Details
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, President. Autograph letter signed ("G:Washington") to [Burwell Bassett], Mount Vernon, 2 August 1765. 1 full page, 4to, 231 x 187 mm. (9 1/8 x 7 3/8 in.), the paper brittled and browned, discreetly silked, small losses along central vertical fold, affecting about a dozen letters in nine lines text, the paper carefully patched in those places, attached along left edge to card.
AS OPPOSITION TO THE STAMP ACTS SPREADS, WASHINGTON IS RE-ELECTED TO VIRGINIA'S HOUSE OF BURGESSES, WHOSE SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNOR
A important early letter in which the 33-year-old Washington writes dejectedly about his crop failures at Mount Vernon, comments modestly on his "easy and creditable" re-election as a delegate to the House of Burgesses and remarks on the unprecedented cancellation of the scheduled session of the Burgesses by Governor Fauquier in the face of mounting Colonial uproar over the Stamp Acts. Washington writes: "By a craft sent around by Capt. Boyes we had the pleasure to hear you were well, but suffering with the drought as we are. We have never had the Ground wet in the Neighborhood since the heavy Rains which fell about the first of May. In June early we had a shower that refreshed the Corn, & gave a little start to Hemp; but the dry weather which followed, & hath since continued, renders our prospects truely [sic] melancholy; however not 10 miles from hence, in the Forest. they are perfectly seasonable, & have promising Crops of Corn & Tobacco which is a favourable circumstance for us, as our wants of Bread may be supplied from thence. To render my misfortune more compleat, I lost most of my Wheat by the Rust, so that I s[hal]l undergo the loss of a compleat Crop here, & am informed that my expectations from below [further south] are not much better.
"I have not yet heard how you succeeded in Electioneering, but there was little room to doubt of yours; I changed the Scene from Frederick to this county [Fairfax], & had an easy & creditable Poll; & was preparing to attend, when the Proclamation for [pro]roguing the Assembly came to hand (on the 28th Ulto).[;] convinced at the same time that the Governor had no incli[na]tion to meet an Assembly at this Juncture. The bearer waits; I have only time to therefore to add my Compliments to Mr. Bassett & Family...."
The young Virginian had first been elected to the House of Burgesses in 1758 to one of two Frederick County seats. For the July 1765 elections, Washington declined that seat in order to represent Fairfax County, where he resided. In what Washington terms "an easy and creditable poll" on 16 July, he garnered 201 votes to his two opponents 148 and 131 votes. But as he prepared to leave Mount Vernon to attend what promised to be a stormy session of the House of Burgesses, news came that the session had been prorogued (cancelled without dissolving) by Governor Fauquier. The reason, as Washington knew well, was the Governor's concern over the increasingly vocal opposition to the recently enacted Stamp Acts. In the preceding session, in fact, a new delegate, Patrick Henry, had caused an uproar during the drafting of a resolution condemning the acts. Henry had attained instant notoriety with his famous outcry: "If this be treason make the most of it!" Similar "treasonous" sentiments smoldered in other colonies. On 8 June the colony of Massachusetts called for an October meeting in New York of representatives from all the colonies, a convention later termed the Stamp Act Congress. Governor Fauquier was fearful that if the House of Burgesses met, they might vote to participate actively in that congress, "which he regarded as seditious" (D.S. Freeman, George Washington: Planter and Patriot, p.142). As Freeman writes: "opposition to the Stamp Act was shifting now from argument to resistance and was spreading in Virginia...to the leading planters and to most of the merchants...." In the end, the Stamp Act Congress was convened in New York as scheduled. Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and New Hampshire were without official representation, as their respective legislatures had deliberately not named representatives. The delegates from the nine colonies present formulated a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" which was widely distributed, proclaiming that taxation of the colonies without their consent was a violation of innate and heriditary rights. The Congress fostered the sense of shared destiny and mutual self-interest which prefigured, a decade later, the formation of the Continental Congress.
