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Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO RICHARD HENRY LEE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. X (1782-1785) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. X (1782-1785).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO RICHARD HENRY LEE.

It would have given me much pleasure to have seen you at Richmond; and it was part of my original plan to have spent a few days with you at Eltham whilst I was in the lower parts of the country; but an intervention of circumstances not only put it out of my power to do the latter, but would have stopped my journey to Richmond altogether, had not the meeting, the time and the place been of my own appointing. I left company at home when I went away who proposed to wait my return—among whom a Mr. Pine, an artist of eminence, came all the way from Philadelphia on purpose for some materials for an historical painting which he is about, and for which he was obliged to stay till I got back, which I did after an absence of eight days only.

Dr. Sir,

My nephew, Geo. Aug. Washington, is just returned from his perigrination, apparently much amended in his health, but not quite free from the disorder in his side. I have understood that his addresses to Fanny were made with your consent, and I now learn that he is desirous, and she is willing, to fulfil the engagement they have entered into, and that they are applying to you for permission to do so.

I stand indebted to you for your favors of the 3d, 7th, and 29th of last month, and feel myself exceedingly obliged to your Excellency for the communications and enclosures therein.—

It has ever been a maxim with me through life, neither to promote nor to prevent a matrimonial connection, unless there should be something indispensably requiring interference in the latter. I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery. To be instrumental therefore in bringing two people together, who are indifferent to each other, and may soon become objects of disgust; or to prevent a union which is prompted by the affections of the mind, is what I never could reconcile with reason, and therefore neither directly nor indirectly have I ever said a word to Fanny or George, upon the subject of their intended connection, but as their attachment to each other seems of early growth, warm and lasting, it bids fair for happiness. If therefore, you have no objection, I think, the sooner it is consummated the better.

It gives me pleasure to find that an Ordinance of Congress has passed respecting the Western Territory.—A little longer delay of this business, and I believe the country would have been settled, maugre, all that could have been done to prevent it; as it is, I am not clear that the same respect will be paid now to this Ordinance, which would have been at an earlier period, before men began to speculate in Lands No. West of the Ohio, and to obtrude themselves thereon.

I have just now informed them both (the former through Mrs. Washington) that it is my wish they should live at Mt. Vernon.

From the general tenor of my letters from very respectable characters in France, I think it most likely that the dispute between the Emperor and Holland will be settled without bloodshed, and that the former will hardly be able to effect the exchange of his Northerland Dominions for the Dutchy of Bavaria, among other reasons because the Duke de Deux Ponts, nephew and heir to the Elector, is opposed thereto: but notwithstanding that the state of politics, and temper of some of the formidable Powers of Europe are such as to place War at no remote distance.

It is unnecessary, I hope, to say how happy we should be to see you, her brothers, and any of her friends, who can make it convenient and are disposed, at this place on this occasion. All here join in best wishes for you.

I have just parted with Mr. and Mrs. Macaulay Graham, who after a stay of about ten days, left this in order to embark for England, from New York; I am obliged to you for introducing a Lady to me whose reputation among the literati is so high, and whose principles are so much and so justly admired by the friends of liberty and of mankind.—it gave me pleasure to find that her sentiments respecting the inadequacy of the powers of Congress, as also those of Doctr. Price’s, coincide with my own; experience evinces the truth of these observations, and the late movement of the mercantile interest exhibits a recent proof of the conviction it is working in the popular mind, but it is unfortunate for us, that evils which might have been averted, must be first felt, and our national character for wisdom, justice and temperance, suffer in the eyes of the world, before we can guide the political machine as it ought to be. * * *