The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5)

J >> John Marshall >> The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5)

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THE

LIFE

OF

GEORGE WASHINGTON,

COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE

AMERICAN FORCES,

DURING THE WAR WHICH ESTABLISHED THE INDEPENDENCE OF HIS COUNTRY,

AND

FIRST PRESIDENT

OF THE

UNITED STATES.

COMPILED UNDER THE INSPECTION OF

THE HONOURABLE BUSHROD WASHINGTON,

FROM

_ORIGINAL PAPERS_

BEQUEATHED TO HIM BY HIS DECEASED RELATIVE, AND NOW IN POSSESSION OF
THE AUTHOR.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,

AN INTRODUCTION,

CONTAINING A COMPENDIOUS VIEW OF THE COLONIES PLANTED BY THE ENGLISH
ON THE

CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA,

FROM THEIR SETTLEMENT TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THAT WAR WHICH TERMINATED
IN THEIR

INDEPENDENCE.

BY JOHN MARSHALL.

VOL. I.

THE CITIZENS' GUILD
OF WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD HOME
FREDERICKSBURG, VA.

1926

[Illustration: General Washington

_From the full length portrait by John Trumbull at Yale University_

_This portrait is one of 54 canvasses the artist presented to Yale
University in return for an annuity of $1,000. Washington was in his
forty-third year and it is considered the best likeness of him at the
outbreak of the Revolution. The canvas depicts him, "six feet two
inches in height, with brown hair, blue eyes, large head and hands,
and strong arms."_]

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

In his will George Washington bequeathed to his favorite nephew,
Bushrod Washington, his personal letters, private papers and secret
documents accumulated during a lifetime of service to his country.
When the bequest became known, many of the literary men of the country
were proposed for the commission to write the authorized life of our
First President.

Bushrod Washington's choice fell upon John Marshall, Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court. To him he handed over all the precious papers left
him by his distinguished relative. George Washington and Marshall's
father, Thomas Marshall, were boyhood companions, so John Marshall
knew "the Father of His Country" as a neighbor and friend from his
earliest youth, and served under him in the Revolution.

If it be true that it takes a great man to interpret the life of a
great man then Bushrod Washington made no mistake in the selection of
a biographer. For Marshall, under the influence of Washington, came to
be nearly as great a man as the character whose life and achievements
held his deepest thought for nearly a quarter of a century. Certainly
his services to his country rank close to Washington's. Marshall's
sympathetic understanding of his subject, his first-hand knowledge of
events with his remarkable powers of expression qualified him to
produce the masterpiece that has come down to us.

Seven years were spent in preparing the first edition, published in
1804-07. The work was based chiefly on Washington's own diaries and
letters and secret archives and it told not simply the epic story of
this great life but the truth about the birth of our nation. Marshall
later spent fifteen years revising the first edition, verifying to the
last detail every chapter, page and paragraph of his monumental work.

The first edition, published by C.P. Wayne of Philadelphia, was an
achievement in beautiful printing and bookmaking and still stands out
today as such. The present publishers have followed the format of the
original edition but have used the revised text which Marshall spent
so many years in perfecting.

Washington's personality lives on in John Marshall's great biography.
He still has the power to raise up men to greatness as he did during
his lifetime. The precepts, the principles and the shining example of
this foremost of self-educated, self-made Americans have the power to
uplift and start toward new heights of achievement, all who come in
contact with him. The work is now reissued in the hope that it may
give his countrymen of the present day the benefit of the counsel, the
guidance and the inspiration that has proven so valuable in the past.

February 22nd, 1926.

PREFACE

BY THE AUTHOR

A desire to know intimately those illustrious personages, who have
performed a conspicuous part on the great theatre of the world, is,
perhaps, implanted in every human bosom. We delight to follow them
through the various critical and perilous situations in which they
have been placed, to view them in the extremes of adverse and
prosperous fortune, to trace their progress through all the
difficulties they have surmounted, and to contemplate their whole
conduct, at a time when, the power and the pomp of office having
disappeared, it may be presented to us in the simple garb of truth.

If among those exalted characters which are produced in every age,
none can have a fairer claim to the attention and recollection of
mankind than those under whose auspices great empires have been
founded, or political institutions deserving to be permanent,
established; a faithful representation of the various important events
connected with the life of the favourite son of America, cannot be
unworthy of the general regard. Among his own countrymen it will
unquestionably excite the deepest interest.