Published (with trifling differences in readings) in Writings, ed. J.C. Fitzpatrick, 2:424. Quoted in two places by Freeman, George Washington: Planter and Patriot, 3:142.
AS OPPOSITION TO THE STAMP ACTS SPREADS, WASHINGTON IS RE-ELECTED TO VIRGINIA'S HOUSE OF BURGESSES, WHOSE SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNOR
A important early letter in which the 33-year-old Washington writes dejectedly about his crop failures at Mount Vernon, comments modestly on his "easy and creditable" re-election as a delegate to the House of Burgesses and remarks on the unprecedented cancellation of the scheduled session of the Burgesses by Governor Fauquier in the face of mounting Colonial uproar over the Stamp Acts. Washington writes: "By a craft sent around by Capt. Boyes we had the pleasure to hear you were well, but suffering with the drought as we are. We have never had the Ground wet in the Neighborhood since the heavy Rains which fell about the first of May. In June early we had a shower that refreshed the Corn, & gave a little start to Hemp; but the dry weather which followed, & hath since continued, renders our prospects truely [sic] melancholy; however not 10 miles from hence, in the Forest. they are perfectly seasonable, & have promising Crops of Corn & Tobacco which is a favourable circumstance for us, as our wants of Bread may be supplied from thence. To render my misfortune more compleat, I lost most of my Wheat by the Rust, so that I s[hal]l undergo the loss of a compleat Crop here, & am informed that my expectations from below [further south] are not much better.
"I have not yet heard how you succeeded in Electioneering, but there was little room to doubt of yours; I changed the Scene from Frederick to this county [Fairfax], & had an easy & creditable Poll; & was preparing to attend, when the Proclamation for [pro]roguing the Assembly came to hand (on the 28th Ulto).[;] convinced at the same time that the Governor had no incli[na]tion to meet an Assembly at this Juncture. The bearer waits; I have only time to therefore to add my Compliments to Mr. Bassett & Family...."
The young Virginian had first been elected to the House of Burgesses in 1758 to one of two Frederick County seats. For the July 1765 elections, Washington declined that seat in order to represent Fairfax County, where he resided. In what Washington terms "an easy and creditable poll" on 16 July, he garnered 201 votes to his two opponents 148 and 131 votes. But as he prepared to leave Mount Vernon to attend what promised to be a stormy session of the House of Burgesses, news came that the session had been prorogued (cancelled without dissolving) by Governor Fauquier. The reason, as Washington knew well, was the Governor's concern over the increasingly vocal opposition to the recently enacted Stamp Acts. In the preceding session, in fact, a new delegate, Patrick Henry, had caused an uproar during the drafting of a resolution condemning the acts. Henry had attained instant notoriety with his famous outcry: "If this be treason make the most of it!" Similar "treasonous" sentiments smoldered in other colonies. On 8 June the colony of Massachusetts called for an October meeting in New York of representatives from all the colonies, a convention later termed the Stamp Act Congress. Governor Fauquier was fearful that if the House of Burgesses met, they might vote to participate actively in that congress, "which he regarded as seditious" (D.S. Freeman, George Washington: Planter and Patriot, p.142). As Freeman writes: "opposition to the Stamp Act was shifting now from argument to resistance and was spreading in Virginia...to the leading planters and to most of the merchants...." In the end, the Stamp Act Congress was convened in New York as scheduled. Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and New Hampshire were without official representation, as their respective legislatures had deliberately not named representatives. The delegates from the nine colonies present formulated a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" which was widely distributed, proclaiming that taxation of the colonies without their consent was a violation of innate and heriditary rights. The Congress fostered the sense of shared destiny and mutual self-interest which prefigured, a decade later, the formation of the Continental Congress.
Published (with trifling differences in readings) in Writings, ed. J.C. Fitzpatrick, 2:424. Quoted in two places by Freeman, George Washington: Planter and Patriot, 3:142.