.” P. 64.
42 Howard F. Bremer, George Washington 1732-1799: Chronology—Documents—Bibliographical Aids (Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.: Oceana Publications, 1967), p. 1. Bremer writes, “December 17, 1748, “George William Fairfax married Sarah (“Sally”) Cary. George Washington, two years her junior, fell in love with her and probably remained so all his life.”
43 Hughes, George Washington: The Human Being vol. 1.
“The Reverend Doctor Moncure D. Conway makes a statement that is impressive in view of the emphasis unjustifiably laid on the imaginary doctrine that Washington was brought up in an atmosphere of intense religion: “In his many letters to his adopted nephew and young relatives, he admonishes them about their morals, but in no case have I been able to discover any suggestion that they should read the Bible, keep the Sabbath, go to church, or any warning against Infidelity.”
44 An important consideration that we must consider is why Washington did not do what his mother and various others of his progenitors had done, namely, placed a testimony of trust in Christ in their last will and testament. Washington did not do this. From this, some would infer that he was not a Christian, and that it thus stands as a proof of a belief in Deism. And as to his death without the presence of a clergyman, and thus the reception of the Eucharist, we find that this question was raised by Washington’s grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. GWP Custis in Recollections asks the question, “It may be asked, Why was the ministry of religion wanting to shed its peaceful and benign luster upon the last hours of Washington? Why was he, to whom the observances of sacred things were ever primary duties throughout life, without their consolations in his last moments? We answer, circumstances did not permit. It was but for a little while that the disease assumed so threatening a character as to forbid the encouragement of hope; yet, to stay that summons which none may refuse, to give still farther length of days to him whose ‘time-honored life’ was so dear to mankind, prayer was not wanting to the throne of Grace. Close to the couch of the sufferer, resting her head upon that ancient book, with which she had been wont to hold pious communion a portion of every day, for more than a half a century, was the venerable consort, absorbed in silent prayer, and from which she only arose when the mourning group prepared to lead her from the chamber of the dead. Such were the last hours of Washington.” p. 477.
45 Humphreys, Life of George Washington, p.6-8
