XXXVII 12. the same day, when they were to recognise "king CHAP. George the Third as their rightful sovereign, and 1775. to look up to the supreme and universal super- June intending Providence of the great Governor of the world, for a gracious interposition of heaven for the restoration of the invaded rights of America, and a reconciliation with the parent state." Every village, every family, whether on the seaside or in the forest, was thus summoned to give the most solemn attestation of their desire to end civil discord, and "regard the things that belong to peace." Measures were next taken for organizing and paying an American continental army, to be enlisted only till the end of the year, before which time a favorable answer from the king was hoped for. Washington, Schuyler, and others were deputed to prepare the necessary rules and regulations. It was also resolved to enlist ten companies of expert riflemen, of whom six were to be formed in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia. 15. Then on the fifteenth day of June, it was voted June to appoint a general. Thomas, of Maryland, nominated George Washington; and as he had been brought forward "at the particular request of the people in New England," he was elected by ballot unanimously. Washington was then forty-three years of age. In stature he a little exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy and well proportioned; his chest broad; his figure stately, blending dignity of presence with ease. His robust constitution had been tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, his habit of occupation out of doors, and his rigid temperance; so CHAP. that few equalled him in strength of arm or power of XXXVII June endurance. His complexion was florid; his hair dark 15. brown; his head in its shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils seemed formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger. His dark blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation, and an earnestness that was almost sadness. pur At eleven years old, left an orphan to the care of an excellent but unlettered mother, he grew up without learning. Of arithmetic and geometry he acquired just knowledge enough to be able to practise measuring land; but all his instruction at school taught him not so much as the orthography or rules of grammar of his own tongue. His culture was altogether his own work, and he was in the strictest sense a self-made man; yet from his early life he never seemed uneducated. At sixteen he went into the wilderness as a surveyor, and for three years continued the suit, where the forests trained him, in meditative solitude, to freedom and largeness of mind; and nature revealed to him her obedience to serene and silent laws. In his intervals from toil, he seemed always to be attracted to the best men, and to be cherished by them. Fairfax, his employer, an Oxford scholar, already aged, became his fast friend. He read little, but with close attention. Whatever he took in hand, he applied himself to with care; and his pa pers, which have been preserved, show how he almost imperceptibly gained the power of writing correctly; always expressing himself with clearness and directness, often with felicity of language and grace. When the frontiers on the west became dis સે turbed, he at nineteen was commissioned an adju- CHAP. XXXVII tant-general with the rank of major. At twenty-one 1775. he went as the envoy of Virginia to the council of Indian chiefs on the Ohio and to the French officers near Lake Erie. Fame waited upon him from his youth; and no one of his colony was so much spoken of. He conducted the first military expedition from Virginia, that crossed the Alleghanies. Braddock selected him as an aide, and he was the only man who came out of the disastrous defeat near the Monongahela, with increased reputation, which extended to England. The next year, when he was but four and twenty, "the great esteem " in which he was held in Virginia, and his "real merit," led the lieutenant governor of Maryland to request that he might be "commissionated and appointed second in command" of the army designed to march to the Ohio; and Shirley, the commander in chief, heard the proposal "with great satisfaction and pleasure," for "he knew no provincial officer upon the continent to whom he would so readily give it as to Washington." In 1758 he acted under Forbes as a brigadier, and but for him that general would never have been able to cross the mountains. Courage was so natural to him, that it was hardly spoken of to his praise; no one ever at any moment of his life discovered in him the least shrinking in danger; and he had a hardihood of daring which escaped notice, because it was so enveloped by superior calmness and wisdom. He was as cheerful as he was spirited, frank and communicative in the society of friends, fond of the fox-chase and the dance, often sportive in his let June 15. XXXVII 1775. June. CHAP. ters, and liked a hearty laugh. This joyousness of disposition remained to the last, though the vastness of his responsibilities was soon to take from him the right of displaying the impulsive qualities of his nature, and the weight which he was to bear up, was to overlay and repress his gaiety and open ness. His hand was liberal; giving quietly and without observation, as though he was ashamed of nothing but being discovered in doing good. He was kindly and compassionate, and of lively sensibility to the sorrows of others; so that if his country had only needed a victim for its relief, he would have willingly offered himself as à sacrifice. But while he was prodigal of himself, he was considerate for others; ever parsimonious of the blood of his countrymen. He was prudent in the management of his private affairs, purchased rich lands from the Mohawk Valley to the flats of the Kanawha, and improved his fortune by the correctness of his judgment; but as a public man he knew no other aim than the good of his country, and in the hour of his country's poverty, he refused personal emolument for his service. His faculties were so well balanced and combined, that his constitution, free from excess, was tempered evenly with all the elements of activity, and his mind resembled a well ordered commonwealth; his passions, which had the intensest vigor, owned allegiance to reason; and, with all the fiery quickness of his spirit, his impetuous and massive will was held in check by consummate judgment. He had in his composition a calm, which gave him in moments of highest excitement the power of self-control, and enabled him XXXVII 1775. to excel in patience, even when he had most cause for CHAP. disgust. Washington was offered a command when there was little to bring out the unorganized resources June. of the continent but his own influence, and authority was connected with the people by the most frail, most attenuated, scarcely discernible threads; yet vehement as was his nature, impassioned as was his courage, he so restrained his ardor, that he never failed continuously to exert the attracting power of that influence, and never exerted it so sharply as to break its force. In secrecy he was unsurpassed; but his secrecy had the character of prudent reserve, not of cunning or concealment. His understanding was lucid, and his judgment accurate; so that his conduct never betrayed hurry or confusion. No detail was too minute for his personal inquiry and continued supervision; and at the same time he comprehended events in their widest aspects and relations. He never seemed above the object that engaged his attention, and he was always equal, without an effort, to the solution of the highest questions, even when there existed no precedents to guide his decision. In this way he never drew to himself admiration for the possession of any one quality in excess, never made in council any one suggestion that was sublime but impracticable, never in action took to himself the praise or the blame of undertakings astonishing in conception, but beyond his means of execution. It was the most wonderful accomplishment of this man that placed upon the largest theatre of events, at the head of the greatest revolution in human affairs, he VOL. VII. 34 |