The name, which this truly great and good man rendered for ever illustrious and venerable, is of thoroughly English origin, and was assumed, from a manor in the county of Durham, by one of the proprietors, during the dynasty of the Plantagenets. The family continued, for successive centuries, to produce men distinguished in their day and generation as knights, divines, lawyers, and agriculturists; and during the Protectorate two of its cadets, more adventurous than their predecessors, fared forth from a hereditary grange in Northamptonshire, took shipping for Virginia, sailed into the bay of Chesapeake, and settled, in the midst of silk grass and wild fruit, under the shade of the tall, bulky trees on the banks of the Potomac.
The grandson of one of these emigrants, a colonist of industry, enterprise, and repute, flourished in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. He seems to have been fully alive to the inconvenience, and steeled against the temptations of celibacy; for he was twice married, and blessed with several children, of whom George Washington—the eldest son by the second wife—was born on the 22d of February, 1732. Shortly after this joyous event, the worthy and prosperous planter removed to an estate he possessed in Stafford county; and there, on the east side of the Rappahannoc river, the childhood of the future general and statesman was passed. He soon gave indications of a natural disposition to lead and govern; and showed an innate [inclination for military pursuits] and athletic exercises. When at play, he took infinite delight in forming his youthful comrades into companies, which he drilled, marched, and paraded with due order and formality. Sometimes they were divided into two armies, and fought mimic battles—he acting as captain-general of one party. Then, as in maturer years, he was much given to such feats as running, leaping, wrestling, throwing bars, and others of a similar character. Moreover, he was held in great respect by his more volatile companions, who looked up to him as an extraordinary lad; and thus he was often privileged to arbitrate on and settle their casual disputes, always, it is stated, to the satisfaction of the parties concerned.
[YOUNG WASHINGTON’S MILITARY ASPIRATIONS.]
It has been remarked that, in general, persons attain with credit, and fill with dignity, the positions which might have been anticipated from their juvenile indications. Some, indeed, afterward display talents of which, in their first stages, they gave no sign, and others put forth a blossom not destined to bring forth the promised fruits: but most frequently the man is such as might have been predicted from the characteristics exhibited in early years. Washington can hardly be regarded as an exception to the general rule; though it is unnecessary to add, that he more than realized any hopes that could reasonably have been entertained from his puerile performances. The seminary at which he received his very scanty education was by no means of the highest class. The pupils were not even initiated into the rudiments of classical learning. Enough was taught the urchins to fit them for conducting the practical business of a planter—at that time the pursuit of nearly all gentlemen whose progenitors had left the comfort and security of merry England to encounter the toils and hardship of a colonial life. The teachers seem to have acted rigidly on the precept of a Spartan king, that the boy should be instructed in the arts likely to be useful to the man. If, on leaving school, the hopeful youths could read with decent correctness, write a tolerable hand, and keep accounts intelligibly, what more was wanting to capacitate them for growing tobacco and shipping it, to be disposed of by the commercial magnates who, arrayed in scarlet cloaks and flowing periwigs, paced, with haughty step and unvailed pride, the arched Exchange of Glasgow? Young men destined for learned professions were, it is true, generally sent to be educated in England; for others a private tutor was sometimes engaged; but in most cases the juvenile Virginians shouldered their satchels, and, picking up the wild grapes in their path, marched to the nearest hamlet to make the best of such tuition as it boasted of. Such, at all events, was the fortune of Washington. Under these disadvantageous circumstances, he pursued his simple studies with unusual vigor and exemplary diligence. At the age of thirteen, he strangely occupied much of his attention with the dry forms used in mercantile transactions. He practiced his skill in the writing of bonds, indentures, bills of exchange, and other deeds, compiled for his own use and guidance a code of rules for behavior in company and conversation, and transcribed such pieces of poetry as touched and charmed his fancy. From a boy, he was peculiarly careful to polish his manners, to cherish the heart’s best affections, to do to others as he would be done to, and to exercise such a habitual control over himself, that he might restrain his constitutional ardor and hold his natural susceptibility in check. His early compositions were not, from the imperfect nature of his education, distinguished by grammatical correctness; but, by reading and perseverance, he gradually overcame these defects, and learned to express himself with force, clearness, and propriety. He had a decided turn for mathematical studies; and the last years of his school career were devoted to the mysteries of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. For the last he felt a singular partiality; and he gratified the taste by measuring the neighboring fields and plantations, entering all the details and particulars in his note-books. This was done with systematic precision; he used his pen with the most scrupulous care, and acquired habits which were of inestimable value when he ascended to posts of peril and responsibility.
Meantime, his father had been cut off in the prime of life; but this early deprivation was, in Washington’s case, almost counteracted by the character of his surviving parent, who, being a woman of sense, tenderness, vigilance, a strong mind, and prudent management, reared her family with the utmost discretion and success. She had the satisfaction of living to witness the splendid position to which the abilities, conduct, and energy of her son ultimately elevated him.
Washington went no longer to school after his sixteenth year. His relations had previously entertained the intention of entering him as a midshipman in the navy; and with this view had successfully exerted their influence to procure him a warrant. It appears that the future hero of a continent joyfully acquiesced in this scheme for his advancement in life; and had it been persisted in, he would no doubt have borne himself with credit and distinction. This was unquestionably a critical juncture in his career, and in the history of America; but it was terminated, imprudently in the opinion of his friends, by the interference of his widowed mother, who little relished the thought of her darling being sent “to rough it out at sea.” She therefore authoritatively forbade his departure. Perhaps the incipient hero was not altogether disconsolate at the maternal veto being thus exercised; for about this date he proved himself not insensible to the magic power of female grace, and became vehemently enamored of some rural beauty. He celebrated her perfections in love-ditties, and confessed his pangs in letters to a confident; but, with a modesty surely rare under such circumstances, he ventured not to reveal the state of his agitated heart to the fair being whose image was stamped on its tablets.
At this period, Washington was fortunate enough to go on a visit to his eldest brother, Lawrence. That gentleman was intelligent and accomplished. He had served with honor in the expedition made, in 1740, against Carthagena; and secured the esteem and intimacy of the high-spirited Admiral Vernon. On returning home he had, in compliment to that gallant officer, named his property Mount Vernon; and they still continued in friendly communication. He had, moreover, become a member of the Colonial legislature, and connected himself by marriage with Lord Fairfax, who, having in earlier days proved his capacity by writing papers in the “Spectator,” had just crossed the Atlantic to explore and examine the immense tract of land that belonged to him in the New World. Thus the company in which the elder Washington moved was by no means deficient in literary culture or patrician refinement; and his sagacious brother, in mixing with it, had opened up to his view aspects of society with which he might otherwise have remained unacquainted. He was too wise not to avail himself of the advantage in this way presented to his opening mind. Slow to speak, ready to hear, and anxious to understand, he used it to counterpoise the partial training his mental faculties had undergone, and thus laid the foundation of the mild dignity and scrupulous politeness which, in other days, made Sir Robert Liston declare, that he had never conversed with a better-bred sovereign in any court of Europe.