The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1784-05-10 00:00:00, page 1

From the Westminster Magazine for Jan. 1784.
A Sketch of the Life and Character of GE
NERAL WASHINGTON.
Written by John Bell, Esquire; of Maryland, in
an Epistle to a Friend in London.
George washington is the third
son of Mr. Augustine Wafliington, a man
of large property and diftinguilhed repu
tation in the Rate of Virginia; An an
cestor of this gentleman, about the peri
od of the revolution, fold his property, near Cave, in
the East Riding of Yorkshire, and came over to Vir
ginia, where he purchased lands in King Georges
county; and it was here that our hero was born, on
the 22d of February, in the year 1733. In this coun
ty he has at this time three brothers, Samuel, John,
and Charles, all gentlemen of considerable landed pro
perty, and a filter who is married to Colonel Fielding
Lewis.
His elder brother Lawrence, who went out a Cap
tain of the American troops, raised for the Carthage
na expedition, married the daughter of the Honour
able William Fairfax, of Belvoir, in Virginia, by
whom he left one daughter, who dying young, and his
second brother also dying without issue, the General
succeeded to the family feat, which, in compliment to
the gallant Admiral of that name, is called Mount
Vernon, and is delightfully situated on the Potowmak
river, a few miles below Alexandria.
General Washington is the eldest son by a second
marriage ; and having never been out of America, was
educated (as youths of fortune in this country gene
rally are) under the eye of his father, by a private tu
torage : A flight tincture of the Latin language, a
grammatical knowledge of his mother tongue, and the
elements of the mathematicks, were the chief objects
he was taught to pursue. For a few years after he
quitted his tutor, he applied himfelf to the practical
part of surveying (a knowledge of which'is essentially
requisite to men of landed property in this country)
and was appointed surveyor to a certain ditlriCt in Vir
ginia; an employment rather creditable than lucrative;
though it afforded him an opportunity of choosing
some valuable trails of land, and made him thoroughly
acquainted with the frontier country.
On the Governor and Council of Virginia receiv
ing orders from England, in October, 1753, t 0 repel
by force the encroachments of the French on the
western frontiers, on the rivers Ohio and de Boeuf,
Mr. Wafliington, then a Major in the provincial ser
vice, and an Adjutant General of their forces, was
dispatched by General Dinwiddie, with a letter to the
commander in chief of the French on the Ohio, com
plaining of the inroads they were making in direct vi
olation of the treaties then subsisting between the two
crowns; he had also instructions to treat with the fix
nations and other western tribes of Indians, and to en
gage them to continue firm in their attachment to
England.
He set out on his perilous embassy, with about 15
attendants, late in October, 1753; and so far suc
ceeded, that on his return with Mons. de St. Pierre's
answer, and his good success in the Indian negociati
ons, he was complimented with the thanks and appro
bation of his country. Eis journal of this whole
tranfadion was published in Virginia, and does great
credit to hisjnduftry, attention, and judgment; and
it has since proved of infinite service to those who have
been doomed to traverse the fame inhospitable tracts.
Soon after this, the designs of the French becom
ing more manifeft, and their movements and conduct
more daring, orders were issued out by administration
for the colonies to arm, and unite in one confederacy.
The assembly of Virginia took the lead by voting a
film of money for the publick service, and railing a
regiment of four hundred men for the protection of
the frontiers of the colony.
Major Washington, then about twenty-three years
of age, was appointed to the command of this regi
ment, and Before the end of May, in the ensuing
year, came up with a strong party of the French and
Indians, at a place called Redstone, which he effectu
ally routed, after having taken and killed fifty men.
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE. 1
[Vol. VII.]
TRENTON: Printed by ISAAC COLLINS, Printer to the State.
MONDA Y, MAY 10, 1784.
Among the prisoners were the celebrated woods-man
Mons. de la Force, and two other officers, from whom
Colonel Wafliington had undoubted intelligence, that
the French force on the Ohio confided of upwards of
one thousand regulars, and some hundreds of Indians.
Upon this intelligence, although his little army was
iomewhat reduced, and entirely infufficient to ad of
fenfively against the French and Indians, yet he pushed
on towards his enemy to a good post; where, in or
der to wait the arrival of some expected fuccour from
New-York and Pennsylvania, he entrenched himfelf,
and built a small fort called Fort Necessity. At this
pod he remained unmolested, and without any fuccour
until the July following; when his small force, re
duced now to less than three hundred men, was at
tacked by an army of French and Indians of about
eleven hundred and upwards, under the command of
the Sieur de Villiers.
1 he Virginians sustained the attack of the enemy's
whole force for several hours, and laid near two hun
dred of them dead in the field, when the French com
mander, difeouraged by such determined resolution,
proposed the less dangerous method of dislodging his
enemy by a parley, which ended in an honourable ca
pitulation. It was stipulated that Colonel Washing
ton should march away with all the honours of war,
and be allowed to carry off all his military stores, ef
fects, and baggage.
This capitulation was violated from the ungovernable
disposition of the lavages, whom the French com
mander could not restrain from plundering the provin
cials on the onset of their march, and from making a
considerable slaughter of men, cattle, and horses.
This breach of the capitulation was strongly re
monstrated against by the British ambassador at the
court of Versailles, and may be looked upon as the
®ra when the French court began to unmask, and to
avow (though in a clapdeftine manner) the conduct
of their governors and officers in America ; they re
doubled their activity and diligence on the Ohio, and
in other places during the winter 1754, and the fol
lowing fpiing. Virginia had determined to fend out
a larger force; the forts Cumberland and Loudon
were built, and a camp was formed at Wills Creek,
from thence to annoy the enemy on the Ohio.
