THE FIRST WINTER AT MOUNT VERNON
Washington Irving speaks of the first winter at Mount Vernon as being of such intense cold that "General Washington could not travel through the snows even as far as Fredericksburg to visit his aged mother." General Dabney H. Maury, in his "Recollections of a Virginian," says: "After Washington's military career ended he used to go frequently to Fredericksburg to visit his venerable mother, and his arrival was the occasion of great conviviality and rejoicing. Dinner parties and card parties were then in order, and we find in that wonderful record of his daily receipts and expenditures that on one of these occasions he won thirty guineas at Lop-loo! Probably it was after this night that he threw the historic dollar across the river, the only instance of extravagance ever charged against him." A dinner-party was usually given to him on his arrival at the old "Indian Queen" tavern. On these visits Washington laid aside his state, and—near his boyhood's home—was a boy again.
Judge Brooke, for many years chief justice of Virginia, who had served as an officer in the legion of "Light-horse Harry," used to tell of having frequently met Washington on his visits to Fredericksburg after the Revolutionary War, and how "hilarious" the general was on those occasions with "Jack Willis and other friends of his young days." Judge Brooke remembered one dinner given to Washington at the "Indian Queen" tavern at which he was present. "A British officer sang a comic song. Washington laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and called upon the singer to repeat it."
"Light-horse Harry" Lee was always a great favorite in the Washington family. He was, perhaps, the only person outside of it "never under the influence"—according to Irving—"of that reverential awe" which Washington is said to have inspired. His summer home "Chatham" adjoined Mary Washington's Stafford farm; he was often in Fredericksburg at the "Indian Queen" banquets. Nobody could take such liberties with the great man. The son of his "Lowland Beauty" stepped right into the place she had left vacant.
The general one day asked "Light-horse Harry" if he knew where he could get a good pair of carriage horses.
"I have a fine pair, general—but you can't get them."
"Why not?"
"Because," said the saucy young soldier, "you will never pay more than half price for anything, and I must have full price for my horses."
Silence—broken at last by the bantering laugh of a pet parrot caged near them. The general took the assault upon his dignity in great good part. "Ah, Lee, you are a funny fellow!" said he; "even the birds laugh at you!"
"But," adds Irving, "hearty laughter was rare with Washington. The sudden explosions we read of were the result of some ludicrous surprise."
Still we do read of this rare laughter—this willing yielding to merriment—on the occasions of his visits to his mother.
All of which goes to prove, first, that Washington did not, as has been charged, neglect to visit her during the four intervening years between the declaration of peace and his own appointment to the Presidency, and, secondly, that these were happy visits, notwithstanding his mother's age and infirmities—happy for her, otherwise, they could not have been happy for him.
It is not the purpose of the compiler of this story of Mary Washington and her times to answer all of the witless charges that thoughtless—we will not say malignant—persons have made regarding Washington's relations with his mother; but one of these stories found its way to the columns of a newspaper, and perhaps we may check its echo, now going on from lip to lip, to the effect that after he became President, Washington denied to his mother a home in his temporary residence. He entered that residence late in the spring of 1789. His mother died in August of that year. She was ill when he parted from her, and he was prostrated for many weeks with a malignant carbuncle. He was not recovered when she died; he could not go to her. It is not possible that she wished to exchange the repose of her own home and the ministrations of her loved physician and only daughter for the stirring life of a noisy metropolis.
And as for her noble son—if the splendor of his record be more than the eyes of his critics can bear, they are at liberty to veil it for their own comfort by the mists of their own imaginings. They will never persuade the world that the purest and best man this country ever saw could be capable of neglecting an aged and infirm woman—and that woman the mother who bore him, and to whom he owed all that made him greater than his fellows.
I should doubt the authenticity of any letter, tending to lower our estimation of Washington's character. William Smyth of Cambridge University, England, in his "Lectures on History" (Lecture 34, p. 436), warns us that one volume of "Washington's Letters" is spurious and not to be respected. I have not seen this assertion of Smyth's repeated, but he could not have made it without authority.
As to the neglect of his mother during the last five years of his life—a charge that has been made more than once—there can be no foundation whatever. He never realized his dream of rest and leisure. The one ice-bound winter succeeding the declaration of peace was his only moment of repose. He found his own affairs much involved—so much so that Congress wished to aid him in restoring them. But he refused to accept any gift or any compensation for his eight years of service. He complained of the enormous burden of the letters he must answer. He found small time for the arboricultural pursuits in which he was so much interested. Hardly had he planted his balsams, ivies, and ornamental trees of various kinds, when trouble in the country claimed his attention. He writes of his longing for privacy and leisure, and remembers that his time to enjoy them must be short. Still he plants "elms, ash, white-thorn, maples, mulberries, horse-chestnuts, willows and lilacs," and writes that his trees grow fast, as if they knew him to be getting old and must make haste if they wish ever to shelter him!
All this was brought to an end by the very serious discords in the country as to the Constitution adopted by the Confederation of States. The story of these discords is a long one, and has been ably told elsewhere. Washington's feelings were intensely excited by the news that the insurgents of Massachusetts had exhibited such violence that the chief magistrate had called out the militia of the state to support the Constitution. "Good God!" he exclaims, "who besides a Tory or a Briton could have predicted this? It was but the other day we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we now live,—constitutions of our own choice and making,—and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them. If any man had told me this three years since, I should have thought him a bedlamite, a fit subject for a mad house!"
The troubles ended in a call for another convention of which he was, reluctantly, compelled to accept the place of delegate. To serve intelligently he went into a course of study of the history of ancient and modern confederacies, and has left among his papers an abstract of their merits and defects. He must now learn a new trade! He must become a wise and learned statesman.
One can easily see the impossibility of long and frequent visits to his mother at Fredericksburg. The man was bound, hand and foot. He longed for repose, and at first rebelled against further public duty. "Having had some part in bringing the ship into port," he said, "and having been fairly discharged, it is not my business to embark again upon a sea of troubles."
The country ordered otherwise. There was a quarrel in the family, and a serious one, and the "Father of his Country" must help to settle it.
Virginia had done what she could. She was rich and powerful, and the weaker states reckoned themselves at a disadvantage beside her. Virginia was the foremost advocate for equality and union, and was willing to make sacrifices to secure it.
She nobly surrendered to the Federal government a great principality. All the country beyond the Ohio, now forming the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, belonged to Virginia. Says Esten Cooke: "Her right to it rested upon as firm a basis as the right of any other Commonwealth to its own domain, and if there was any question of the Virginia title by charter, she could assert her right by conquest. The region had been wrested from the British by a Virginian commanding Virginia troops; the people had taken 'The oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia,' and her title to the entire territory was indisputable.
"These rights she now relinquished, and her action was the result of an enlarged patriotism and devotion to the cause of Union."
Thus she aided in the settlement of the questions before the great Convention of 1788, of which Washington was made President. All the great men of the country were present at this convention, and the result was that the Constitution of the United States went into operation, and Washington was elected President by a unanimous vote.
In the face of these vital matters no one—certainly not his brave, good, reasonable mother—could blame him that the hours of the days were all too short for the great work he had to do.