His Excellency: George Washington (47 page)

 5. Washington to Jonathan Boucher, 16 December 1770, Jonathan Boucher to Washington, 18 December 1770,
PWC
8:411–17. For additional correspondence on Jackie’s education, see 89–91, 120–21, 336–41. For the tutoring at Mount Vernon, see
PWC
7:77.

 6. For the correspondence and editorial notes on the sad arc of Jackie’s life, see
PWC
8:550 and 9:154–55, 209–11, 221–24, 264–67, 406–7.

 7. Washington to Burwell Bassett, 20 June 1773,
PWC
9:243–44.
Diaries
1:168 for the iron ring; ibid., 257, for Washington’s account of Patsy’s seizures; Washington to Robert Cary, 10 July 1773,
PWC
9:271–76, for the cloak.

 8. 
Diaries
2:37–39, 105, and
PWC
9:67–69, for the foxhunts and hounds;
PWC
7:158–59, for the role of Thomas Bishop; ibid., 407, for the role of Lund Washington; ibid., 458–59, for a typical wine order;
PWC
10:222–23, for card-playing expenses for two years.

 9. Washington to Charles Lawrence, 28 September 1760,
PWC
6:459–60, for the first complaint about size; Washington to Charles Lawrence, 20 July 1767,
PWC
8:8, for the quotation; Washington to Jonathan Boucher, 21 May 1772,
PWC
9:49, for his description of the Peale sitting: “Inclination having yielded to Importunity, I am now contrary to all expectation under the hands of Mr. Peale, but in so grave—so sullen a Mood—and now and then under the influence of Morpheus, when some critical strokes are making, that I fancy the skill of the Gentleman’s Pencil will be put to it, in describing to the World what manner of Man I am.” See also
Diaries
3:108–9.

10. 
PWC
7:143–51, for typically meticulous instructions to his overseers; 296–97, for his Truro Parish duties.
Diaries
1:230, 266, 293–94, and 2:102–3, for representative examples of his busy routines.

11. Dorothy Twohig, “ ‘That Species of Property’: Washington’s Role in the Controversy Over Slavery,”
GWR
114–38, was the best scholarly study of the subject until the more recent book by Henry Wiencek,
An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America
(New York, 2003). Though my interpretation is somewhat different than Wiencek’s, I benefited greatly from reading his book while making final revisions in mine. See Advertisement for Runaway Slaves, 11 August 1761,
PWC
7:65–68, and the editorial note,
PWC
8:520–21, for an escaped slave from one of the Custis plantations. For the quotation on Tom, see Washington to Joseph Thompson, 2 July 1766,
PWC
7:453.

12. Washington to Daniel Jenifer Adams, 20 July 1772,
PWC
9:70. See Washington to Gilbert Simpson, 23 February 1773, ibid., 185–87, for his recognition of the need to avoid breaking up families when selling slaves. Dalzell and Dalzell,
Mount Vernon,
129–49, offers the best account of the slave community at Mount Vernon. The two outstanding studies of slavery in the Chesapeake during the revolutionary era are Edmund S. Morgan,
American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
(New York, 1975), and Philip D. Morgan,
Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country
(Chapel Hill, 1998).

13. The record of Washington’s behavior in this mode defies a full accounting. See the correspondence and editorial notes in the following for the most salient examples:
PWC
6:383, 407–16, 422–25, 478;
PWC
7:61, 157, 459, 482–91;
PWC
8:68–69;
PWC
10:55–58. The quotation is from Washington to Valentine Crawford, 30 March 1774, ibid., 12–18.

14. For background on attitudes within Virginia’s planter aristocracy, see Louis B. Wright,
First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class
(San Marino, 1940), and T. H. Breen,
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution
(Princeton, 1985).

15. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 12 June 1759,
PWC
6:326–27. For the litany of complaints during these early years of the relationship with Cary & Company, see the following correspondence with Cary, whose responses have not survived:
PWC
6:348–52, 448–51; 7:76–77, 135–37, 153–55, 202–05, 251–53, 444–47; 8:9–12.

16. For the terms of the Custis will with regard to the “dower plantations,” see
PWC
7:81–93. For the dominant role of tobacco on these plantations, see
PWC
8:421–24. For the size of the slave population in 1771, see 587–92.

17. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 13 February 1764,
PWC
8:286–87. For background on the evolution of the tobacco economy in the Chesapeake, the following books convey the complicated story: Jacob Price,
Capital and Credit in the British Overseas Trade: The View from the Chesapeake
(Cambridge, 1980); Alan Kulikoff,
Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Culture in the Chesapeake, 1680–1800
(Chapel Hill, 1986); Bruce A. Ragsdale,
A Planters’ Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia
(Madison, 1996). On the consumer revolution sweeping England and Virginia, see T. H. Breen,
The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence
(New York, 2004).

18. The invoices for this cornucopia of goods are reproduced in
PWC
6:317–18, 327–36, 392–402, 461–66; 7:22–31, 124–31, 198–99, 253–57, 287–95, 353–57, 418–23, 432–33, 470–76; 8:44–50, 130–36, 295–99, 397–400, 558–66; 9:103–9. The best brief treatment of Washington’s economic relationship with Cary & Company is Bruce A. Ragsdale, “George Washington, the British Tobacco Trade, and Economic Opportunity in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia,”
GWR,
67–93.