In these several services (particularly in the con
ftrudion of the forts) Colonel Wafliington was prin
cipally employed, when he was summoned to attend
General Braddock, who with his army arrived at
Alexandria, in Virginia, in May 1755. The design
of fending out that army, was to penetrate through
the country to Fort Du Quefne (now Fort Pitt) by
the route of Wills Creek ; and as no person was bet
ter acquainted with the frontier country than Colo
nel Wafliington, and no one in the colony enjoyed so
well established a military character, he was judged
highly serviceable to General Braddock, and chear
fully quitted his command to aft as a volunteer and
aid-de-camp under that unfortunate General.
The particulars of the defeat, and almost total ruin
of Braddock's army, confiding of two thousand tegu
lar Britilh forces, and near eight hundred provincials,
are too well Known to need a repetition; it is allowed
on all sides, that the haughty politico behaviour of
the General, his high contempt of the provincial of
ficers and soldiers, and bis difdainful obstinacy in re
jecting their advice, were the genuine causes of this
fatal disaster. With what resolution and steadiness
the provincials and their gallant commander behaved
on this trying occasion, and in covering the confuted
retreat of the army, * let every Britilh officer and
soldier confefs, who were refeued from daughter on
that calamitous day by ther valour and conduct.
After General Braddocc's disaster, the colony of
Virginia found it necessary to establish her militia,
raise more men, strengthen her forts, undertake ex
peditions to check the inreads of the enemy, &c. &c.
&c. In all which important services Colonel Wash
ington bore a principal flare, and acquitted himfelf
to the utmost fatisfa&ion of his country, by display
ing, on every occasion, the mod persevering industry,
personal courage, and military abilities. He was again
* See Captain Orme's letter to Governor Din
widdie, and also the other accounts of that dap.
THE
appointed to the command of the Virginia troops, and
held it with lignal credit till his resignation in 1759,
when he married the young widow of Mr. Cuftis, his
present lady; with whom he had a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds sterling ir her own right, besides her
dower in one of the principal estates in< Virginia.
From this period he became as assiduous to serve
the state as a senator, as he had hitherto been active
to defend it as a soldier. For several years he repre
sented Frederick county, and had a feat for Fairfax
county, at the time he was appointed by the AiTem
b!y, in conformity with the universal with of the peo
ple, to be one of their four delegates at the firft gene
ral Congress. It was with no small reluctance that
he engaged again in the active feenes of life ; and I
sincerely believe that no motives but such as spring
from a most disinterested patriotism, could have ever
prevailed upon him to relinquish the most refined do
medick pleasures, which it was ever in his power to
command, and the great delight he took in farming
and the improvement of his estate.
You well know that General Wafliington is, per
haps, the greatest landholder in America (the propri
etors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Northern
Neck excepted) for besides his lady's fortune, and ten
thousand pounds falling to him by the death of her
only daughter, he has large tracts of land taken up by
himfelf early in life, some considerable purchases made
from officers who had lands allotted them for their
services ; and has, moreover, made great additions to
his estate at Mount Vernon.
It is impossible in this country, as in England, to
rate the value of estates by their annual rent or in
come, because they are universally tilled by negroes,
and in the hands of landholders. There are many
estates in the middle colonies, which never produced
a clear income to their owners of five hundred a year,
that may be easily fold for forty thousand pounds.—
General Washington's, however, will not be over
rated, if set down at a good four thousand pounds
English per annum, and his whole property could not
be bought for forty years purchase.
When it was determined at length in Congress, af
ter every step towards an accommodation had failed,
and eveiy petition from America had been rejected,
to repel by force the invasion from Great-Britain, the,
eyes of the whole continent were immediately turned'
upon Mr. Wafliington. With one common voice he
was called forth to the defence of his country ; and
it is, perhaps, his peculiar glory, that there was not
a single inhabitant of these Rates, except himfelf, who
did not approve the choice, and place the firmeft con
fidence in his integrity and abilities.
He arrived at Cambridge in New-England, in July
1775, and there took the supreme command of the
armies of America. He was received at the camp
with that heart-felt exultation which superior merit
can alone inspire, after having in his progress through
the several dates received every mark of affection and
esteem, which they conceived were due to the man,
whom the whole continent looked up to for fafety and
freedom.
As he always refufed to accept of any pecuniary ap
pointment for his publick services, no salary has been
annexed by Congress to his important command, and
he only drew weekly for the expense of his publick
table and other necessary demands. General Wash
ington having never been in Europe, could not possi
bly have seen much military service when the armies
of Britain were sent to subdue them; yet still, for a
variety of reasons, he was by much the most proper
man on this continent, and probably any where else,
to be placed at the bead of an American army. The
very high estimation he Rood in for integrity and ho
nour, his engaging in the cause of his country from
sentiment and a conviction of her wrongs, his mode
ration in politicks, his extensive property, and his ap
proved abilities as a commander, were motives which
necessarily obliged the choice of America to fall upon
him.
That nature has giver , him extraordinary military
talents, will hardly be controverted by bis most bit
ter enemies ; and having been early actuated with a
warm passion to serve his country in the military line,
he has greatly improved them by unwearied industry ?
[Numb. 3 r 3 .]