George Washington
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8. Diary, 30 April to 21 May 1768, GWP; Diary, 30 June 1768, GWP; Diary, 26 October 1768, GWP; Diary, 21 November and 1 December 1768, GWP; “Fairfax County Poll Sheet,” December 1768, GWP.
9. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 88; Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–1776, New York: Columbia University Press (1918), 106–21.
10. To George Mason, 5 April 1769, GWP.
11. From George Mason, 5 April 1769, GWP.
12. Diary, 17–21 April 1769, GWP; from George Mason, 28 April 1769, GWP.
13. Scribner and Tarter, Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, A Documentary Record, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia 1:74–77 (1973); Jeff Broadwater, George Mason: Forgotten Founder, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2006), 51.
14. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1766–1769, 11:188–89 (8 May 1769); Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1:252; Kukla, Patrick Henry, 114.
15. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1766–1769, 11:214–15, 11:218 (16–17 May 1769).
16. John J. Reardon, Peyton Randolph: One Who Presided, Durham: Carolina Academic Press (1982), 34–35.
17. Richard Henry Lee to Arthur Lee, 19 May 1769, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 34.
18. Diary, 17, 18, 19 May 1769 and notes, GWP; Freeman 3:222; Broadwater, George Mason, 51.
19. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1766–1769, 11:xlii; Taylor Stoermer, “‘What Manner of Man I Am’: The Political Career of George Washington Before the Revolution,” in Edward Lengel, ed., A Companion to George Washington, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell (2012), 128; Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington, 68–69.
20. Freeman 3:234; to Burwell Bassett, 18 June 1769, GWP; Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants, 138–55; to John Armstrong, 18 August 1769, GWP; Diary, 14 September, 30 October, 1 and 5 November, GWP. In a faint echo of his days legislating against hog-running, Washington also presented a bill proposing a tax on dog ownership. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1766–1769, 11:264–65 (17 November 1769), 11:289 (24 November 1769).
21. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1766–1769, 11:227 (7 November 1769); Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), December 14, 1769.
22. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 94; Arthur Lee to Dr. Theodorick Bland, 21 August 1770, in Campbell, Bland Papers 1:29; Richard Henry Lee to William Lee, 7 July 1770, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 45. Strikingly, at the same time that Americans feared that non-importation was failing, the king’s ministers were suggesting that hopes of reconciliation with America were vain. Arthur Lee to brother, 20 May 1770, in Richard Henry Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, Boston: Wells and Lilly (1829), 206.
23. Diary, 25, 28, and 31 May, 15 June 1770, GWP; Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), May 31, 1770.
24. Diary, 22 June 1770 and Note, GWP; Smith, “An Era of Non-Importation Associations, 1768–73,” 20:95.
25. To Jonathan Boucher, 30 July 1770, GWP; to George William Fairfax, 27 June 1770, GWP; Greene, Landon Carter Diary 1:408 (29 May 1770); Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1:258–59.
26. Diary, 16 April 1771 and note, 18 June 1771 and note, GWP; Fairfax County Associators to Peyton Randolph, 1 July 1771, GWP; Virginia Gazette (Rind’s), July 18, 1771; Virginia Gazette (Rind’s), October 11, 1770; William Nelson to Lord Hillsborough, 19 December 1770, in Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1770–1772, 12:xxxi; to Cary & Co., 20 July 1771, GWP; to Cary & Co., 18 July 1771, GWP.
27. Mason to George Brent, 6 December 1770, Mason et al. to Peyton Randolph, 18 July 1771, in Robert A. Rutland, ed., The Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1970) 1:127–30, 1:132–33.
26. UPHEAVALS AT MOUNT VERNON
1. Richard Sheridan, “The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and the American Colonies,” J. Econ. Hist. 20:161, 170, 173 (1960); Freeman 3:273–74, 276; to Jonathan Boucher, 4 May 1772, GWP; “April 1772 Cash Accounts,” (April 6 entry), GWP; Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1770–1772, 12:125 (15 July 1771), 12:302 (7 April 1772), 12:315 (11 April 1772); Hening, Statutes at Large, chapter 2, 8:511. On local matters, Washington pressed Alexandria’s request to impose a ship tax and relax a liquor tax, and to enforce a requirement that empty town lots be drained. His other legislative activity included managing a personal property claim, a soldier’s petition, and bills for regulating deer hunting and hound ownership. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1770–1772, 235 (11 March 1772) (ferry bill); Hening, Statutes at Large, chapter 39, 8:591 (deer) and chapter 52, 8:613 (Alexandria drainage).