As if the chosen instrument of Heaven, selected for the purpose of
effecting the great designs of Providence respecting this our western
hemisphere, it was the peculiar lot of this distinguished man, at
every epoch when the destinies of his country seemed dependent on the
measures adopted, to be called by the united voice of his fellow
citizens to those high stations on which the success of those measures
principally depended. It was his peculiar lot to be equally useful in
obtaining the independence, and consolidating the civil institutions,
of his country. We perceive him at the head of her armies, during a
most arduous and perilous war on the events of which her national
existence was staked, supporting with invincible fortitude the unequal
conflict. That war being happily terminated, and the political
revolutions of America requiring that he should once more relinquish
his beloved retirement, we find him guiding her councils with the same
firmness, wisdom, and virtue, which had, long and successfully, been
displayed in the field. We behold him her chief magistrate at a time
when her happiness, her liberty, perhaps her preservation depended on
so administering the affairs of the Union, that a government standing
entirely on the public favour, which had with infinite difficulty been
adopted, and against which the most inveterate prejudices had been
excited, should conciliate public opinion, and acquire a firmness and
stability that would enable it to resist the rude shocks it was
destined to sustain. It was too his peculiar fortune to afford the
brightest examples of moderation and patriotism, by voluntarily
divesting himself of the highest military and civil honours when the
public interests no longer demanded that he should retain them. We
find him retiring from the head of a victorious and discontented army
which adored him, so soon as the object for which arms had been taken
up was accomplished; and withdrawing from the highest office an
American citizen can hold, as soon as his influence, his character,
and his talents ceased to be necessary to the maintenance of that
government which had been established under his auspices.

He was indeed, "first in war,[1] first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his fellow citizens."

[Footnote 1: The expressions of a resolution prepared by
general Lee, and passed in the house of representatives of
the United States, on their being informed of the death of
general Washington.]

A faithful detail of the transactions of a person so pre-eminently
distinguished will be looked for with avidity, and the author laments
his inability to present to the public a work which may gratify the
expectations that have been raised. In addition to that just
diffidence of himself which he very sincerely feels, two causes beyond
his control combine to excite this apprehension.

Accustomed to look in the page of history for incidents in themselves
of great magnitude, to find immense exertions attended with
inconsiderable effects, and vast means employed in producing
unimportant ends, we are in the habit of bestowing on the recital of
military actions, a degree of consideration proportioned to the
numbers engaged in them. When the struggle has terminated, and the
agitations felt during its suspense have subsided, it is difficult to
attach to enterprises, in which small numbers have been concerned,
that admiration which is often merited by the talents displayed in
their execution, or that interest which belongs to the consequences
that have arisen from them.

The long and distressing contest between Great Britain and these
states did not abound in those great battles which are so frequent in
the wars of Europe. Those who expect a continued succession of
victories and defeats; who can only feel engaged in the movements of
vast armies, and who believe that a Hero must be perpetually in
action, will be disappointed in almost every page of the following
history. Seldom was the American chief in a condition to indulge his
native courage in those brilliant achievements to which he was
stimulated by his own feelings, and a detail of which interests,
enraptures, and astonishes the reader. Had he not often checked his
natural disposition, had he not tempered his ardour with caution, the
war he conducted would probably have been of short duration, and the
United States would still have been colonies. At the head of troops
most of whom were perpetually raw because they were perpetually
changing; who were neither well fed, paid, clothed, nor armed; and who
were generally inferior, even in numbers, to the enemy; he derives no
small title to glory from the consideration, that he never despaired
of the public safety; that he was able at all times to preserve the
appearance of an army, and that, in the most desperate situation of
American affairs, he did not, for an instant, cease to be formidable.
To estimate rightly his worth we must contemplate his difficulties. We
must examine the means placed in his hands, and the use he made of
those means. To preserve an army when conquest was impossible, to
avoid defeat and ruin when victory was unattainable, to keep his
forces embodied and suppress the discontents of his soldiers,
exasperated by a long course of the most cruel privations, to seize
with unerring discrimination the critical moment when vigorous
offensive operations might be advantageously carried on, are actions
not less valuable in themselves, nor do they require less capacity in
the chief who performs them, than a continued succession of battles.
But they spread less splendour over the page which recounts them, and
excite weaker emotions in the bosom of the reader.

There is also another source from which some degree of disappointment
has been anticipated. It is the impossibility of giving to the public
in the first part of this work many facts not already in their
possession.

