Washington and his Comrades in Arms | Page 9

large
income. It was easier to break new land than to fertilize that long in use.
An acre yielded only eight or ten bushels of wheat. In England the land
was more fruitful. One who was only a tenant on the estate of Coke of
Norfolk died worth 150,000 pounds, and Coke himself had the income
of a prince. When Washington died he was reputed one of the richest

men in America and yet his estate was hardly equal to that of Coke's
tenant.
Washington was a good farmer, inventive and enterprising, but he had
difficulties which ruined many of his neighbors. Today much of his
infertile estate of Mount Vernon would hardly grow enough to pay the
taxes. When Washington desired a gardener, or a bricklayer, or a
carpenter, he usually had to buy him in the form of a convict, or of a
negro slave, or of a white man indentured for a term of years. Such
labor required eternal vigilance. The negro, himself property, had no
respect for it in others. He stole when he could and worked only when
the eyes of a master were upon him. If left in charge of plants or of
stock he was likely to let them perish for lack of water. Washington's
losses of cattle, horses, and sheep from this cause were enormous. The
neglected cattle gave so little milk that at one time Washington, with a
hundred cows, had to buy his butter. Negroes feigned sickness for
weeks at a time. A visitor noted that Washington spoke to his slaves
with a stern harshness. No doubt it was necessary. The management of
this intractable material brought training in command. If Washington
could make negroes efficient and farming pay in Virginia, he need
hardly be afraid to meet any other type of difficulty.
From the first he was satisfied that the colonies had before them a
difficult struggle. Many still refused to believe that there was really a
state of war. Lexington and Bunker Hill might be regarded as
unfortunate accidents to be explained away in an era of good feeling
when each side should acknowledge the merits of the other and
apologize for its own faults. Washington had few illusions of this kind.
He took the issue in a serious and even bitter spirit. He knew nothing of
the Englishman at home for he had never set foot outside of the
colonies except to visit Barbados with an invalid half-brother. Even
then he noted that the "gentleman inhabitants" whose "hospitality and
genteel behaviour" he admired were discontented with the tone of the
officials sent out from England. From early life Washington had seen
much of British officers in America. Some of them had been men of
high birth and station who treated the young colonial officer with due
courtesy. When, however, he had served on the staff of the unfortunate
General Braddock in the calamitous campaign of 1755, he had been
offended by the tone of that leader. Probably it was in these days that

Washington first brooded over the contrasts between the Englishman
and the Virginian. With obstinate complacency Braddock had
disregarded Washington's counsels of prudence. He showed arrogant
confidence in his veteran troops and contempt for the amateur soldiers
of whom Washington was one. In a wild country where rapid
movement was the condition of success Braddock would halt, as
Washington said, "to level every mole hill and to erect bridges over
every brook." His transport was poor and Washington, a lover of horses,
chafed at what he called "vile management" of the horses by the British
soldier. When anything went wrong Braddock blamed, not the
ineffective work of his own men, but the supineness of Virginia. "He
looks upon the country," Washington wrote in wrath, "I believe, as void
of honour and honesty." The hour of trial came in the fight of July,
1755, when Braddock was defeated and killed on the march to the Ohio.
Washington told his mother that in the fight the Virginian troops stood
their ground and were nearly all killed but the boasted regulars "were
struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it
is possible to conceive." In the anger and resentment of this comment is
found the spirit which made Washington a champion of the colonial
cause from the first hour of disagreement.
That was a fatal day in March, 1765, when the British Parliament voted
that it was just and necessary that a revenue be raised in America.
Washington was uncompromising. After the tax on tea he derided "our
lordly masters in Great Britain." No man, he said, should scruple for a
moment to take up arms against the threatened tyranny. He and his
neighbors of Fairfax County, Virginia, took the trouble to tell the world