29 John Warwick Montgomery, The Shaping of America (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1976), pp. 54 and p. 56.
30 Randall, George Washington: A Life, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), p. 67.
31 Johnson, George Washington: The Founding Father (HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), pp. 10-11, “But neither did Washington look back to the seventeenth century and its religious zeal. . . He was never indifferent to Christianity—quite the contrary: he saw it as an essential element of social control and good government—but his intellect and emotions inclined him more to the substitute for formal dogma, freemasonry, whose spread among males of the Anglo-Saxon world was such a feature of the eighteenth century. It was introduced into the colonies only three years before his birth. The first true Masonic Lodge in America was founded in 1734 in Philadelphia....”
CHAPTER 26
1 WGW, vol. 36, 8-4-1797. To Lawrence Lewis.
2 Rupert Hughes, George Washington: The Human Being & The Hero 1732-1762, (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1926), vol. 1, p. 552-559.
3 Bancroft, History of the United States of America, vol. IV, 34.
4 WGW, vol. 2, 7-2-1766. To Captain John Thompson. “With this letter comes a negro (Tom), which I beg the favor of you to sell in any of the Islands you may go to, for whatever he will fetch, and bring me in return from him.”
One hhd (Hogshead—a cask containing from 63 to 140 gallons)
One ditto of best rum
One barrel of lymes, if good and cheap
One pot of tamarinds, containing about 10 lbs.
Two small ditto of mixed sweetmeats, about 5 lbs each.
5 Ibid., vol. 28, 4-12-1786. To Robert Morris. “There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted, for the abolition of slavery. But there is only one proper way and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and this by legislative authority.” WGW, vol. 28, 5-10-1786. To Lafayette. “To set the slaves afloat, at once would I believe be productive of much inconvenience and mischief; but, by degrees, it certainly might and assuredly ought to be effected, and that, too, by legislative authority.” WGW, vol. 34, 11-23-1794. To Alexander Spotswood. “With respect to the other species of property, concerning which you ask my opinion, I shall frankly declare to you that I do not like even to think, much less talk of it. However, as you have put the question, I shall, in a few words, give you my ideas of it. Were it not then, that I am principled against selling negroes, as you would do cattle at a market, I would not in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one, as a slave. I shall be happily mistaken, if they are not found to be very troublesome species of property ere many years pass over our heads.”
6 Ibid., vol., 29, 9-9-1786. To John Francis Mercer. “I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which Slavery, in this country may be abolished by law.” “I had resolved never to become the Master of another slave by purchase.” Ibid., vol. 36, 11-13-1797. To George Lewis.
7 Ibid., vol. 36, 11-13-1797 To George Lewis. “The running off of my Cook, has been a most inconvenient thing to this family; and what renders it more disagreeable, is, that I had resolved never to become the Master of another Slave by purchase ; but this resolution I fear I must break. I have endeavoured to hire, black or white, but am not yet supplied.” Ibid., vol. 37, 4-12-1791. To Tobias Lear. “...whilst my residence is incidental as an Officer of Government only, but whether among people who are in the practice of enticing slaves even where there is no colour of law for it, this distinction will avail, I know not, and therefore beg you will take the best advise you can on the subject, and in case it shall be found that any of my Slaves may, or any for them shall attempt their freedom at the expiration of six months, it is my wish and desire that you would send the whole, or such part of them as Mrs. Washington may not chuse to keep, home, for although I do not think they would be benefitted by the change, yet the idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist. At any rate it might, if they conceived they had a right to it, make them insolent in a State of Slavery. As all except Hercules and Paris are dower negroes, it behoves me to prevent the emancipation of them, otherwise I shall not only loose the use of them, but may have them to pay for. If upon taking good advise it is found expedient to send them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public; and none I think would so effectually do this, as Mrs. Washington coming to Virginia next month (towards the middle or latter end of it, as she seemed to have a wish to do) if she can accomplish it by any convenient and agreeable means, with the assistance of the Stage Horses &c. This would naturally bring her maid and Austin, and Hercules under the idea of coming home to Cook whilst we remained there might be sent on in the Stage. Whether there is occasion for this or not according to the result of your enquiries, or issue the thing as it may, I request that these Sentiments and this advise may be known to none but yourself and Mrs. Washington. From the following expression in your letter “that those who were of age might follow the example of his (the Attorney’s people) after a residence of six months”, it would seem that none could apply before the end of May, and that the non age of Christopher, Richmond and Oney is a bar to them.”
