George Washington. William Roscoe Thayer

George III, a monarch as headstrong as he was narrow, with insanity lurking in his mind, succeeded to the throne in 1760, and he seized the first opportunity to get rid of his masterful Minister, William Pitt. He replaced him with the Earl of Bute, a Scotchman, and a man of ingenious parts, but with the incurable Tory habit of insisting that it was still midnight long after the sun was shining in the forenoon of another day.

      [Footnote 1: Marshall: The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia, 1805, 5 vols.), II, 68.]

      Before the Treaty was signed and the world had begun to spin in a new groove, which optimists thought would stretch on forever, an equally serious change had come to the private life of George Washington. To the surprise of his friends, who had begun to doubt whether he would ever get married, he found his life's companion and married her without delay. The notion seems to have been popular during his lifetime, and it certainly has continued to later days, that he was too bashful to feel easy in ladies' society. I find no evidence for this mistaken idea. Although little has been recorded of the intimacies of Washington's youth, there are indications of more than one "flame" and that he was not dull and stockish with the young women. As early as 1748, we hear of the Low-Land Beauty who had captivated him, and who is still to be identified. Even earlier, in his school days, he indulged in writing love verses. But we need not infer that they were inspired by living damsels or by the Muses.

      "Oh ye Gods why should my poor resistless Heart

       Stand to oppose thy might and power—

      * * * * *

      "In deluding sleepings let my eyelids close

       That in an enraptured dream I may

       In a rapt lulling sleep and gentle repose

       Possess those joys denied by day."[1]

      [Footnote 1: Quoted by Wister, 39.]

      Cavour said that it was easier for him to make Italy than to write a poem: Washington, who was also an honest man, and fully aware of his limitations, would probably have admitted that he could make the American Republic more easily than a love song. But he was susceptible to feminine charms, and we hear of Betsy Fauntleroy, and of a "Mrs. Meil," and on his return to Mount Vernon, after Braddock's defeat, he received the following round robin from some of the young ladies at Belvoir:

      Dear Sir—After thanking Heaven for your safe return I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of seeing you this night. I do assure you nothing but our being satisfied that our company would be disagreeable should prevent us from trying if our legs would not carry us to Mount Vernon this night, but if you will not come to us tomorrow morning very early we shall be at Mount Vernon.

      S[ALLY] FAIRFAX ANN SPEARING ELIZ'TH DENT

      Apparently Washington's love affairs were known and talked about among his group. What promised to be the most serious of his experiences was with Mary Philipse, of New York, daughter of Frederick Philipse, one of the richest landowners in that Colony, and sister-in-law of Beverly Robinson, one of Washington's Virginian friends. Washington was going to Boston on a characteristic errand. One of the minor officers in the Regular British Army, which had accompanied Braddock to Virginia, refused to take orders from Washington, and officers of higher grade in Virginia Troops, declaring that their commissions were assigned only by Colonial officials, whereas he had his own from King George. This led, of course, to insubordination and frequent quarrels. To put a stop to the wrangling, Washington journeyed to Boston, to have Governor Shirley, the Commander-in-Chief of the King's Forces in the Colonies, give a decision upon it. The Governor ruled in favor of Washington, who then rode back to Virginia. But he spent a week in New York City in order to see his enchantress, Mary Philipse, and it is even whispered that he proposed to her and that she refused him. Two years afterwards she married Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Morris, and during the Revolution the Morris house was Washington's headquarters; the Morrises, who were Tories, having fled.

      Persons have speculated why it was that so many of the young women whom Washington took a fancy to, chilled and drew back when it came to the question of marriage. One very clever writer thinks that perhaps his nose was inordinately large in his youth, and that that repelled them. I do not pretend to say. So far as I know, psychologists have not yet made a sufficiently exact study of the nose as a determining factor in matrimony, to warrant an opinion from persons who have made no special study of the subject. The plain fact was that by his twenty-fifth year, Washington was an unusually presentable young man, more than six feet tall, broad-shouldered, very strong, slender and athletic, carefully polite in his manners, a boon companion, though he talked little, a sound and deliberate thinker; moreover, the part he had taken in the war with the Indians and the French made him almost a popular hero, and gave him a preëminent place among the Virginians, both the young and the old, of that time. The possession of the estate of Mount Vernon, which he had inherited from his half-brother, Lawrence, assured to him more than a comfortable fortune, and yet gossip wondered why he was not married. Thackeray intimates that Washington was too evidently on the lookout for a rich wife, which, if true, may account for some of the alleged rebuffs. I do not believe this assertion, nor do I find evidence for it. Washington was always a very careful, farseeing person, and no doubt had a clear idea of what constitutes desirable qualifications in marriage, but I believe he would have married a poor girl out of the workhouse if he had really loved her. However, he was not put to that test.

      One May day Washington rode off from Mount Vernon to carry despatches to Williamsburg. He stopped at William's Ferry for dinner with his friend Major Chamberlayne. At the table was Mrs. Daniel Parke Custis, who, under her maiden name of Martha Dandridge, was well known throughout that region for her beauty and sweet disposition. She was now a widow of twenty-six, with two small children. Her late husband, Colonel Custis, her elder by fifteen years, had left her a large estate called White House, and a fortune which made her one of the richest women in Virginia. From their first introduction, Washington and she seemed to be mutually attracted. He lingered throughout the afternoon and evening with her and went on to Williamsburg with his despatches the next morning. Having finished his business at the Capitol, he returned to William's Ferry, where he again saw Mrs. Custis, pressed his suit upon her and was accepted. Characteristic was it that he should conclude the matter so suddenly; but he had had marriage in his intentions for many years.

      During the summer Washington returned to his military duties and led a troop to Fort Duquesne. He found the fort partly demolished, and abandoned by the French; he marched in and took it, and gave it the name of Fort Pitt, in recognition of the great statesman who had directed the revival of British prestige. The fort, thus recovered to English possession, stood on the present site of Pittsburgh. I quote the following brief letter from Washington to Mrs. Custis, as it is almost the only note of his to her during their engagement that has been preserved:

      We have begun our March for the Ohio. A courier is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send a few words to one whose life is now inseparable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made our pledges to each other, my thoughts have been continually going to you as another Self. That an all powerful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer of your ever faithful and affectionate friend.[1]

      [Footnote 1: P.L. Ford, The True George Washington, 93.]

      Late in that autumn Washington returned for good from his Western fighting. On January 6, 1759 (Old Style), his marriage to Mrs. Custis took place in St. Peter's Church, near her home at the White House. Judging from the fine writing which old historians and new have devoted to describing it, Virginia had seen few such elegant pageants as upon that occasion. The grandees in official station and in social life were all there. Francis Fauquier was, of course, gorgeous in his Governor's robes but he could not outshine the bridegroom, in blue and silver with scarlet trimmings, and gold buckles at his knees, with his imperial physique and carriage. The Reverend Peter Mossum conducted the Episcopal service, after which the bride drove back with a coach and six to the White House, while Washington, with other gentlemen, rode on horseback beside her acting as escort.

      The bridal couple spent two or three months at the White House. The Custis estates were large and in so much need of oversight that if Washington