We are impressed in reading of all this, with the punctilious etiquette of Williamsburg society which forbade the intrusion of politics into the social life. Lord Dunmore had been regarded with suspicion and distrust from the moment of his arrival in 1772. He was perfectly aware of the feeling of the First Assembly which met under his administration. Colonel Washington was a member of that assembly, and had been present—and active—at the consultations on public affairs held in the old Raleigh tavern. Yet, but for the death of Miss Custis, he would have been Dunmore's companion when he journeyed to Western Virginia to purchase land.
He dined with Lord Dunmore a few days before the couriers brought news of the Act of Parliament closing the port at Boston. Nobody was more resolute than he in denunciation of that act, and in support of the resolutions of "sympathy for our distressed fellow-subjects of Boston." At that moment his pocket held an accepted invitation to dine with the governor. He did so dine, spent the evening with him, probably the night, too, for he breakfasted with him the next day at his farm. Two of Lord Dunmore's sons were students at William and Mary College. To all outward appearance everything was going well and smoothly among good friends and neighbors.
Robert Carter of Nomini Hall.
The fast was appointed for the first day of June, 1774. The port was to be closed on the fourth. On that day Washington wrote in his diary, "Fasted all day and went to Church." George Mason, of "Gunston Hall," in the Northern Neck wrote home, "Please tell my dear little family that I desire my three eldest sons and my two eldest daughters may attend church in mourning." His friend and neighbor, Robert Carter, ordered differently. "No one must go from hence to church or observe this fast at all." Not yet were all the colonists prepared to follow Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Mason, and Lee in defiance to the British Crown!
The fast was generally observed. The governor, it appears, had no power to prevent it. The time had not yet come when Virginia patriots, to avoid his interference, must hold their conferences in old St. John's Church at Richmond. At Williamsburg a sermon was preached from the text, "Help, Lord! for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men."
The tea was sealed up and destroyed, and money and provisions ordered to be sent to Boston. The counties were canvassed for these, and they were immediately forwarded.
The Virginia women entered with enthusiasm into all schemes for sending help to their "distressed fellow-subjects in Boston," and applauded Colonel Washington when he declared that "he was ready to raise one thousand men, subsist them at his own expense and march at their head to Massachusetts."
The colonial dames packed away in lavender-scented chests all their imported finery, their "quilts" and brocades, and clothed themselves in homespun or in mourning, destroying or sealing up their precious stock of tea, and regarding with unfriendly eyes a certain dame who continued to indulge in the proscribed luxury. It seems hard, poor lady, that she should come down in history as the only one who thus transgressed, "who continued to sip her tea in her closet after it was banished from every table," and that even her name and lineage should be given by an irreverent historian! This was no other than Kate Spotswood, she of the fawn and blue satin gown and the silver hair, now Mrs. Bernard Moore!