With Americans of Past and Present Days Part 11

[126] Same letter.

[127] To the Commissioners, December 18, 1791.

[128] Philadelphia, March 12, 1793.

[129] March 31, 1791.

[130] April 8, 1791. Hamilton papers, vol. XI.

[131] To David Stuart, November 20, 1791.

[132] Report to the President, August 19, 1791.

[133] December 2, 1791.

[134] L'Enfant papers.

[135] March 9, 1792. _Records of the Columbia Historical Society_, II, 137.

[136] To the Commissioners, November 30, 1792.

[137] Morris had bought for it a whole block, limited on its four sides by Chestnut, Walnut, Seventh, and Eighth Streets.

[138] May 9, 1793. (L'Enfant papers.)

[139] He seems to have tried to help the financier rather than to be helped by him. Ill-satisfied as he was with the house, for which he, apparently, never paid l'Enfant anything, Morris wrote: "But he lent me thirteen shares of bank stock disinterestedly, and on this point I feel the greatest anxiety that he should get the same number of shares with the dividends, for the want of which he has suffered great distress."

Written about 1800. W.B. Bryan, _History of the National Capital_, 1914, p. 181.

[140] S.C. Busey, _Pictures of the City of Was.h.i.+ngton in the Past_, 1898, p. 108.

[141] Memoirs of 1801, 1802, 1813, in the Jefferson papers, Library of Congress.

[142] Letter from his cousin, Destouches, Paris, September 15, 1805, greatly exaggerating, as shown by the letter mentioned below, his mother's state of poverty. (L'Enfant papers.)

[143] From his cousin, Mrs. Roland, nee Mallet, whose husband had a modest position at the Ministry of the Navy; Paris, May 5, 1806. The mother's furniture and silver plate was valued at 1,500 livres. Allusion is made to L'Enfant's deceased sister and to her "mariage projete avec Mr. Leclerc." (L'Enfant papers.)

[144] To David Stuart November 20, 1791.

[145] Hugh T. Taggart, in _Records of the Columbia Historical Society_, XI, 216.

[146] _Voyage en Amerique_, VI, 122 ff.

[147] May 22, 1911.

III

WAs.h.i.+NGTON AND THE FRENCH

WAs.h.i.+NGTON AND THE FRENCH

I

Was.h.i.+ngton's acquaintance with things French began early and was of a mixed nature. As a pupil of the French Huguenot Maryes, who kept a school at Fredericksburg, and did _not_ teach him French,[148] we find him carefully transcribing, in his elegant youthful hand, those famous "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,"

which have recently been proved to be French. Whether this French teaching given him by a Frenchman engraved itself in his mind or happened to match his natural disposition, or both, certain it is that he lived up to the best among those maxims, those, for example, and they are remarkably numerous, that deprecate jokes and railing at the expense of others, or those of a n.o.ble import advising the young man to be "no flatterer," to "show no sign of choler in reproving, but to do it with sweetness and mildness," those prescribing that his "recreations be manful, not sinful," and giving him this advice of supreme importance, which Was.h.i.+ngton observed throughout life: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."

Another chance that Was.h.i.+ngton had to become acquainted with things French was through his reading, and was less favorable to them. An early note in his hand informs us that, about the year 1748, he, being then sixteen, had, "in the _Spectator_, read to No. 143." All those numbers had been written by Steele and Addison at a period of French wars, at the moment when we were fighting "Monsieur Malbrouk." Not a portrait of the French in those numbers that is not a caricature; they are a "ludicrous nation"; their women are "fantastical," their men "vain and lively," their fas.h.i.+ons ridiculous; not even their wines find grace in the eyes of Steele, who could plead, it is true, that he was not without experience on the subject, and who declares that this "plaguy French claret" is greatly inferior to "a bottle or two of good, solid, edifying port."

Was.h.i.+ngton was soon to learn more of French people, and was to find that they were something else than mere ludicrous and lively puppets.

A soldier born, with all that is necessary to prove a good one and to become an apt leader, having, as he himself wrote, "resolution to face what any man durst,"[149] Was.h.i.+ngton rose rapidly in the ranks, becoming a colonel in 1754, at the age of twenty-two. He was three times sent, in his younger days, to observe, and check if he could, the progress of his future allies, in the Ohio and Monongahela Valleys. His journal and letters show him animated toward them with the spirit befitting a loyal subject of George II, none of his judgments on them being spoiled by any undue leniency.

On the first occasion he was simply ordered to hand to the commander of a French fort a letter from the governor of Virginia, and to ask him to withdraw as having "invaded the King of Great Britain's territory." To which the Frenchman, an old officer and Knight of Saint Louis, Mr. de Saint-Pierre, who shortly before had been leading an exploration in the extreme West, toward the Rockies,[150] politely but firmly declined to a.s.sent, writing back to the governor: "I am here by the orders of my general, and I entreat you, sir, not to doubt but that I shall try to conform myself to them with all the exactness and resolution which must be expected from a good officer." He has "much the air of a soldier,"

Was.h.i.+ngton wrote of him.

