XI
In this pleasant company of William Fairfax and his wife, and my friend George William, his son, I saw with profit something of the ways and manners of persons of consideration, and, being by nature observant, profited accordingly. Indeed, the Lord Fairfax more than once commended the matter to my attention, saying that good and fitting manners to men of all classes would often obtain what could not be otherwise as easily had. I do not now recall the phrase he used, but, if I recollect, it was out of a letter written to Sir Philip Sidney by his father.
I find it curious to recall how at this time I appeared to others, and, concerning this, I have found a letter addressed by Lord Fairfax to my mother. In one of her sudden and often brief ambitions for me, she desired to know of his lordshipwhether it would not be well for me, like Mr. C—— and Colonel H——, to go to Oxford. When riding with the old gentleman the next day, he told me of her wish. I was surprised, but even then I knew she would, at the last minute, change her mind, and I said as much, with due respect. For a time he rode on in silence, and at last said: “Young man, this is your country; stay here. What do you want to do?” I said boldly I should like to be a surveyor and help in the settling and surveying of his lordship’s lands in the valley. He said I was young to contend among hostile squatters, but he would talk with Lawrence of it. I heard no more of Oxford, and this is the answer he made my mother. It seems to me as I read this letter, after the lapse of forty-nine years, that what his lordship wrote was very near to the truth; nevertheless, it greatly displeased my mother. But she was always displeased with any one who did not agree with her, which, indeed, was hard to do, as sister Betty Lewis once said, because, whenever for peace you were on her side, you found that she had changed to the opposite opinion.
He wrote:
Belvoir.Honoured Madam: You are so good as to ask what I think of a temporary residence for your son George in England. It is a country for which I myself have no inclination, and the gentlemen you mention are certainly renowned gamblers and rakes, which I should be sorry your son were exposed to, even if his means easily admitted of a residence in England. He is strong and hardy, and as good a master of a horse as any could desire. His education might have been bettered, but what he has is accurate and inclines him to much life out of doors. He is very grave for one of his age, and reserved in his intercourse; not a great talker at any time. His mind appears to me to act slowly, but, on the whole, to reach just conclusions, and he has an ardent wish to see the right of questions—what my friend Mr. Addison was pleased to call “the intellectual conscience.” Method and exactness seem to be natural to George. He is, I suspect, beginning to feel the sap rising, being in the spring of life, and is getting ready to be the prey of your sex, wherefore may the Lord help him, and deliver him from the nets those spiders, called women, will cast for his ruin. I presume him to be truthful because he is exact. I wish I could say that he governs his temper. He is subject to attacks of anger on provocation, and sometimes without just cause;but as he is a reasonable person, time will cure him of this vice of nature, and in fact he is, in my judgment, a man who will go to school all his life and profit thereby.I hope, madam, that you will find pleasure in what I have written, and will rest assured that I shall continue to interest myself in his fortunes.Much honoured by your appeal to my judgment, I am, my dear madam, your obedient humble servant,Fairfax.To Mrs. Mary Washington.
Belvoir.
Honoured Madam: You are so good as to ask what I think of a temporary residence for your son George in England. It is a country for which I myself have no inclination, and the gentlemen you mention are certainly renowned gamblers and rakes, which I should be sorry your son were exposed to, even if his means easily admitted of a residence in England. He is strong and hardy, and as good a master of a horse as any could desire. His education might have been bettered, but what he has is accurate and inclines him to much life out of doors. He is very grave for one of his age, and reserved in his intercourse; not a great talker at any time. His mind appears to me to act slowly, but, on the whole, to reach just conclusions, and he has an ardent wish to see the right of questions—what my friend Mr. Addison was pleased to call “the intellectual conscience.” Method and exactness seem to be natural to George. He is, I suspect, beginning to feel the sap rising, being in the spring of life, and is getting ready to be the prey of your sex, wherefore may the Lord help him, and deliver him from the nets those spiders, called women, will cast for his ruin. I presume him to be truthful because he is exact. I wish I could say that he governs his temper. He is subject to attacks of anger on provocation, and sometimes without just cause;but as he is a reasonable person, time will cure him of this vice of nature, and in fact he is, in my judgment, a man who will go to school all his life and profit thereby.
I hope, madam, that you will find pleasure in what I have written, and will rest assured that I shall continue to interest myself in his fortunes.
Much honoured by your appeal to my judgment, I am, my dear madam, your obedient humble servant,
Fairfax.
To Mrs. Mary Washington.
My nephew Bushrod Washington, in arranging my papers, placed all my Fairfax letters in one packet, and thus it chances that lying next to this one is a letter from Bryan Fairfax, the brother of my older friend, written in 1778 from New York. I am pleased to find it here, and thus to be reminded of the vast changes through which time gives us opportunities. I had been able to stop the Whigs in New York from offensive attacks upon this gentleman, and on this he wrote:
There are times when favours conferred make a greater impression than at others; for, thoughI have received many, I hope I have not been unmindful of them; yet that, at a time your popularity was at the highest and mine at the lowest, and when it is so common for men’s political resentments to run up so high against those who differ from them in opinion, you should act with your wonted kindness toward me, has affected me more than any favour I have received; and such conduct could not be believed by some in New York, it being above the run of common minds.
There are times when favours conferred make a greater impression than at others; for, thoughI have received many, I hope I have not been unmindful of them; yet that, at a time your popularity was at the highest and mine at the lowest, and when it is so common for men’s political resentments to run up so high against those who differ from them in opinion, you should act with your wonted kindness toward me, has affected me more than any favour I have received; and such conduct could not be believed by some in New York, it being above the run of common minds.
When Lord Fairfax died in his ninety-second year, my old comrade, this Bryan Fairfax, became the heir to his title, but I believe never allowed himself the use of it, and, becoming a clergyman of our church, is still thus engaged.
The finding of these two letters moved me more than common. Two matters are alluded to in his lordship’s letter to my mother which, otherwise, I might not have reminded myself of, and yet one of them had an important influence on my life.
I had been told, of a Sunday morning, of a great flock of ducks, of the kind called canvasback, and much esteemed. It was against our habits to shoot on this day, but towards evening, the temptation being great, I went to the shore and was about topush off, when Peter, using the liberty of an old family servant, said I would make Mr. Fairfax and my brother, then like myself at Belvoir, angry if I went. When he held on to the prow to stay me, I suddenly lost my temper and struck him with an oar on the head. He fell down and lay in a sort of a shake. I thought he was killed, and had he been white I must surely have put an end to him; but the blacks have thick skulls, and presently he got up and staggered away, his head bleeding. I was both sorry and scared, for he would not wait when I called, but walked off to the quarters of the slaves.
I stood still a minute, and then went to the house and told Lawrence, and asked him to have the man looked after. Lawrence, being very angry, said: “This comes of your hot temper. Once our father nearly killed a man for a small matter, and that cured him; I hope this may cure you.” I said nothing, and went to see if the man was badly hurt. Peter only laughed and said: “Master George, you hit mighty hard.” I liked the man, and, although no one else spoke of the matter again, it had more effect on me than the many good resolutions I had written or made as to keepingmy temper. I have rarely lost it completely since that time: once at Monmouth, once after Edmund Randolph’s treachery, and once when General Knox, then of my cabinet, showed me a vile caricature of myself being guillotined.