The Mother of Washington and Her Times

by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor

She early proved herself to be a strong, self-reliant woman, with executive ability and a supreme power of awing and governing others. Her life was given to her children and to the care of a thriving plantation; to sowing, and planting, and reaping; to the rearing of fine, blooded cattle. Her children had a plain, abundant, comfortable home, and led healthy out-of-door lives. She made Truth and Honor her handmaidens, and in their defence ruled her house with austerity, that "austerity in woman so often the accompaniment of a rare power of loving, causing love to be piety, tenderness, religion, devotion strong as death."

Surrounding her children with all the comforts of a well-governed household, she loved them, taught them, persuaded them. If all failed, if Sir Matthew Hale was in vain, and headlong youth yielded not when the right was at issue, she did not disdain to command another influence, pliant, pungent, prompt, and most convincing,—a bundle of keen rods gathered daily from the friendly peach tree! This lay always upon her historic table, or found place in her capacious pockets when she went abroad. It was the presence of this ally, offensive and defensive, which made harder the telling of the truth and enhanced the sublimity of virtue.

Tradition insists that she possessed a high spirit, passionate, lofty, intense, and yet under the most magnificent control; that her feelings were so deep and strong she durst not show them, durst not even recognize them, lest they should master her. "A lady," says Andrew Lang, "is a woman of high breeding, high passion and high courage." Mary Washington was a lady! She was tender, gracious, and courteous to her neighbors in humble station, but to them as to others she made hard the way of the transgressor. Yet she knew how to excuse and forgive.

Tradition relates that when George was a fine, big boy of twelve, he was fired with ambition to conquer the spirit of an exceedingly valuable colt which had never permitted the near approach of man or boy. One morning early this feat was achieved. George with his brothers having chased the rebel into a corner of the pasture, he vaulted upon the back of the dangerous animal, which plunged forward so madly that a blood-vessel was ruptured, dying, like the Indian, with a broken heart sooner than submit.

There were five anxious faces around the breakfast table that morning! Presently the mother forced matters to an issue by asking: "Boys, have you seen my fine sorrel colt lately? Is he as big as his sire?"

Four pairs of eyes were turned to George, who unhesitatingly answered: "Madam, that horse possessed an ungovernable spirit which had to be conquered. I mounted him this morning, and he plunged violently and killed himself." The mother's face flushed for a moment, and then she said quietly: "That seems to be a pity! But I am proud and grateful for my brave, truthful son!"

This son was always a prince among boys, as he was afterwards a king among men. Strong, brave, athletic, with a grand air, he became the prime favorite of his aristocratic brother Lawrence, whom he often visited at Mount Vernon, and who desired to place him in the service of the crown. In 1747, when George was in his fourteenth year, a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him by his brother Lawrence, and he embraced with boyish ardor the idea of going to sea.

While the matter was in doubt, however, his English uncle, Joseph Ball, wrote to his sister: "I understand that you have been advised to put your son George to sea. I think he had better be apprentice to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the liberty of a subject; for they will cut and slash him and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently with patience as things will naturally go, without aiming to be a fine gentleman before his time," etc. The ship that was to carry him into the service of his most Gracious Majesty, George the Second, was riding at anchor in the Potomac with the young midshipman's luggage on board, but when the hour came for him to sail his mother braved the chance of Lawrence's displeasure, and forbade him to go!

The great trials of her life were henceforth to come through her crowning glory and pride. Her splendid boy, only fifteen years old, entered, as surveyor to Lord Fairfax, a life of hardship and peril, exposed to hourly danger from the Indians, and to the rigors of inclement winters. The eaglet had flown from the nest, never to return. Henceforth her straining eyes might strive to follow—they could never recall him.