Mr. de Saint-Pierre added, on his part, a word on the bearer of Governor Dinwiddie's message, who was to be the bearer also of his answer, and in this we have the first French comment on Was.h.i.+ngton's personality: "I made it my particular care to receive Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton with a distinction suitable to your dignity as well as to his own personal merit.--From the Fort on the Riviere-aux-Bufs, December 15, 1753." Having received plentiful supplies as a gift from the French, but entertaining the worst misgivings as to their "artifices," the young officer began his return journey, during which, in spite of all trouble, he managed to pay a visit to Queen Aliquippa: "I made her a present," he wrote, "of a match-coat and a bottle of rum, which latter was thought much the best present of the two." On the 16th of January, 1754, he was back at Williamsburg, handed to the governor Mr. de Saint-Pierre's negative answer, and printed an account of his journey.[151]

The second expedition, a military one, was marked next year by the sad and famous Jumonville incident and by the surrendering, to the brother of dead Jumonville, of Fort Necessity, where the subjects of King George and their youthful colonel, after a fight lasting from eleven in the morning till eight in the evening, had to capitulate, being permitted, however, by the French to withdraw with "full military honors, drum-beating, and taking with them one small piece of ordnance." (July 3, 1754.) The fort and the rest of the artillery remained in the hands of the captors, as well as part of that diary which, although with interruptions, Was.h.i.+ngton was fond of keeping, whenever he could, his last entry being dated Friday, December 13, 1799, the day before his death. The part found at Fort Necessity--March 31 to June 27, 1754--was sent to Paris, translated into French, printed in 1756 by the royal government,[152] and the text given in Was.h.i.+ngton's writings is only a retranslation from the French, the original English not having been preserved.

The third occasion was the terrible campaign of 1755, which ended in Braddock's death and the defeat of the English regulars on the Monongahela, not far from the newly built Fort Duquesne, later Pittsburgh (July 9). Contrary to expectation[153] (there being "about three hundred French and Indians," wrote Was.h.i.+ngton; "our numbers consisted of about thirteen hundred well-armed men, chiefly regulars"[154]), the French won the day, nearly doing to death their future commander-in-chief. A rumor was even spread that he had actually succ.u.mbed after composing a "dying speech," and Was.h.i.+ngton had to write to his brother John to a.s.sure him that he had had as yet no occasion for such a composition, though very near having had it: "By the all-powerful dispensation of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was levelling my companions on every side of me. We have been most scandalously beaten."[155]

By an irony of fate, in this expedition against the French, in which George Was.h.i.+ngton acted as aide-de-camp to the English general, the means of transportation had been supplied by Postmaster Benjamin Franklin.

The French were indubitably different from the airy fops of Addison's _Spectator_, but they were as far as ever from commanding young Was.h.i.+ngton's sympathy. It was part of his loyalism to hate them and to interpret for the worst anything they could do or say. The master of an ampler vocabulary than he is sometimes credited with, we find him writing to Richard Was.h.i.+ngton, in 1757, that the means by which the French maintain themselves in the Ohio Valley are--"h.e.l.lish."[156]

A few years later the tone is greatly altered, not yet toward the French, but toward the British Government and King. In sad, solemn words, full already of the spirit of the Was.h.i.+ngton of history, he warns his friend and neighbor George Mason, the one who was to draw the first Const.i.tution of Virginia, of the great crisis now looming: "American freedom" is at stake; "it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question.

"That no man should scruple or hesitate a moment to use a-ms [_sic_] in defense of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet a-ms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource, the _dernier resort_."[157] Absolutely firm, absolutely moderate, such was Was.h.i.+ngton to continue to the end of the impending struggle, and, indeed, of his days. The life of the great Was.h.i.+ngton was now beginning.

II

Some more years elapse, and when the curtain rises again on scenes of war, momentous changes have occurred. To the last hour the former officer of the colonial wars, now a man of forty-two, was still expressing the wish "that the dispute had been left to posterity to determine: but the crisis has arrived when we must a.s.sert our rights or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use make us as tame and abject slaves as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway." It was hard for him to reconcile himself to the fact that the English were really to be the enemy; he long tried to believe that the quarrel was not with England and her King, but only with the ministry and their troops, which he calls the "ministerials."

Writing on the 31st of May, 1775, from Philadelphia, where he was attending the second Continental Congress, to G.W. Fairfax in England, he gave him an account of the clash between the "provincials" of Ma.s.sachusetts and "the ministerial troops: for we do not, nor can we yet prevail upon ourselves to call them the King's troops."[158]

The war was to be, in his eyes, a fratricidal one: "Unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?"

Two weeks later the signer of this letter was appointed, on the proposition of John Adams, of Ma.s.sachusetts, commander-in-chief of a new body of troops just entering history, and called the "Continental Army."[159] Braddock's former aide was to become the leader of a yet unborn nation, in an eight-year conflict with all-powerful Britain, mistress of the coasts, mistress of the seas.

What that conflict was, and what the results have been, all the world knows. There were sad days and bright days; there were Valley Forge and Saratoga. "No man, I believe," Was.h.i.+ngton wrote concerning his own fate, "had a greater choice of difficulties."[160]

The French had ceased by then to inspire Was.h.i.+ngton with disdain or animosity; he was beginning to render them better justice, but his heart was far as yet from being won. French volunteers had early begun to flock to the American army, some of them as much an enc.u.mbrance as a help. "They seem to be genteel, sensible men," wrote Was.h.i.+ngton to Congress, in October, 1776, "and I have no doubt of their making good officers as soon as they can learn so much of our language as to make themselves well understood." One of them, the commander-in-chief learned, was a young enthusiast who had left wife and child to serve the American cause as a volunteer, and without pay, like George Was.h.i.+ngton himself. He had crossed the ocean, escaping the British cruisers, on a boat called _La Victoire_, he being called Lafayette. One more enc.u.mbrance, audibly muttered the general, who wrote to Benjamin Harrison: "What the designs of Congress respecting this gentleman were, and what line of conduct I am to pursue to comply with their design and his expectation, I know no more than the child unborn, and beg to be instructed."[161]