Worthy Partner, footnote, p. 213, says, “Austin, a dower negro slave who had been with the Washingtons in New York and Philadelphia, was returned to Mount Vernon to visit his wife and friends. It is likely the reason for returning him to Virginia was to prevent his possible emancipation. According to Pennsylvania law, when a slave owner took up citizenship in that state, his slaves, providing they were of age, would become emancipated at the end of six months. ... all but three of the servants were dower slaves, and [Washington] did not wish to lose them, and thus be required to reimburse Mrs. Washington’s estates for them.”
8 John C. Fitzpatrick, “The George Washington Slanders” in Washington Bicentennial Committee (Washington, D. C.: 1932), vol. III. pp. 314-319.
9 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.”
10 WGW, vol. 2, 9-12-1758. To Mrs. George William Fairfax. “Dear Madam: Yesterday I was honored with your short but very agreeable favor of the first inst. How joyfully I catch at the happy occasion of renewing a correspondence which I feared was disrelished on your part, I leave to time, that never failing expositor of all things, and to a monitor equally faithful in my own breast, to testify. In silence I now express my joy; silence, which in some cases, I wish the present, speaks more intelligently than the sweetest eloquence.
“If you allow that any honor can be derived from my opposition to our present system of management, you destroy the merit of it entirely in me by attributing my anxiety to the animating prospect of possessing Mrs. Custis, when—I need not tell you, guess yourself. Should not my own Honor and country’s welfare be the excitement? ‘Tis true, I profess myself a votary of love. I acknowledge that a lady is in the case, and further I confess that this lady is known to you. Yes, Madame, as well as she is to one who is too sensible of her charms to deny the Power whose influence he feels and must ever submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. But experience, alas! sadly reminds me how impossible this is, and evinces an opinion which I have long entertained, that there is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
“You have drawn me, dear Madame, or rather I have drawn myself, into an honest confession of a simple Fact. Misconstrue not my meaning; doubt it not, nor expose it. The world has no business to know the object of my Love, declared in this manner to you, when I want to conceal it. One thing above all things in this world I wish to know, and only one person of your acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning. But adieu to this till happier times, if I ever shall see them. The hours at present are melancholy dull. Neither the rugged toils of war, no the gentler conflict of A — B — s, [Assembly Balls?] is in my choice. I dare believe you are as happy as you say, I wish I was happy also. Mirth, good humor, ease of mind, and — what else — cannot fail to render you so and consummate your wishes.
“If one agreeable lady could almost wish herself a fine gentleman for the sake of another, I apprehend that many fine gentlemen will wish themselves finer e’er Mrs. Spotswood is possest. She has already become a reigning toast in this camp, and many there are in it who intend (fortune favoring) to make honorable scars speak the fullness of their merit, and be a messenger of their Love to Her.
“I cannot easily forgive the unseasonable haste of my last express, if he deprived me thereby of a single word you intended to add. The time of the present messenger is, as the last might have been, entirely at your disposal. I can’t expect to hear from my friends more than this once before the fate of the expedition will some how or other be determined. I therefore beg to know when you set out for Hampton, and when you expect to return to Belvoir again. And I should be glad also to hear of your speedy departure, as I shall thereby hope for your return before I get down. The disappointment of seeing your family would give me much concern. From any thing I can yet see ‘tis hardly possible to say when we shall finish. I don’t think there is a probability of it till the middle of November. Your letter to Captain Gist I forwarded by a safe hand the moment it came to me. His answer shall be carefully transmitted.
“Col. Mercer, to whom I delivered your message and compliments, joins me very heartily in wishing you and the Ladies of Belvoir the perfect enjoyment of every happiness this world affords. Be assured that I am, dear Madame, with the most unfeigned regard, your most obedient and most obliged humble servant.
“N. B. Many accidents happening (to use a vulgar saying) between the cup and the lip, I choose to make the exchange of carpets myself, since I find you will not do me the honor to accept mine.”
