XV
While at Greenway Court I had other teachers besides his lordship, for many Indians, frontier traders, and trappers came to claim food and shelter, which were never denied them. Often the woods were lighted up by their fires, and I found it of use, and interesting, to hear what was said and to learn something of the uncertain ways of the savages.
I heard how the Delawares, Shawnees, and Iroquois had wandered from the north and taken to the lands about the Ohio, and how the French protected them and claimed all the country up to the Alleghanies.
To these camps came the rude, lawless traders from Pennsylvania, who had stories to tell of the Indians and of the French beyond the Ohio. These men foresaw a war on the frontier when scarce any others did, and, by their accounts of the fertility of the wide savannas beyond the Ohio, filledme with desire to explore this rich wilderness. I learned that already the French had warned the fur-traders to leave and had driven away their hunters, and when I mentioned this to Lawrence he said we were not easy folk to drive, and, least of all, Pennsylvania Quakers, and that there would be trouble, which there was soon enough. We were on the edge of a struggle in which all the world was to share. Meanwhile, time went on, and what Lord Fairfax called the “frontier pot” was boiling.
I was often back at home, sometimes with my mother, or at Belvoir, or at Mount Vernon, riding to hounds, surveying, and making more than I needed in the way of money, and enough to keep me in horseflesh and to give me better clothes, for which I have always had a fancy. Only in the woods I liked best such dress as our rangers wear, and good moccasins are the best of foot-gear. But as to clothing, when not in the woods, I found in myself a liking for a plain genteel dress of the best, without lace or embroidery. Fine clothes do not make fine men, and the man must be foolish who has a better opinion of himselfbecause his clothes are such as the truly judicious and sensible do not advise.
Until I had money of my own I did not venture much at cards; but now I played a little, although I was never fond of it, and lost more than I made. I was more inclined to the game of billiards.
If at times I was in danger of leaning towards the rough ways of the wilderness, I had the advantage of seeing at Mount Vernon, or at the homes of the Carters and Lees, or among the Lewises of Warner Hall, and elsewhere, the older gentry, who were orderly and ceremonious, and who reminded me anew of his lordship’s lesson as to the value of good manners.
Sometimes on these great plantations I was employed in surveys, but at others, as at Shirley and the Corbins’, I was only a guest. I was, I conceive, unlike the idle young men of some of these houses, for I was over-grave and cared less for card-playing and hard drinking than suited them.
I found myself at this time preferring the society of women, who are always amiably disposed to overlook the shyness of men like myself, and with whom it is possibleto be agreeable without either punch or tobacco; but racing of horses I always liked, and dancing.
In those days cock-fighting was also to my liking. I remember well, because it was at Yorktown, a great main of cocks in 1752 between Gloucester and York for five pistoles each battle, and one hundred the odd. I was disappointed to leave before it was decided. I saw there a greater cock-fight in after days.
I recall now that my brother Lawrence once wrote home from Appleby School that each boy must pay to the master on Easter Tuesday a penny to provide the school with a cock-fight.
As to the hard drinking of rum and bumbo, Madeira and sangaree, I never had a head for it, or any liking, nor for the English way of locking doors until the half were under the table. These things were not encouraged in the better houses, but sometimes they were not to be avoided without giving offence. The great war helped to better these foolish customs, and now they are more rare.
I remember, about this time, to have seen such an occasion on a hot day in July atL—— Hall, where I was come to survey a plot of meadow-land. I arrived about 7P.M., and I must needs go at once to sup with a gay company of men, very fine in London clothes. I would have excused myself to be of the party, but no one would listen to me, and, although dusty and tired, I was pulled in whether I would or not. We had a great supper, and Madeira wine, and much rum punch, with wine-glasses which had no stands or bottoms and must, therefore, be kept in the hand until emptied. When it became very warm, negroes were sent for to fan us and to keep off the flies. At last there was a dispute as to gamecocks, and two were fetched in, very sleepy, and set on the table to fight, which they were little of a mind to, but were urged until feathers and blood were all over the table. When songs were sung, and most very drunk, and the King toasted, I slipped away, and would have got out the door, but found it locked. Being unable to escape, I was forced to return to the table. At last a lighted candle having been set before each guest, our host called on us to rise, and when he cried out his toast, “The Ladies, God bless them!” each gentleman, havingdrained his glass, used it to extinguish the candle-light set before him. It seemed to me a strange custom. I took advantage of the darkness to get out of an open window, and was pursued by two or three, who fell on the way, so that I got back to the house and to bed, liking none of it. But now all this is much amended, and there is more moderation in drinking, but still too much of this evil custom.
I am led here to remark that in the War of Independency many officers who were otherwise competent failed because of drunkenness, and, indeed, at Germantown this was one cause of our losing the battle. When it became needful after St. Clair’s defeat in 1791 to appoint general officers, I furnished my cabinet with a statement of the names and characters of such officers as, having served under me, I knew should be considered. As concerned most of them, I found it well to state whether or not they were addicted to spirits, so common was this practice.
It seems very remarkable that so few gentlemen should have foreseen what was plain to the trappers and dealers in furs. All of the Ohio country was claimed by bothFrench and English. The Indians, although cheated and made drunk, were still in possession of the woods they considered to be their own. Virginia claimed what Pennsylvania, and even Connecticut, said was theirs; Pennsylvania was reaping the only harvest of the wilderness, of the value of some fifty thousand pounds a year, the trade in furs; last of all, in 1749, some enterprising gentlemen in England and Virginia planned the Ohio Company, meaning to colonize even north of the Ohio.
When Mr. Thomas Lee, president of the council, died, my brother Lawrence became the head of the Ohio Company, and all of this, as I now see, had much to do with the next change in my life. I find it pleasant again to dwell here on the good sense and liberal spirit of my brother, who, had his life been spared, would surely have been chosen to do that which has fallen to me. His character is well seen in his desire that the Dutch from Pennsylvania, whom he invited as settlers, being dissenters and having come into the jurisdiction of Virginia, should not be forced to pay parish rates and support clergymen of the Church of England, as all dissenters were obliged todo. He urged that restraints of conscience were cruel, and injurious to the country imposing them, and he wrote:
I may quote as example England, Holland, and Prussia, and, much more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled, whereas Virginia has increased by slow degrees, although much older.
I may quote as example England, Holland, and Prussia, and, much more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled, whereas Virginia has increased by slow degrees, although much older.
There, on our borders, as Lord Fairfax said, was much powder, and only one spark needed to set it off. Meanwhile Mr. Gist set out to survey the grant of the Ohio Company, on the south side of the Ohio River, all of which was greatly to concern my life.
Virginia and Pennsylvania were, at that time, much stirred up by the hostile threats of France, and efforts began to be made to prepare for hostilities on the frontier. About this time, but the exact date I fail to recall, my brother Lawrence abandoned all concern in the military line of life, and arranged that his place of major in the militia should be given up to me, and that I should also take his position as district adjutant.