The American war was a subject of too much importance to have remained
thus long unnoticed by the literary world. Almost every event worthy
of attention, which occurred during its progress, has been gleaned up
and detailed. Not only the public, but much of the private
correspondence of the commander in chief has been inspected, and
permission given to extract from it whatever might properly be
communicated. In the military part of this history, therefore, the
author can promise not much that is new. He can only engage for the
correctness with which facts are stated, and for the diligence with
which his researches have been made.

The letters to and from the commander in chief during the war, were
very numerous and have been carefully preserved. The whole of this
immensely voluminous correspondence has, with infinite labour, been
examined; and the work now offered to the public is, principally,
compiled from it. The facts which occurred on the continent are,
generally, supported by these letters, and it has therefore been
deemed unnecessary to multiply references to them. But there are many
facts so connected with those events, in which the general performed a
principal part, that they ought not to be omitted, and respecting
which his correspondence cannot be expected to furnish satisfactory
information.

Such facts have been taken from the histories of the day, and the
authority relied on for the establishment of their verity has been
cited. Doddesly's Annual Register, Belsham, Gordon, Ramsay, and
Stedman have, for this purpose, been occasionally resorted to, and are
quoted for all those facts which are detailed in part on their
authority. Their very language has sometimes been employed without
distinguishing the passages, especially when intermingled with others,
by marks of quotation, and the author persuades himself that this
public declaration will rescue him from the imputation of receiving
aids he is unwilling to acknowledge, or of wishing, by a concealed
plagiarism, to usher to the world, as his own, the labours of others.

In selecting the materials for the succeeding volumes, it was deemed
proper to present to the public as much as possible of general
Washington himself. Prominent as he must be in any history of the
American war, there appeared to be a peculiar fitness in rendering him
still more so in one which professes to give a particular account of
his own life. His private opinions therefore; his various plans, even
those which were never carried into execution; his individual
exertions to prevent and correct the multiplied errors committed by
inexperience, are given in more minute detail; and more copious
extracts from his letters are taken, than would comport with the plan
of a more general work.

Many events too are unnoticed, which in such a composition would be
worthy of being introduced, and much useful information has not been
sought for, which a professed history of America ought to comprise.
Yet the history of general Washington, during his military command and
civil administration, is so much that of his country, that the work
appeared to the author to be most sensibly incomplete and
unsatisfactory, while unaccompanied by such a narrative of the
principal events preceding our revolutionary war, as would make the
reader acquainted with the genius, character, and resources of the
people about to engage in that memorable contest. This appeared the
more necessary as that period of our history is but little known to
ourselves. Several writers have detailed very minutely the affairs of
a particular colony, but the _desideratum_ is a composition which
shall present in one connected view, the transactions of all those
colonies which now form the United States.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

Commission of Cabot.... His voyage to America.... Views of discovery
relinquished by Henry VII.... Resumed by Elizabeth.... Letters patent
to Sir Humphry Gilbert.... His voyages and death.... Patent to Sir
Walter Raleigh.... Voyage of Sir Richard Grenville.... Colonists
carried back to England by Drake.... Grenville arrives with other
colonists.... They are left on Roanoke Island.... Are destroyed by the
Indians.... Arrival of John White.... He returns to England for
succour.... Raleigh assigns his patent.... Patent to Sir Thomas Gates
and others.... Code of laws for the proposed colony drawn up by the
King.

CHAPTER II.

Voyage of Newport.... Settlement at Jamestown.... Distress of
colonists.... Smith.... He is captured by the Indians.... Condemned to
death, saved by Pocahontas.... Returns to Jamestown.... Newport
arrives with fresh settlers.... Smith explores the Chesapeake.... Is
chosen president.... New charter.... Third voyage of Newport.... Smith
sails for Europe.... Condition of the colony.... Colonists determine
to abandon the country.... Are stopped by Lord Delaware.... Sir Thomas
Dale.... New charter.... Capt. Argal seizes Pocahontas.... She marries
Mr. Rolf.... Separate property in lands and labour.... Expedition
against Port Royal.... Against Manhadoes.... Fifty acres of land for
each settler.... Tobacco.... Sir Thomas Dale.... Mr. Yeardley....
First assembly.... First arrival of females.... Of convicts.... Of
African slaves.... Two councils established.... Prosperity of the
colony.... Indians attempt to massacre the whites.... General war....
Dissolution of the company.... Arbitrary measures of the crown.... Sir
John Harvey.... Sir William Berkeley.... Provincial assembly
restored.... Virginia declares in favour of Charles II.... Grant to
Lord Baltimore.... Arrival of a colony in Maryland.... Assembly
composed of freemen.... William Claybourne.... Assembly composed of
representatives.... Divided into two branches.... Tyrannical
proceedings.

