“On leaving one spot, for the protection of another point of exposure, the scene was often such as I shall never forget. The women and children clung round our knees, beseeching us to stay and protect them, and crying out to us, for God’s sake, not to leave them to be butchered by the savages. A hundred times, I declare to heaven, I would have laid down my life with pleasure, could I have insured the safety of those suffering people by the sacrifice.”
During the years 1756 and 1757, the English met a constant series of disasters. The French furnished their Indian allies with the best muskets, and amply supplied them with ammunition. A small band of French, under skilful officers, would take lead. They could call to their aid any number almost they wished of Indian warriors. These hardy men, cautious and sagacious, were highly disciplined in the kind of warfare in which they were engaged. They were by no means to be despised. In such enterprises they were far more valuable than European troops could have been. If there be fiendish work to be done, fiends are needed as the agents.
In February 1756, some matters of state called Washington to Boston. He travelled the distance, five hundred miles, on horseback, and in considerable state. He was accompanied by two aides. The three officers had each black servants dressed in livery. All were well mounted. In Philadelphia and New York Washington was received with distinguished honors.
Almost every man must have his first love. It is very confidently asserted that Washington, young, rich, handsome, and renowned, became an ardent and open admirer of a beautiful and highly accomplished lady, Miss Philipse.[42] It is even said that he sought her hand, and was refused. This is not probable. He remained in Boston but ten days; the press of business demanding a speedy return. The lady subsequently married Captain Morris.[43]
Napoleon once said that he could easily imagine himself surrounded from infancy by family influences, education and companionship, which should have led him, instead of espousing the cause of the people, to have been an ardent defender of the ancient régime. Mr. Everett writes:
“One cannot but bestow a passing thought on the question, What might have been the effect on the march of events, if Washington, at the age of twenty-five, and before the controversies between the mother country and the colonies had commenced, had formed a matrimonial alliance with a family of wealth and influence, in New York, which adhered to the royal cause and left America, as loyalists, when the war broke out? It is a somewhat curious fact, that Washington’s head-quarters, during a part of the campaign of 1776, were established in the stately mansion of the Morrises, on the Harlem river.”[44]
CHAPTER IV.
The Warrior, the Statesman, and the Planter.
Political Views of Washington—Lord Fairfax—Greenway Court—Panic at Winchester—Raids of the Savages—Policy of the British Government—Trials of Washington—The Ministry of Pitt—The New Route—Scarvoyadi the Chief—The Rendezvous at Winchester—Washington meets Martha Custis—The Result—Washington elected to the House of Burgesses—Opening the New Route—Recklessness of Major Grant—The Disaster—The Melancholy March—The Fort Abandoned and Destroyed—The Return—Splendors of Mount Vernon.
The remonstrances of Washington against the folly of cutting a new road were unavailing. As we have mentioned, the people were not in sympathy with these war measures. They were unwilling to enlist, and still more unwilling to furnish supplies. Washington, at this period of his life, had very high notions of military authority. He was then by no means a democrat, and not even a republican. In his view, it was the duty of the people to obey the orders of the court, not to question them. He was compelled to impress both wagons and wagoners. They could be obtained in no other way. In his indignation he wrote: