The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-05-09
A Doubtful Compliment.


"Your governor is becoming very
popular, as we are told here" wrote
Arthur Lee to his brother, from Lon
don, land l have the worst proof of
it in the increased orders for fineries
from the ladies'" Virginians did not
find it easy to break an immemorial
habit in order to starve the English
trades and manufactures; and 1t was
more than once necessary to urge and
renew the non-importation agreements
alike among the Burgesses and mer-
chants at Williamsburg and by means
of local associations throughout the
colony.
But Washington was punctilious to
observe to the letter the agreements
he had himself proposed. Again and
again he babe his mercantile agents
in London assist him to guard against
any inadvertent breach of them; not
to send him the articles Parliament
had picked out for taxation in the
colonies.
Life still continued to go, it is true,
with something of the old sumptuous-
ness at Mount Vernon.
It was in June, 1853, that Colonel
Washington ordered a new chariot,
made in the newest taste, handsome,
genteel, and light to be made of the
best seasoned wood, and by cele-
brated workman" which was to cost
him, fittings and all, G133.
For all he grew uneasy lest the col
onies' disagreement with England
should come at last to conflict of
arms, he pushed his private interests
with no abatement of thoroughness or
self-possession, as if there were no
fear but that things would long enough
stand as they were.
Washington Acquires Lands.
He had not run surveyors lines for
Lord Fairfax, or assisted to drive the
French from the Ohio, without seeing
what fair lands lay upon the western
rivers awaiting the owner; and,
though there was still doubt how titles
were to be established in that wilder
ness, he took care, through the good
offices Of an old comrade in arms, at
least to be quietly beforehand with
other claimants in setting up such
titles as might be where the land lay
richest and most accessible.
"a silent management" was what he
advised, "snugly carried on under the
guise of hunting other game" lest
there should be a premature rush
thither that would set rival interests
a-clashing. A strange mixture Of the
shrewdness of the speculator and the
honesty of the gentleman-claims
pushed with privacy, but without trick
cry or chicane-ran through his let
tiers to Captain Crawford, and drew
as canny replies from the frontiered
soldier.
Continues His Outdoor Sports.
Business gave way often to sport
and pleasure, too, as of old, when poll
tics fell dull between sessions. Now
it was the hunt; then cunning party
in the woods; and again day or two
aboard his schooner, dropping down
the river, and drawing the seine for
sheepsheads upon the bar at Cedar
Point.
Even politics YVES mixed with diver
sion. He must needs give ball at
Alexandria on the evening of his cleo
ton to the house which was to meet
Lord Botetourt, no less than on other
like occasions, of whatever kind the
business of the assembly was likely
to be.
Goes to Philadelphia Races.
He did not lose his passion for fine
horseflesh, either, at the thickest OF
the plot. In 1910 he was with Cover
nor Eden of North Carolina at the
Jockey club races in Philadelphia, ne
doubt relieved by the news that all
but the tea tax had been repealed
The next year it was the races in
Annapolis that claimed him; and in
1773 Jacky GUSTS held him again at
Philadelphia on the same errand.
1t was wholesome to be thus calmly
in pursuit of diversion in the inter
walls of trying business. 1t bespoke 4
hearty life and a fine balance in the
man.
There was one matter to which
Washington felt it his bounded duty
as a soldier and man of honor to
devote his time and energies, whether
politics pressed or not. A grant OF
two hundred thousand acres of the
western lands had been promised by
the government of the colony to those
who enlisted for the war against the
French and Indians in 1854; but moth
ing had ever been done to fulfill the
promise, and Washington undertook
to act as agent for his comrades in
the business.
Selects Farms for Fellow Soldiers.
In the autumn of 1870, accordingly
he turned away for space from the
deepening trouble in the east to
plunge once more into the western
ways and search out proper tracts for
: the grant along the reaches of the
Ohio.
Twas a two months journey, for
he did not stop till he had gone close
three hundred miles beyond Fort Pitt
And when he was home again no one
in the government who could lend q