2. To Jonathan Boucher, 21 May 1772, GWP; Diary, 20–22 May 1772, GWP.
3. Rufus Rockwell Wilson, ed., Burnaby’s Travels Through North America, New York: A. Wessels Co. (1904), 209; Freeman 3:306–7.
4. From George William Fairfax, 1 January 1773, GWP; to George William Fairfax, 19 January 1773, GWP.
5. To Daniel Jenifer Adams, 12 January 1773, GWP; to Craven Peyton, 23 February 1773, GWP; to Gilbert Simpson, 23 February 1773, GWP; to Robert McMickan, 12 January and February 1773, GWP (“my affairs in the hands of Mr. D. J. Adams are in a very desperate way”); to Samuel Washington, 4 February 1773, GWP; to John Dalton, 15 February 1773, GWP.
6. To Burwell Bassett, 15 February 1773, GWP; Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, Richmond (1905) 13:12 (6 March 1773); Sheridan, “The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and the American Colonies,” 20:178–79; Kukla, Patrick Henry, 135; Minutes of the Committee of Correspondence, in Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, 13:42–64; R. H. Lee to John Dickinson, 4 April 1773, in Ballagh, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 83.
7. To Jonathan Boucher, 16 December 1770, GWP; from Jonathan Boucher, 18 December 1770, 19 November 1771, 19 January and 8 April 1773, GWP.
8. From Jonathan Boucher, 8 April 1773, GWP; Bryan, Martha Washington, 163–65; to Boucher, 20 April 1771, GWP.
9. To Benedict Calvert, 3 April 1773, GWP.
10. Diary, 24 April 1773, 12, 16–17, 19, 23, and 27 May 1773, GWP; J. P. Custis to Martha Washington, 5 July 1773, in Fields, Worthy Partner, 152.
11. To Lord Dunmore, 13 April 1773, GWP.
12. As he wrote those words, Washington may have recalled the condolence letter he had written to Bassett only two months before, upon the death of Bassett’s daughter. Acknowledging in his earlier letter that “the ways of providence being inscrutable, and the justice of it not to be scanned by the shallow eye of humanity,” he advised that the only course left was “a cheerful acquiescence to the divine will.” To Burwell Bassett, 20 June 1773, 20 April 1773, GWP.
13. William D. Hoyt, ed., “Eliza Parke Custis [Law], Self-Portrait: Eliza Custis, 1808,” VMHB 53:89, 92 (1945).
14. Diary, 21 June 1773, GWP.
15. J. P. Custis to Martha Washington, 5 July 1773, in Fields, Worthy Partner, 152–53; to Burwell Bassett, 20 June 1773, GWP; from Lord Dunmore, 3 July 1773, GWP.
16. Diary, 22–28 June 1773, GWP.
17. Diary, 1–5 July 1773, GWP.
18. Diary, 8–9 July 1773, GWP.
19. Diary, 9 July–31 August 1773, GWP.
20. “Cash Accounts,” September 1773, GWP; Diary, 26 September–2 October 1773, 13 October, GWP; “Cash Accounts,” March 1773 (11 March 1773), GWP.
21. To Myles Cooper, 15 December 1773, GWP; from Myles Cooper, 20 September 1773, GWP.
22. Diary, 3–5 February 1774.
23. Bryan, Martha Washington, 177; Dalzell and Dalzell, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, 68–73.
24. To Burwell Bassett, 12 February 1774, GWP.
27. SEIZING THE MOMENT
1. Arthur Lee to Sam Adams, 13 October 1773, in Richard Henry Lee, The Life of Arthur Lee, 236.
2. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor, 143;
Boston Evening Post, December 20, 1773; Benjamin L. Carp, Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America, New Haven: Yale University Press (2010), 130; Diary of John Adams, 17 December 1773, AP.
3. Lord Dartmouth to General Thomas Gage, 3 June 1774, in Peter Force, American Archives, Fourth Series (1848) 1:380; Statutes at Large of England and of Great Britain, London: George Ayre and Andrew Strahan (1811), 14th George, chapters 6, 19, 39, 45, 13:651, 655, 673, 682; Richard Henry Lee to Arthur Lee, 26 June 1774, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee 1:114; Taylor, American Revolutions, 113–15; Mary Beth Norton, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, New York: Alfred A. Knopf (2020), 84–85, 98–99.
