George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  At the same time, British merchants mounted a campaign to recover colonists’ debts. The merchants had long extended credit to Virginians, ordinarily in British pounds sterling. During the war years, when Virginians had little hard money, the colony printed “Virginia pounds” to serve as currency. Inflation had sapped the value of those bills, so British merchants stopped accepting them. The colonial assembly tried to pacify the merchants by authorizing Virginia courts to set a “just” exchange rate between Virginia pounds and pounds sterling.23

  The merchants, uninterested in transatlantic lawsuits before unfriendly judges, struck back by winning a London ruling that Virginia currency was not “legal tender” valid for paying debts. Governor Fauquier urged the General Assembly to mollify the British merchants. Washington and the other burgesses had to decide Virginia’s response. The stakes were high. To a friend, Washington confided his fear that the dispute would “set the whole country in flames.”24

  * * *

  The leading burgesses, beginning with Speaker Robinson, had faced down British policies before. They were practical politicians who aimed to solve problems, not pursue what a contemporary dismissed as “visionary ideas of perfection.”25 The second man in the House was Peyton Randolph, attorney general and chair of the Committee on Propositions and Grievances. The beefy Randolph had a “sweetness of temper” that fostered consensus. Studious Richard Bland wielded a powerful pen, while Edmund Pendleton—who had rescued Washington’s hog-running legislation—commanded Jefferson’s respect as “the ablest man in debate.” Richard Henry Lee’s incisive intellect and crisp speaking style made him a rising figure who stood apart from the Speaker’s inner circle.26

  On the legal-tender issue, the House adopted a defiant resolution that scorned the merchants’ demand as unjust. Since courts could set a fair exchange rate, the resolution concluded that the merchants were suffering no harm.27

  In response, the British took a half-step back, agreeing that colonial currency already in circulation could be used as legal tender, but denying that use for future currency emissions. But Virginia pounds fell out of circulation whenever they were used to pay taxes, so they had to be replaced periodically with new notes. As a result, the British gambit granted only a brief breathing space. Soon enough, Virginians would again have in hand only currency that the merchants could refuse to accept. Within a few months, Governor Fauquier reported widespread hardship: “People are really distressed for money of any kind to satisfy their creditors; and this evil is daily increasing.” A French visitor observed that coin was so scarce that most business proceeded by barter.28

  The currency dispute exacerbated the underlying problem: Both Englishmen and Virginians had too much debt. Tobacco crops remained inconsistent and prices low, while Virginians’ appetite for British goods knew no limits.29 Governor Fauquier could only wonder at the way wealthy Virginians bought more than they could pay for. The problem was plain, he continued, but it was “so disagreeable . . . that they shut their eyes against it.” A member of the Executive Council bemoaned the “extravagance which hath been our ruin.” Many stayed afloat only because British creditors hated to sue them, a slow process that offended other Virginia customers.30

  Governor Fauquier thought that debt made Virginia politicians “uneasy, peevish, and ready to murmur at every occasion.” Thomas Jefferson expressed that resentment when he complained that Virginians’ debts “had become hereditary from father to son for many generations, so that the planters were a species of property annexed to certain mercantile houses in London.”31

  Virginians sinking under their debts tried to sell land or slaves, but few had the cash to buy. In desperation, creditors organized lotteries, selling £5 or £10 tickets for drawings with prizes of slaves, land, livestock, and equipment. Washington helped organize several lotteries for bankrupt friends, but the raffles often failed, either because the tickets did not sell or were purchased on credit that also turned bad.32

  With money drying up, Virginia’s public spending was bound to become controversial. Most public spending went to protect white settlers from Indian violence. That confluence of factors would hand Washington, who knew the frontier conflict firsthand, a chance to step forward as a political figure.

  * * *

  Addressing a new legislative session in January 1764, Fauquier reported continuing Indian raids, along with “daily accounts of murders.” He had called out the militia, but General Amherst wanted five hundred Virginia soldiers recruited to fight the tribes. The assembly, Fauquier continued, had to approve further spending to cover the additional soldiers. The House, including Washington, said no. The militia would have to suffice.33

  But even militia had to be paid something. The burgesses named Washington to lead a commission to determine what militia claims should be paid. Washington certainly helped draft the law creating the commission, then became its chair and undertook the heaviest responsibility for its work. He devoted four weeks to the resolution of all claims except for those of six officers whose appointments had been irregular. Washington recommended that the House grant pay to all six despite bureaucratic defects in their commissions.34

  The House granted five of those claims. The sixth concerned corruption charges against Adam Stephen, which placed Washington in an awkward position, though possibly one of his choosing.35 After the contested Frederick County election three years before, an officer in the regiment reported that Washington had “resolved to have the conduct of Lt. Colonel Stephen examined by the assembly,” including “the many crimes of which [Stephen] is accused.”36 Now that examination was under way. For Washington to lead the investigation of his former opponent might seem vindictive or self-serving. So Washington needed to find a way to remain above the fray while others pressed the inquiry.

