and

me

at Winchelter, but desires a meeting time that

I wrk attend him at his Stouse in Augurian-above. 200 Miles from this ! or in Williamsburg by the 20th Bnot when doappose he intends to be.

me south his Ordew.

I have never been able to actuen to my Tommand since I wrote to

in spright the efforts of all the Geulapion Tribe. I have

al-times acturniny obstinately uno mih dubider

been redued to

had an Mannen of trying -At times I have batremity, and have now some Reason to apprehend an approaching Decals being. visited with several Symptoms of ther Desorder = I am under a strut Regemen, and than sel of to morrow for Williamsburg to recave the advice of the Sear Physicians. _ My Constitution I believe best hasisemid greal Injury, and as nothing reneeve t but the greates ? care, & molt circumspeed thellgreatest _As I now now prospect of preferment in a Military Lise and as I dispain of rendering that immediate "Tervue which the Colony may bequire of the Person

can

Commanding

A PAGE FROM WASHINGTON'S LETTER OF MARCH 4, 1758, TO

COLONEL

STANWIX ANNOUNCING HIS "APPROACHING

DECAY."

(By Permission, from the Henry E. Huntington Library.)

much reason to apprehend an approaching decay, being visited with several symptoms of such a disease.

"My constitution is certainly greatly impaired. . . . I have some thoughts of quitting my command, leaving my post to be filled by some other person more capable of the task, and who may, perhaps, have his endeavors crowned with better success than mine have been. But wherever I go, or whatever becomes of me, I shall always possess the sincerest and most affectionate regards for you." 17

It was odd that this young man just twenty-six, who had surrendered a fort on a Fourth of July, should on a fourth of March decide that his life was not only a failure but drawing to its close.

His historians usually write of him as if he always knew the destiny that Providence selected him for, and for him. They describe him as so silent and strong and serene that he might almost have foreknown that on a March fourth thirty-five years later he would be inaugurated for his second term as the unanimously elected and re-elected president of the divinely constructed United States.

But the pitiful victim of defeat upon defeat, disgrace, abuse, frustration, blazing with fever and sick with dysentery, cowered alone at Mount Vernon and reviewed a life of miseries almost unbroken, and resigned himself to "an approaching decay."

There was not even a woman to love him. He had no hope of that "domestic felicity" which was perhaps the chief of his desires.

The world was such a failure, and he such a failure in it, that he rather hoped, than feared, his release. His one regret was doubtless that he had not indeed shared "Braddock's bed" and died in battle. Did he not write, a little

later, to the one woman he truly loved, and all in vain, speaking of some men of his who had been slaughtered in a foolish battle:

"But who is there that does not rather Envy than regret a death that gives birth to honor and glorious memory?"

W

XXIV

HE WINS A RICH WIDOW

ITH a singular irony, the makers of pretty legends have thrust the prettiest of all into this bleakest and loneliest period of Washington's

young life.

Though he was writhing in mental and physical anguish at Mount Vernon on March 4th, 1758, they have him. blithely riding on February 25th toward Williamsburg with despatches. He comes to William's Ferry, where he must cross the pretty stream burdened with the name Pamunkey, which it is always hastening to lose with itself in the broad York River.1

Here his friend Major Chamberlayne invites him to rest for a day or two. But the eager soldier remembers his despatches and refuses until he catches sight of the beautiful guest, the young widow with two darling children, Martha Dandridge Custis.

As Oliver Herford said: "A little widow is a dangerous thing."

Even Washington forgets in her presence that he has told Bishop, his body-servant, the one that Braddock gave him, to wait outside with his horse, the one that Braddock gave him. Bishop walks the gravelled road for hours, followed by the two wondering steeds. Their footsteps crunch the pebbles in vain until at a late hour they are dismissed till daybreak.

They are forgotten and unheeded as Washington and