4. Diary, 16, 17, 21, 23, and 24 May 1774, GWP; Bryan, Martha Washington, 177–78; Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 113.
5. Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, 13:124 (24 May 1774), 13:132 (26 May 1774); Kukla, Patrick Henry, 139–41; to George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774, GWP; Greene, Diary of Landon Carter 2:817 (3 June 1774); Richard Henry Lee to Samuel Adams, 23 June 1774, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 111–13; Richard Henry Lee to Arthur Lee, 26 June 1774, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 114–16 and note 1.
6. Diary, 25–26 May 1774, GWP; to George William Fairfax, 10 June 1774, GWP.
7. Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), May 26, 1774; “Association of Members of the Late House of Burgesses,” 27 May 1774, PTJ; Freeman 3:354; Bryan, Martha Washington, 178; Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, 13:138 (28 May 1774).
8. Diary, 29 May 1774, GWP; Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, 13:144–47 (letter from Samuel Adams, 13 May 1774); “Proceedings of a Meeting of Representatives in Williamsburg,” 30 May 1774, PTJ; Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), June 2, 1774; Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1:270–72; Diary, 1 June 1774, GWP; to George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774, GWP.
9. To George William Fairfax, 10–15 June 1774, GWP.
10. Diary, 26 June and 3 July 1774, GWP. The additional parliamentary legislation increased the powers of the Massachusetts royal governor and shielded colonial officials from trial in America for any misdeeds. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 117–18; to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774, GWP.
11. Richard Barksdale Harwell, ed., Committees of Safety of Westmoreland and Fincastle: Proceedings of the County Committees, Richmond: Virginia State Library (1956), 27 (22 June 1774); Richmond County (Virginia) Resolutions, in Peter Force, ed., American Archives, fourth series, New York (1837–1846) 1:491–492; from Thomas Johnson, 28 June 1774, GWP; Kennedy, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773–1776, 13:152–53, 156–57.
12. From Bryan Fairfax, 3 July 1774, GWP: to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774, GWP.
13. Diary, 5 July 1774, and note, GWP; “Extract of a Letter to a Gentleman in Boston,” Alexandria, Virginia, 6 July 1774, in Force, American Archives 1:517–18; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, 123 and 262 note 2; to John Augustine Washington, 11 July 1774, GWP; Richard Henry Lee to Samuel Adams, 23 June 1774, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 111; Broadwater, George Mason, 65; Hugh Grigsby, The Virginia Convention of 1776, Richmond: J. W. Randolph (1855), 159; Rutland, George Mason Papers 1:168, 1:201.
14. Diary, 14 July 1774, GWP; Lincoln MacVeagh, ed., The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774–1777, New York: Dial (1924), 27–28; “Cash Accounts, July 1774,” GWP (14 July, paid 13 shillings for cakes at the election, plus £3, 1s, 6d, for “sundries” for election; also spent £8, 5s, 6d for “my part of the election ball”).
15. Powell, The History of Old Alexandria, 181; Diary, 18 July 1774, GWP; to Bryan Fairfax, 24 August 1774, GWP; Virginia Gazette (Rind’s), August 4, 1774; Boston Gazette, August 8, 1774; to Bryan Fairfax, 20 July 1774, GWP.
16. Fairfax County Resolves, 18 July 1774, GWP.
17. To Bryan Fairfax, 20 July 1774, GWP.
18. Diary, 28 July–5 August 1774, GWP.
19. To Thomas Johnson, 5 August 1774, GWP.
20. Force, American Archives 1:686–89; Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), August 4 and 11, 1774.
21. The winners’ vote totals were: Randolph 104; Lee 100; Washington 98; Henry 89; Bland 79; Benjamin Harrison 66; Pendleton 62. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 263–64 note 18.
22. To Richard Henry Lee, 9 August 1774, GWP; “Cash Accounts,” August 1774 (6 August), GWP; Diary, 15 and 22 August 1774, GWP; Kenton Kilmer and Donald Sweig, The Fairfax Family in Fairfax County: A Brief History, Fairfax: Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning (May 1975); Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon), June 2, 1774.