CHAPTER III.

First ineffectual attempts of the Plymouth company to settle the
country.... Settlement at New Plymouth.... Sir Henry Rosewell and
company.... New charter.... Settlements prosecuted vigorously....
Government transferred to the colonists.... Boston founded....
Religious intolerance.... General court established.... Royal
commission for the government of the plantations.... Contest with the
French colony of Acadie.... Hugh Peters.... Henry Vane.... Mrs.
Hutchison.... Maine granted to Gorges.... Quo warranto against the
patent of the colony.... Religious dissensions.... Providence
settled.... Rhode Island settled.... Connecticut settled.... War with
the Pequods.... New Haven settled.

CHAPTER IV.

Massachusetts claims New Hampshire and part of Maine.... Dissensions
among the inhabitants.... Confederation of the New England
colonies.... Rhode Island excluded from it.... Separate chambers
provided for the two branches of the Legislature.... New England takes
part with Parliament.... Treaty with Acadie.... Petition of the
non-conformists.... Disputes between Massachusetts and Connecticut....
War between England and Holland.... Machinations of the Dutch at
Manhadoes among the Indians.... Massachusetts refuses to join the
united colonies in the war.... Application of New Haven to Cromwell
for assistance.... Peace with the Dutch.... Expedition of Sedgewic
against Acadie.... Religious intolerance.

CHAPTER V.

Transactions succeeding the restoration of Charles II.... Contests
between Connecticut and New Haven.... Discontents in Virginia....
Grant to the Duke of York.... Commissioners appointed by the crown....
Conquest of the Dutch settlements.... Conduct of Massachusetts to the
royal commissioners.... Their recall.... Massachusetts evades a
summons to appear before the King and council.... Settlement of
Carolina.... Form of government.... Constitution of Mr. Locke....
Discontents in the county of Albemarle.... Invasion from Florida....
Abolition of the constitution of Mr. Locke.... Bacon's rebellion....
His death.... Assembly deprived of judicial power.... Discontents in
Virginia.... Population of the colony.

CHAPTER VI.

Prosperity of New England.... War with Philip.... Edward Randolph
arrives in Boston.... Maine adjudged to Gorges.... Purchased by
Massachusetts.... Royal government erected in New Hampshire....
Complaints against Massachusetts.... Their letters patent
cancelled.... Death of Charles II.... James II. proclaimed.... New
commission for the government of New England.... Sir Edmond Andros....
The charter of Rhode Island abrogated.... Odious measures of the new
government.... Andros deposed.... William and Mary proclaimed....
Review of proceedings in New York and the Jerseys.... Pennsylvania
granted to William Penn.... Frame of government.... Foundation of
Philadelphia laid.... Assembly convened.... First acts of the
legislature.... Boundary line with Lord Baltimore settled.

CHAPTER VII.

New charter of Massachusetts.... Affairs of New York.... War with
France.... Schenectady destroyed.... Expedition against Port Royal....
Against Quebec.... Acadie recovered by France.... Pemaquid taken....
Attempt on St. Johns.... Peace.... Affairs of New York.... Of
Virginia.... Disputes between England and France respecting boundary
in America.... Recommencement of hostilities.... Quotas of the
respective colonies.... Treaty of neutrality between France and the
five nations.... Expedition against Port Royal.... Incursion into
Massachusetts.... Plan for the invasion of Canada.... Port Royal
taken.... Expedition against Quebec.... Treaty of Utrecht.... Affairs
of New York.... Of Carolina.... Expedition against St. Augustine....
Attempt to establish the Episcopal church.... Invasion of the
colony.... Bills of credit issued.... Legislature continues itself....
Massacre in North Carolina by the Indians.... Tuscaroras defeated....
Scheme of a Bank.

CHAPTER VIII.

Proceedings of the legislature of Massachusetts.... Intrigues of the
French among the Indians.... War with the savages.... Peace....
Controversy with the governor.... Decided in England.... Contests
concerning the governor's salary.... The assembly adjourned to
Salem.... Contest concerning the salary terminated.... Great
depreciation of the paper currency.... Scheme of a land bank....
Company dissolved by act of Parliament.... Governor Shirley
arrives.... Review of transactions in New York.