19. Washington to Robert Stewart, 27 April 1763,
PWC
7:205–8; Washington to Robert Cary, 1 May 1764, ibid., 305–6; Thomas Jefferson to Maria Jefferson Eppes, 7 January 1798, Sarah N. Randolph,
The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson
(Charlottesville, 1978), 247; Thomas Jefferson, Answers to Demeunier’s Additional Queries, January–February 1786,
Jefferson
10:27.

20. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 10 August 1764, 20 September 1765,
PWC
7:323–26, 398–402.

21. See the abovementioned essay by Bruce A. Ragsdale in
GWR
67–93, for the best distillation of the scholarly literature. The old standard by Avery O. Craven,
Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of Virginia and Maryland, 1660–1860
(Urbana, 1926), is still excellent. My summary of the scholarship is most indebted to Morgan,
American Slavery, American Freedom;
Kulikoff,
Tobacco and Slaves;
and Breen,
Tobacco Culture.

22. Washington to Francis Dandridge, 20 September 1765, Washington to Robert Cary, 20 September 1765,
PWC
7:395–96, 401. The classic study of the colonial response to the Stamp Act is Edmund S. and Helen S. Morgan,
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
(Chapel Hill, 1953).

23. For correspondence with various merchants about his wheat crop, with ship captains about his flour, and for spinning and weaving records at Mount Vernon, see
PWC
7:359–61, 509; 8:85–86, 154–55; 10:210, note 6.

24. Washington to John Posey, 24 June 1767,
PWC
8:3; Dalzell and Dalzell,
Mount Vernon,
52–53, for the symbolic significance of the westward entrance.

25. The earliest correspondence on the improvement of the Potomac, destined to occupy Washington until the very end, is in
PWC
7:175–78; 8:284–90, 349–54.

26. Dismal Swamp Land Company Articles of Agreement, 3 November 1763, and Appraisment of Dismal Swamp Slaves, 4 July 1764,
PWC
7:269–74, 315–16. See also Charles Royster,
The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company: A Story of George Washington’s Times
(New York, 1999).

27. The standard study of the subject, old but reliable, is Thomas P. Abernethy,
Western Lands and the American Revolution
(New York, 1939). The issue receives thoughtful and poignant treatment in Anderson,
Crucible of War,
518–28, 565–71.

28. Washington to William Crawford, 17 September 1767,
PWC
8:26–30.

29. The intricate, indeed tortured, speculative scheme is capable of being followed in the following correspondence and editorial notes:
PWC
7:219–25, 242–50, 415–16, 511–13; 8:62–65, 149–53, 307–9, 378–80. The quotation is from Washington to Thomas Lewis, 17 February 1774,
PWC
9:483.

30. During the entire pre-revolutionary era, no single concern generated as much correspondence from Washington as this one. See
PWC
8:257–58, 272–79, 300–04, 366, 428–29, 439–41; 9:477; 10:230–33, for the key letters. For the surveying trip to the Great Kanawha, see
Diaries
2:277–328. For the total acreage Washington claimed, see Advertisements for Western lands, 15 July 1773,
PWC
9:278–80.

31. Washington to George Muse, 29 January 1774,
PWC
9:460–61.

32. Washington to George Mercer, 7 November 1771,
PWC
8:541–45.

33. Washington to Thomas Lewis, 17 February 1774; Washington to James Wood, 20 February 1774,
PWC
9:481–83, 490.

34. Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 21 July 1766,
PWC
7:457.

35. Washington’s attendance record at the sessions in Williamsburg was decent but not diligent. He left town before Patrick Henry delivered his famous challenge to George III in 1765 and missed altogether the session in spring 1768. After 1765 he became a delegate from Fairfax County rather than Frederick County. He usually lodged and took his meals at Christiana Campbell’s tavern and used the trip to visit the Custis estates nearby.

36. Washington to George Mason, 5 April 1769,
PWC
8:177–81. On the appeal of austerity offered by the non-importation agreements, see Edmund S. Morgan, “The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution,”
WMQ
24 (1967), 3–43.

37. For Washington’s role in presenting Mason’s plan, see the editorial note,
PWC
8:187–90; Washington to Robert Cary & Company, 25 July 1769, ibid., 229–31. The best biography of Mason is Robert A. Rutland,
George Mason: Reluctant Statesman
(Williamsburg, 1961).

38. Washington to George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774, Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774,
PWC
10:94–101, 109–11.

39. The scholarly literature on radical Whig ideology is vast, but the two seminal works are Bernard Bailyn,
Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
(Cambridge, 1967), and Gordon Wood,
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787
(New York, 1969).

40. Fairfax County Resolves, 18 July 1774,
PWC
10:119–28; Donald M. Zweig, “A New-Found Washington Letter of 1774 and the Fairfax Revolves,”
WMQ
40 (1983), 283–91. See also Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 20 July 1774,
PWC
10:128–31.

41. Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 24 August 1774,
PWC
10:154–56.

42. William J. Van Schreeven and Robert L. Scribner, eds.,
Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence,
2 vols. (Charlottesville, 1973–75), 1:230–39;
PWC
10:142–43; Cunliffe,
Man and Monument,
74.

43. Robert McKenzie to Washington, 13 September 1774, Washington to Robert McKenzie, 9 October 1774,
PWC
10:151–62, 171–72. For the items purchased in Philadelphia, William Milnor to Washington, 29 November 1774, ibid., 189–98.

44. Washington to John Connolly, 25 February 1774, ibid., 273–74.

45. For the correspondence describing these various activities, see
PWC
10:242–44, 288–92, 314–15, 320–22. He had begun to make plans for the renovations of Mount Vernon a year earlier, so the decision described here represents a commitment to persist in his plans.