11 WGW, vol. 2, 9-12-1758. To Sally Cary Fairfax.
12 Ibid., vol. 2, 9-12-1758. WGW note explains: “The only authority for this letter that has so far appeared is the text printed in the New York Herald (Mar. 30, 1877), and in Welles’s Pedigree and History of the Washington Family (New York: 1879). The letter was sold by Bangs & Co., auctioneers in New York, and the Herald, after printing this letter the day before, merely reported the sale as disposing of two Washington letters, one at $13 and one at $11.50, leaving it a matter of guess as to which one of these prices belonged to this much discussed epistle.” The letter drops from sight after this sale, and its present whereabouts is unknown. Constance Cary Harrison, in Scribner’s Monthly (July, 1876), wrote: “Mrs. George William Fairfax, the object of George Washington’s early and passionate love, lived to an advanced age, in Bath, England, widowed, childless, and utterly infirm. Upon her death, at the age of eighty-one, letters (still in possession of the Fairfax family) were found among her effects, showing that Washington had never forgotton the influence of his youthful disappointment. But these conclusions are by no means unquestionable. The editor debated for some time the inclusion of this letter and finally concluded to use it after thus noting its unsettled status.”
See John Corbin, The Unknown Washington: Biographic Origins of the Republic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), pp. 51-75. Corbin says, “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. See Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1997), p. 179.
13 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. Kitman, The Making of the President, p. 267-268, 269.
14 WGW, vol. 27, 7-10-1783. To George William Fairfax. “My dear Sir: With very sincere pleasure I receiv’d your favor of the 26th. Of March. It came to hand a few days ago only; and gave me the satisfaction of learning that you enjoyed good health, and that Mrs. Fairfax had improved in hers. there was nothing wanting in this Letter to give compleat satisfaction to Mrs. Washington and myself, but some expression to induce us to believe you would once more become our Neighbours. Your House at Belvoir I am sorry to add is no more, but mine (which is enlarged since you saw it) is most sincerely and heartily at your Service till you could rebuild it. As the path, after being closed by a long, arduous, and painful contest, is to use an Indian Methaphor, now opened and made smooth, I shall please myself with the hope of hearing from you frequently; and till you forbid me to endulge the wish I shall not despair of seeing you and Mrs. Fairfax once more the Inhabitants of Belvoir, and greeting you both there, the intimate companions of our old Age, as you have been of our younger years.”
15 Zall, Washington on Washington, p. 37. Zall writes, “Washington’s ill health was reason enough to retire from military life. His malaria and dysentery had turned so severe in March of 1758 that he left his command at Winchester for treatment in Williamsburg. Six months later he was composing a celebrated letter confessing love to his neighbor’s fun-loving wife, Sally Fairfax (12 Septermber 1758). At eighteen, a slender, tall brunet with sparkling dark eyes, she and her sisters exchanged teasing letters with Washington, apparently tutoring him in the art of courtly correspondence. The love letter could have been another exercise in courtly composition rather than the overflow of powerful feelings, since he carefully revised the expression.”
16 WGW, vol. 11, 4-21-1778.
17 Ibid., vol. 28, 8-1-1786.
18 Ibid., vol. 27, 9-2-1783.
19 Kitman, The Making of the President p. 267-268, 269.
20 Ibid., 267.
21 Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man, pp. 17-18.
22 WGW, vol. 1, [1749-50]. To — —. “Dear Friend Robin: As its the greatest mark of friendship and esteem Absent Friends can shew each other in Writing and often communicating their thoughts to his fellow Companions makes me endeavor to signalize myself in acquainting you from time to time and at all times my situation and employments of Life and could wish you would take half the Pains of contriving me a letter by any oppertunity as you may be well assured of its meeting with a very welcome reception my Place of Residence is at present at His Lordships where I might was my heart disengag’d pass my time very pleasantly [agreeably] as theres a very agreeable Young Lady Lives in the same House (Colo. George Fairfax’s Wife’s Sister) but as that’s only adding Fuel to fire it makes me the more uneasy for by often and unavoidably being in Company with her revives my former Passion for your Low Land Beauty whereas was I to live more retired from young Women I might in some measure eliviate my sorrows by burying that chast and troublesome Passion in the grave of oblivion or etarnall forgetfulness for as I am very well assured that’s the only antidote or remedy that I ever shall be releivd by or only recess than can administer any cure or help to me as I am well convinced was I ever to attempt any thing I should only get a denial which would be only adding grief to uneasiness.”
23 Ibid., vol. 1, [1749-50]. To — —. “Dear Friend Robin....”
