In 1751, when he was nineteen, Washington bettered his lot by becoming adjutant of one of the four military districts of Virginia, with a salary of one hundred pounds and a far less toilsome occupation. This in turn led up to his military appointment in 1754, which he held almost continuously till 1759, when he resigned from the service.
Next to a position on the Virginia council, a seat in the House of Burgesses, or lower branch of the Legislature, was most sought, and this position had been held by Washington’s great-grandfather, father, and elder brother. It was only natural, therefore, that in becoming the head of the family George should desire the position. As early as 1755, while on the frontier, he wrote to his brother in charge of Mount Vernon inquiring about the election to be held in the county, and asking him to “come at Colo Fairfax’s intentions, and let me know whether he purposes to offer himself as a candidate.” “If he does not, I should be glad to take a poll, if I thought my chance tolerably good.” His friend Carlyle, Washington wrote, had “mentioned it to me in Williamsburg in a bantering way,” and he begged his brother to “discover Major Carlyle’s real sentiments on this head,” as also those of the other prominent men of the county, and especially of the clergymen. “Sound their pulse,” he wrote, “with an air of indifference and unconcern … without disclosing much of mine.” “If they seem inclinable to promote my interest, and things should be drawing to a crisis, you may declare my intention and beg their assistance. If on the contrary you find them more inclined to favor some other, I would have the affair entirely dropped.” Apparently the county magnates disapproved, for Washington did not stand for the county.
TITLE-PAGE OF WASHINGTON’S JOURNAL
In 1757 an election for burgesses was held in Frederick County, in which Washington then was (with his soldiers), and for which he offered himself as a candidate. The act was hardly a wise one, for, though he had saved Winchester and the surrounding country from being overrun by the Indians, he was not popular. Not merely was he held responsible for the massacres of outlying inhabitants, whom it was impossible to protect, but in this very defence he had given cause for ill-feeling. He himself confessed that he had several times “strained the law,”—he had been forced to impress the horses and wagons of the district, and had in other ways so angered some of the people that they had threatened “to blow out my brains.” But he had been guilty of a far worse crime still in a political sense. Virginia elections were based on liquor, and Washington had written to the governor, representing “the great nuisance the number of tippling houses in Winchester are to the soldiers, who by this means, in spite of the utmost care and vigilance, are, so long as their pay holds, incessantly drunk and unfit for service,” and he wished that “the new commission for this county may have the intended effect,” for “the number of tippling houses kept here is a great grievance.” As already noted, the Virginia regiment was accused in the papers of drunkenness, and under the sting of that accusation Washington declared war on the publicans. He whipped his men when they became drunk, kept them away from the ordinaries, and even closed by force one tavern which was especially culpable. “Were it not too tedious,” he wrote the governor, “I cou’d give your Honor such instances of the villainous Behavior of those Tippling House-keepers, as wou’d astonish any person.”
The conduct was admirable, but it was not good politics, and as soon as he offered himself as a candidate, the saloon element, under the leadership of one Lindsay, whose family were tavern-keepers in Winchester for at least one hundred years, united to oppose him. Against the would-be burgess they set up one Captain Thomas Swearingen, whom Washington later described as “a man of great weight among the meaner class of people, and supposed by them to possess extensive knowledge.” As a result, the poll showed Swearingen elected by two hundred and seventy votes, and Washington defeated with but forty ballots.
This sharp experience in practical politics seems to have taught the young candidate a lesson, for when a new election came in 1758 he took a leaf from his enemy’s book, and fought them with their own weapons. The friendly aid of the county boss, Colonel John Wood, was secured, as also that of Gabriel Jones, a man of much local force and popularity. Scarcely less important were the sinews of war employed, told of in the following detailed account. A law at that time stood on the Virginia statutes forbidding all treating or giving of what were called “ticklers” to the voters, and declaring illegal all elections which were thus influenced. None the less, the voters of Frederick enjoyed at Washington’s charge—
| 40 gallons of Rum Punch @ 3/6 pr. galn | 7 0 0 |
| 15 gallons of Wine @ 10/ pr. galn | 7 10 0 |
| Dinner for your Friends | 3 0 0 |
| 13½ gallons of Wine @ 10/ | 6 15 |
| 3½ pts. of Brandy @ 1/3 | 4 4½ |
| 13 Galls. Beer @ 1/3 | 16 3 |
| 8 qts. Cyder Royl @ 1/6 | 0 12 0 |
| Punch | 3 9 |
| 30 gallns. of strong beer @ 8d pr. gall | 1 0 |
| 1 hhd & 1 Barrell of Punch, consisting of | |
| 26 gals. best Barbadoes rum, 5/ | 6 10 0 |
| 12 lbs. S. Refd. Sugar 1/6 | 18 9 |
| 3 galls. and 3 quarts of Beer @ 1/ pr. gall | 3 9 |
| 10 Bowls of Punch @ 2/6 each | 1 5 0 |
| 9 half pints of rum @ 7½ d. each | 5 7½ |
| 1 pint of wine | 1 6 |
After the election was over, Washington wrote Wood that “I hope no Exception was taken to any that voted against me, but that all were alike treated, and all had enough. My only fear is that you spent with too sparing a hand.” It is hardly necessary to say that such methods reversed the former election; Washington secured three hundred and ten votes, and Swearingen received forty-five. What is more, so far from now threatening to blow out his brains, there was “a general applause and huzzaing for Colonel Washington.”