23. To Bryan Fairfax, 24 August 1774, GWP.
24. Danby Pickering, Statutes at Large, Cambridge, UK: John Archdeacon (1773), 14 Geo. chapter 83, 30:549; Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1967), 118–19; Broadwater, George Mason, 64; McGaughy, Richard Henry Lee, 108; Taylor, American Revolutions, 84–85.
25. William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry; Life, Correspondence, and Speeches, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1891) 1:213; David J. Mays, ed., Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734–1803, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia (1967) 1:98; Diary, 30–31 August 1774, GWP.
28. A CONTINENTAL CHARACTER
1. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, 60.
2. John Adams’s Diary, 15, 23 August 1774, AP; Longmore, The Invention of George Washington, 132.
3. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, 47–48; Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1:279; John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 September 1774, AP.
4. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, 49; Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1:282; Pennsylvania Packet, August 15, 1774 (“extra”); Pennsylvania Journal, August 19, 1774; Pennsylvania Gazette, August 24, 1774.
5. “The Interest of Great Britain Considered,” 17 April 1760, PBF.
6. John Adams to Abigail Adams, 25 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Samuel Ward to Henry Marchant, 7 October 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull Sr., 10 October 1774, in Letters of Delegates; John Adams’s Diary, 9 October 1774, AP.
7. Diary, 17 April 1770, GWP; Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, 49; Freeman 3:373.
8. Samuel Adams to Joseph Warren, 25 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates 1:100; John Adams to William Tudor, 29 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Joseph Galloway to William Franklin, 5 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates.
9. Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 30 August–5 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Diary of Robert Treat Paine, 5 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Samuel Ward’s Diary, 5 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates; Charles E. Peterson, “Carpenters’ Hall,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 43:96 (1953), 100.
10. Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 31 August–5 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates 1:22–23.
11. Notes of James Duane, 6 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates ; Richard Henry Lee to William Lee, 20 September 1774, in Ballagh, Correspondence of Richard Henry Lee, 123–24; Samuel Ward’s Diary, 6 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates.
12. Duane Notes, 7 September 1774, Letters of Delegates.
13. Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 11 September 1774, Letters of Delegates.
14. John Adams’s Diary, 31 August 1774, AP; Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 11 September 1774, Letters of Delegates.
15. Robert Treat Paine’s Diary, 6 September 1774, Letters of Delegates; John Adams to Abigail Adams, 8 September 1774, AP; Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 6 September 1774, Letters of Delegates.
16. Deane to Elizabeth Deane, 19 September and 7 September 1774, Letters of Delegates; Samuel Ward to Samuel Ward Jr., 24 September 1774, Letters of Delegates; John Adams to Abigail Adams, 18 September 1774, AP.
17. John Adams’s Diary, 7 September 1774, 14 September, 22 September 1774, AP; Adams to Abigail Adams, 8 September 177
4, Letters of Delegates. Syllabub was a drink of cream, sweet wine, and lemons; flummery was a dessert pudding.
18. “James Duane’s Propositions Before the Committee on Rights,” 22 September 1774, Letters of Delegates; Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., 10 October 1774, Letters of Delegates. Some treatments of the value of unanimity in different settings appear in: Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation, New York: Henry Holt & Co. (1996), 1, 448; Donald M. Roper, “Judicial Unanimity and the Marshall Court—A Road to Reappraisal,” Am. J. Legal Hist. 9:118, 119–20 (1965); David A. Skeel Jr., “The Unanimity Norm in Delaware Corporate Law,” Virginia L. Rev. 83:127, 130, 170 (1997); Dennis J. Hutchinson, “Unanimity and Desegregation: Decisionmaking in the Supreme Court, 1948–1958,” Georgetown L. J. 67:1, 2–3 (1979); George Tsebelis and Geoffrey Garrett, “The Institutional Foundations of Intergovernmentalism and the Supranationalism in the European Union,” International Organization 55:357 note 1, 359; James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (1962), chapter 7.
19. “First Prayer of the Continental Congress, 1774,” at https://chaplain.house.gov/archive/continental.html; John Adams to Abigail Adams, 16 September 1774, Letters of Delegates.
20. Journals of the Continental Congress, Washington: Government Printing Office (1904) 1:31–37 (17 September 1774); Suffolk Resolves, in JCC 1:31–37.
21. JCC 1:39–40 (17 September 1774); John Adams’s Diary, 17 September 1774, in Letters of Delegates 1:75.