CHAPTER LIII.

MOUNT VERNON IN DANGER

MRS. WASHINGTON INVITED ΤΟ

THE CAMP LUND WASHINGTON, THE GENERAL'S AGENT TERMS ON WHICH HE SERVES — INSTRUCTED TO KEEP UP THE HOSPITALITY OF THE HOUSE JOURNEY OF MRS. WASHINGTON

TO CAMP

HER EQUIPAGE AND LIVERIES ARRIVAL AT CAMP DOMESTIC AFFAIRS AT HEAD-QUARTERS GAYETIES IN CAMP -A BRAWL BETWEEN ROUND JACKETS AND RIFLE SHIRTS.

AWD the various concerns of the war, and the multiplied pexities of the camp, the thoughts of Washington continualy reverted to his home on the banks of the Potomac. A consta correspondence was kept up between him and his agent, M. Lund Washington, who had charge of his various estates. The general gave clear and minute directions as to their management, and the agent rendered as clear and minute returns of every thing that had been done in consequence.

According to recent accounts, Mount Vernon had been considered in danger. Lord Dunmore was exercising martial law in the Ancient Dominion and it was feared that the favorite abode of the "rebel commander-in-chief" would be marked out for hostility, and that the enemy might land from their ships in the Potomac, and lay it waste. Washington's brother, John Augustine, had entreated Mrs. Washington to leave it. The people of Loudoun had advised her to seek refuge beyond the Blue Ridge and had offered to send a guard to escort her. She had declined the offer, not considering herself in danger. Lund Washington was equally free from apprehensions on the subject. "Lord Dunmore," writes he, "will hardly himself venture up this river, nor do I believe he will send on that errand. You may depend I will be watchful, and upon the least alarm persuade her to move."

Though alive to every thing concerning Mount Vernon, Washington agreed with them in deeming it in no present danger of molestation by the enemy. Still he felt for the loneliness of Mrs. Washington's situation, heightened as it must be by anxiety on his own account. On taking command of the army, he had held out a prospect to her, that he would rejoin her at home in the autumn; there was now a probability of his being detained before Boston all winter. He wrote to her, therefore, by express, in November, inviting her to join him at

the camp. He at the same time wrote to Lund Washington, engaging his continued services as an agent. This person, though bearing the same name, and probably of the same stock, does not appear to have been in any near degree of relationship. Washington's letter to him gives a picture of his domestic policy.

"I will engage for the year coming, and the year following, if these troubles and my absence continue, that your wages shall be standing and certain at the highest amount that any one year's crops has produced you yet. I do not offer this as any temptation to induce you to go on more cheerfully in prosecuting those schemes of mine. I should do injustice to you were I not to acknowledge, that your conduct has ever appeared to me above every thing sordid; but I offer it in consideration of the great charge you have upon your hands, and my entire dependence upon your fidelity and industry.

It is the greatest, indeed it is the only comfortable reflection 1 enjoy on this score, that my business is in the hands of a person concerning whose integrity I have not a doubt, and on whose care I can rely. Were it not for this, I should feel very unhappy on account of the situation of my affairs. But I am persuaded you will do for me as you would for yourself."

The following were his noble directions concerning Mount Vernon.

"Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up. Let no one go hungry away. If any of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessaries, provided it does not encourage them to idleness; and I have no objection to your giving my money in charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a year, when you think it well bestowed. What I mean by having no objection is, that it is my desire it should be done. You are to consider that neither myself nor wife is now in the way to do those good offices."

Mrs. Washington came on with her own carriage and horses, accompanied by her son, Mr. Custis, and his wife. She travelled by very easy stages, partly on account of the badness of the roads, partly out of regard to the horses, of which Washington was always very careful, and which were generally remarkable for beauty and excellence. Escorts and guards of honor attended her from place to place, and she was detained some time at Philadelphia, by the devoted attention of the inhabitants. Her arrival at Cambridge was a glad event in the army. Incidental mention is made of the equipage in which she appeared there. A chariot and four, with black postilions in

scarlet and white liveries. It has been suggested that this was an English style of equipage, derived from the Fairfaxes; but in truth it was a style still prevalent at that day in Virginia.

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It would appear that dinner invitations to head-quarters were becoming matters of pride and solicitude. "I am much obliged to you," writes Washington to Reed, "for the hints respecting the jealousies which you say are gone abroad. I cannot charge myself with incivility, or what in my opinion is tantamount, ceremonious civility to gentlemen of this colony; but if such my conduct appears, I will endeavor at a reformation; as I can assure you, my dear Reed, that I wish to walk in such a line as will give most general satisfaction. You know that it was my wish at first to invite a certain number to dinner, but unintentionally we somehow or other missed of it. If this has given rise to the jealousy, I can only say that I am very sorry for it; at the same time I add, that it was rather owing to inattention, or more properly, too much attention to other matters, which caused me to neglect it."

And in another letter:

"My constant attention to the great and perplexing objec which continually arise to my view, absorbs all lesser considerations; and, indeed, scarcely allows me to reflect that there is such a body as the General Court of this colony, but when I am reminded of it by a committee; nor can I, upon recollection, discover in what instance I have been inattentive to, or slighted them. They could not surely conceive that there was a propriety in unbosoming the secrets of the army to them; that it was necessary to ask their opinion in throwing up an intrenchment or forming a battalion. It must be, therefore, what I before hinted to you; and how to remedy it I hardly know, as I am acquainted with few of the members, never go out of my own lines, nor see any of them in them."

The presence of Mrs. Washington soon relieved the general from this kind of perplexity. She presided at head-quarters with mingled dignity and affability. We have an anecdote or two of the internal affairs of head-quarters, furnished by the descendant of one who was an occasional inmate there.

Washington had prayers morning and evening, and was regular in his attendance at the church in which he was a communicant. On one occasion, for want of a clergyman, the Episcopal service was read by Colonel William Palfrey, one of Washington's aides-de-camp; who substituted a prayer of his own composition in place of the one formerly offered up for the king.