[CHAPTER VI]
Relation of George Washington to the Liquor Traffic
In approaching the study of the character of Washington a writer should always remember the veneration in which his memory is justly held among Americans. The reader should remember that public sentiment was then at a very low ebb with regard to the liquor traffic and neither the drinker nor seller was discredited by his neighbors as he is today.
The use of liquor played an important part in the life of a Virginia planter a century and a half ago. At all the cross-roads and court-houses there sprang up taverns or ordinaries, and in these the men of a neighborhood would gather and over a bowl of punch or a bottle of wine, the expense of which they clubbed to share, would spend their evenings. Into this life Washington eagerly entered. As a mere lad his ledger records expenditures:
"By a club in Arrack at Mr. Gordon's 2/6;
Club of a bottle of Rhenish at Mitchel's 1/3;
To part of the club at Port Royal 1/;
To cash in part for a bowl of fruit punch 1/7-1/2."
When Governor Dinwiddie sent Washington in 1753 with a letter to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander, to remonstrate against the erection of French forts, one of the incidents of his journey was a complimentary visit to the Indian queen, Aliquippa, who resided at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogany rivers, in the southeastern part of Alleghany county, Pennsylvania. She had complained of his neglect in not calling upon her when on his outward journey. Young Washington explained the circumstances that prevented him, and with an apology he gave her a coat and a bottle of rum. The latter, Washington wrote, "was thought the much better present of the two," and harmony of feeling was restored. Aliquippa, who was a woman of great energy and had performed some brave deeds, was held in deep respect, amounting almost to reverence, by the Indians in western Pennsylvania.
In 1766 Washington shipped an unruly negro to the West Indies and wrote the captain of the vessel as follows:
"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 for him
One hhd of best molasses
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.
And the residue, much or little in good old spirits."
Shortly before this time Washington was a candidate for the legislature. There was then a Virginia statute forbidding treating the voters, or bribery at elections, and declaring illegal all elections thus obtained, yet the following is the bill of the liquors Washington furnished the voters of Frederick:
| 40 gallons of Rum punch a 3/6 per galn. | 7.00 |
| 15 gallons of wine a 10 per galn. | 7.10 |
| Dinner for your friends | 3.00 |
| 13 1/2 gallons of wine a 10/ | 6.15 |
| 13 gallons of beer a 1/3 | 4-4/2 |
| 8 qts Cider Royal a 1/6 | .16-3 |
| Punch | 3-9 |
| 30 galls strong beer a 8d. per gall. | 1-0 |
| 26 gall. best Barbadoes rum 5/ | 6.10 |
| 12 lbs. S Fefd. Sugar 1/6 | .18-9 |
| 3 galls & 3 qts of beer 1/per gall. | 3-9 |
| 10 bowls of punch 2/6 each | 1.50 |
| 9 half pints of rum 7½ d. each | 5-7-1 |
| 1 pint of wine | 1-6 |