  Washington managed the situation deftly. His initial report did not mention the accusations against Stephen. Instead, another commission member, Thomas Rutherford, made a separate motion to the House that presented three charges against Stephen. The House referred those charges to a committee on which Washington served.

  On the first charge—that Stephen had dissuaded volunteers from joining an expedition—the committee reached a mixed judgment, concluding that Colonel Stephen “has not fully acquitted himself.” A second charge alleged that, during a time of Indian attacks, Stephen assigned soldiers to escort a shipment of flour that he was selling to the army. The committee found that was a breach of duty. A third charge was dismissed. The House adopted the committee’s views, granting Stephen less pay than he had requested. To salve his feelings, the House proclaimed him a “brave, active, and skillful officer,” even if a self-serving one.37

  For Washington, the outcome was satisfactory. The House had embraced the commission’s recommendation and his rival had been chastened, but Washington’s fingerprints were not evident. Stephen may well have blamed Washington for his troubles, but others might not. After all, Rutherford had presented the charges. Even if Stephen’s setback were blamed on Washington, that might not be so bad; a reputation for effective retaliation against opponents can serve a politician very well. In a sticky situation, the man from Mount Vernon had demonstrated a finesse rarely displayed when commanding the Virginia Regiment. Better yet, the episode allowed him to extend his military expertise to financial issues that lie at the heart of every government. Taxes and spending would frame colonial politics for the next decade, as they frame much of political life, and Washington gained recognition as a man who understood financial issues.

  * * *

  Because Britain still had too much debt, a new development menaced the colonies at the end of 1764: reports that Parliament soon would tax Americans to pay the war debt. The new levies, embodied as the Stamp Act, would not become law until the following March, but Governor Fauquier featured them when he greeted the burgesses for a new session and encouraged them to accept the new levies cheerfully. Americans, however
, are never cheerful about tax increases.38

  For several weeks, leading burgesses drafted appeals for Parliament to reconsider the taxes. One emphasized America’s difficult economic times, reciting the cratering tobacco market, the lack of hard money, and restrictions on trade.39 Notably, the burgesses did not claim that Americans should pay no additional taxes. Since much of the war effort involved protecting the colonists, Americans could hardly refuse to help pay. Moreover, Americans paid lower taxes than did the British, an imbalance that British politicians aimed to rectify.40

  Instead, the Virginians disputed who could impose the taxes. Only Americans, they wrote, understood local conditions well enough to design a fair tax. Virginia would accept new taxes “provided it were left to themselves to raise it, by modes least grievous.” Otherwise, one submission insisted, Americans “are the slaves of Britons.” This argument, expressed in ever more provocative language, soon would resound on both sides of the ocean.41

  Chapter 21

  The Wheel of History: The Stamp Act and the Robinson Scandal

  The thirteen months that began in May 1765 brought dramatic changes to political life in America and in Virginia, fundamentally reshaping Washington’s world. Violent opposition to new taxes altered how Americans thought of themselves and the mother country. The death of Virginia Speaker John Robinson in May 1766 revealed rot and corruption at the core of the colony’s politics.

  * * *

  When the assembly convened in early May, with Washington present, the leading agenda item was tobacco regulation, but tobacco was of little interest to Frederick County farmers or to Washington, who was abandoning the crop. After only a few days in Williamsburg, he hurried home for the planting of wheat, hemp, and flax. Having produced only 257 bushels of wheat the year before, that crop soon would approach thirty times that level. After three more weeks, many others had left a session that, according to one member, “was supposed to be over—except the concluding ceremonies.” Fewer than half the burgesses attended the meeting on May 29.1

  Those few received the dismaying news that Parliament had adopted the Stamp Act, imposing new taxes on fifty-five items, including legal documents, pamphlets, newspapers, playing cards, and dice. The legislation included elements intended to calm the colonists: Tax rates in America were lower than those in Britain, and revenue raised in America would pay for the soldiers protecting the frontier. The colonists, however, were not appeased. For months, disputes over taxes and anti-smuggling enforcement had triggered a boycott of British goods in the northern colonies. Other colonies took up the Virginia Assembly’s recent protest that only Americans should impose taxes on Americans. The Stamp Act taxes showed that Parliament did not agree.2

  Over the next several months, mobs took to the streets in Boston and Newport, Annapolis and New York. They often targeted tax collectors, many of whom chose to resign. The royal governor of New York hid in a fort while angry residents burned his effigy, his carriages, and his sleighs.3

  In Williamsburg, the taxes drew an immediate response from a new burgess, a young lawyer named Patrick Henry. On May 29, Henry jotted down seven resolutions challenging the taxes. Little in the resolutions was new: They asserted that British subjects could be taxed only by a body in which they were represented. What was original, though, was Henry’s willingness to challenge the leaders of the House, who angrily rebuked the brash upstart.4