CHAPTER IX.

War with the southern Indians.... Dissatisfaction of Carolina with the
proprietors.... Rupture with Spain.... Combination to subvert the
proprietary government.... Revolution completed.... Expedition from
the Havanna against Charleston.... Peace with Spain.... The
proprietors surrender their interest to the crown.... The province
divided.... Georgia settled.... Impolicy of the first regulations....
Intrigues of the Spaniards with the slaves of South Carolina....
Insurrection of the slaves.

CHAPTER X.

War declared against Spain.... Expedition against St. Augustine....
Georgia invaded.... Spaniards land on an island in the Alatamaha....
Appearance of a fleet from Charleston.... Spanish army re-embarks....
Hostilities with France.... Expedition against Louisbourg....
Louisbourg surrenders.... Great plans of the belligerent powers....
Misfortunes of the armament under the duke D'Anville.... The French
fleet dispersed by a storm.... Expedition against Nova Scotia....
Treaty of Aix la Chapelle.... Paper money of Massachusetts
redeemed.... Contests between the French and English respecting
boundaries.... Statement respecting the discovery of the
Mississippi.... Scheme for connecting Louisiana with Canada....
Relative strength of the French and English colonies.... Defeat at the
Little Meadows.... Convention at Albany.... Plan of union.... Objected
to both in America and Great Britain.

CHAPTER XI.

General Braddock arrives.... Convention of governors and plan of the
campaign.... French expelled from Nova Scotia, and inhabitants
transplanted.... Expedition against fort Du Quesne.... Battle of
Monongahela.... Defeat and death of General Braddock.... Expedition
against Crown Point.... Dieskau defeated.... Expedition against
Niagara.... Frontiers distressed by the Indians.... Meeting of the
governors at New York.... Plan for the campaign of 1756.... Lord
Loudoun arrives.... Montcalm takes Oswego.... Lord Loudoun abandons
offensive operations.... Small-pox breaks out in Albany.... Campaign
of 1757 opened.... Admiral Holbourne arrives at Halifax.... Is joined
by the earl of Loudoun.... Expedition against Louisbourg
relinquished.... Lord Loudoun returns to New York.... Fort William
Henry taken.... Controversy between Lord Loudoun and the assembly of
Massachusetts.

CHAPTER XII.

Preparations for the campaign of 1758.... Admiral Boscawen and General
Amherst arrive at Halifax.... Plan of the campaign.... Expedition
against Louisbourg, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point.... General
Abercrombie repulsed under the walls of Ticonderoga.... Fort
Frontignac taken.... Expedition against Fort Du Quesne....
Preparations for the campaign of 1759.... General Amherst succeeds
General Abercrombie.... Plan of the campaign.... Ticonderoga and Crown
Point taken.... Army goes into winter quarters.... French repulsed at
Oswego.... Defeated at Niagara.... Niagara taken.... Expedition
against Quebec.... Check to the English army.... Battle on the Plains
of Abraham.... Death of Wolfe and Montcalm.... Quebec capitulates....
Garrisoned by the English under the command of General Murray....
Attempt to recover Quebec.... Battle near Sillery.... Quebec besieged
by Monsieur Levi.... Siege raised.... Montreal capitulates.... War
with the southern Indians.... Battle near the town of Etchoe.... Grant
defeats them and burns their towns.... Treaty with the Cherokees....
War with Spain.... Success of the English.... Peace.

CHAPTER XIII.

Opinions on the supremacy of parliament, and its right to tax the
colonies.... The stamp act.... Congress at New York.... Violence in
the towns.... Change of administration.... Stamp act repealed....
Opposition to the mutiny act.... Act imposing duties on tea, &c.,
resisted in America.... Letters from the assembly of Massachusetts to
members of the administration.... Petition to the King.... Circular
letter to the colonial assemblies.... Letter from the Earl of
Hillsborough.... Assembly of Massachusetts dissolved.... Seizure of
the Sloop Liberty.... Convention at Fanueil Hall.... Moderation of its
proceedings.... Two British regiments arrive at Boston.... Resolutions
of the house of Burgesses of Virginia.... Assembly dissolved.... The
members form an association.... General measures against
importation.... General court convened in Massachusetts.... Its
proceedings.... Is prorogued.... Duties, except that on tea,
repealed.... Circular letter of the earl of Hillsborough.... New York
recedes from the non-importation agreement in part.... Her example
followed.... Riot in Boston.... Trial and acquittal of Captain
Preston.

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