  The argument spilled over to the next day. A French visitor attributed to Henry a daring comparison of the British king to tyrants of old: “[Henry] said that Tarquin and Julius [Caesar] had their Brutus, Charles had his Cromwell, and George III . . .” At this point, the narrative continues, an enraged Speaker Robinson accused Henry of treason! The newcomer deftly insisted that he meant to say only that the king might “profit” by the example of those tyrants; then by one account he provocatively added: “If this be treason, make the most of it.” Henry’s resolutions carried by a single vote. Peyton Randolph stalked from the chamber muttering, “By God, I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote.”5

  Next day, the fight resumed “very hot” and “most bloody” as the Speaker and his allies strained to rescind Henry’s resolutions. The deed, however, was done, and by a rank beginner. A few weeks later, newspapers in Newport and Boston published Henry’s resolutions, fanning the flames of resistance. Dismayed by events, Governor Fauquier dissolved the assembly and convened new elections. He explained to London that Speaker Robinson had opposed Henry, who was supported by “young hot and giddy members.”6

  Although Washington missed Henry’s fireworks, he also opposed the Stamp Act, though his objections were based on hardheaded economic realities, not political theory. He explained to British correspondents that it was shortsighted for England to adopt legislation certain to enrage Americans and to trigger a boycott of British goods. Most colonists, he wrote, viewed the taxes as “an unconstitutional attack upon their liberties.” Passing over that argument, Washington raised a practical point. Since Americans traded mostly with Britain, any measure that reduced that trade “must be hurtful to [British] manufacturers.” Americans could forego British luxury items, while acquiring their necessities from American sources. Moreover, Americans lacked currency for paying the stamp taxes on legal documents, so American courts would close, which would block British creditors from suing on debts. “Where then,” he asked, “is the utility of these restrictions?”7

  Washington’s critique reflected his habits of mind. Rather than mount the barricades to defend the timeless rights of Britons, he focused on the taxes’ impact on both sides of the Atlantic. He appealed to English self-interest rather than assert his own interests. People, he always insisted, consult first their own interests. He hoped his British correspondents would do so, then press their government to rescind the new taxes.8

  Eight colonial assemblies adopted resolutions echoing Virginia’s opposition to the taxes. In Annapolis and New York, a French traveler encountered prominent men who “were all scheming how to rise manufactures . . . they would not have a farthing’s worth of anything from England.” Mob violence and threats drove more tax collectors to resign. Richard Henry Lee had sought Virginia’s tax-collector position, but now was relieved that he had not secured the post. The man who did, he wrote, was “regarded as an execrable monster, who with parricidal heart and hands, hath concern in the ruin of his native country.”9

  The Stamp Act resistance changed how colonists viewed their world. Before, their identity was defined by the mother country and the colony where they lived. Now they began to see themselves as Americans. For nearly three weeks in October, representatives of nine colonies (not including Virginia) met in New York to chart common actions against the Stamp Act. Delegates from six colonies adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, an address to the king, and submissions to Parliament. Though professing loyalty to George III, they never conceded Parliament’s power to tax Americans without American participation.10

  In late October, New York merchants declared a boycott of goods covered by the stamp taxes. The movement caught fire. From roots in Boston, groups calling themselves Sons of Liberty sprang up. Some of their pronouncements were menacing; a New York group declared that any person using British stamps would be “branded with everlasting infamy,” while another in Norfolk, Virginia, declared that someone using stamps was “an enemy to his country” who would be “treated accordingly.”

  In February 1766, more than one hundred Virginians, including Washington’s three younger brothers, signed an “association” agreement, pledging to “exert every faculty to prevent the execution” of the new law. Anyone trading in stamped goods faced hostility. When a merchant defied the Virginia associators by announcing he would use stamped paper to clear his goods for shipment, four hundred associators descended on his town. They formed a double line in the main street. They repeated their demand. The merchant agreed to it.11

 
; Few men were willing to collect the taxes, most American courts had to shut down, and no revenues flowed to the king. British merchants decided that the Stamp Act was, as Washington argued, counterproductive. Enraging American customers was poor commercial policy. The merchants agitated for repeal, while rumors spread that unemployed workingmen would march on London. In early 1766, a new prime minister won repeal, though Parliament declared in a companion statute that it held “full power and authority to make laws and statutes” binding Americans “in all cases whatsoever.”12

  As colonists rejoiced, Washington’s reaction was characteristically sober. Had Parliament not repealed the law, he cautioned a British merchant, “the consequences . . . would have been more direful than is generally apprehended.”13

  Many Americans drew from the episode the lesson that economic retaliation worked. The Virginia Gazette boasted that the American boycotts had inflicted “a total stagnation of all business” in Britain. But the core dispute remained over the power to tax. “This country cannot be long subject to Great Britain,” wrote a Frenchman traveling in America. No country, he added, “seems better calculated for independency, and the inhabitants are already entirely disposed thereto and talk of nothing more than it.”14