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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798) [1892]

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. XIII (1794-1798).

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 GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS.

Mount Vernon, 4 June, 1797.

Your letter of the 29th ultimo, came to hand by the post of Friday, and eased my mind of many unpleasant sensations and reflections on your account. It has, indeed, done more, it has filled it with pleasure more easy to be conceived than expressed; and if your sorrow and repentance for the disquietude occasioned by the preceding letter, your resolution to abandon the ideas which were therein express, are sincere, I shall not only heartily forgive, but will forget also, and bury in oblivion all that has passed.

As a testimony of my disposition to do this—of the hope I had conceived that reflection would overcome an indolent habit or bad advice—not a hint respecting this matter has been given to any of your friends in this quarter, although Doctor Stuart and your mother (with their children) left this on Thursday last, after a stay of a week, and both Mr. Law and Mr. Peter have been here since the receipt of it. In a word, your grandmamma, sister, and myself, are all who were acquainted therewith.

You must not suffer this resolution you have recently entered into, to operate as the mere result of a momentary impulse, occasioned by the letters you have received from hence. This resolution should be founded on sober reflection, and a thorough conviction of your error, otherwise it will be as wavering as the wind, and become the sport of conflicting passions, which will occasion such a lassitude in your exertions as to render your studies of little avail. To insure permanency, think seriously of the advantages which are to be derived, on the one hand, from the steady pursuit of a course of study to be marked out by your preceptor, whose judgment, experience, and acknowledged abilities, enables him to direct them; and, on the other hand, revolve as seriously on the consequences which would inevitably result from an indisposition to this measure, or from an idle habit of hankering after unprofitable amusements at your time of life, before you have acquired that knowledge which would be found beneficial in every situation; I say before, because it is not my wish that, having gone through the essentials, you should be deprived of any rational amusement afterward; or, lastly, from dissipation in such company as you would most likely meet under such circumstances, who but too often, mistake ribaldry for wit, and rioting, swearing, intoxication, and gambling for manliness.

These things are not without momentary charms to young minds susceptible of any impression, before the judgment in some measure is formed, and reason begins to preponderate. It is on this ground, as well as on account of the intrinsic advantages that you yourself would experience hereafter from it, that I am desirous of keeping you to your studies. And if such characters as I have described should be found instrumental, either by their advice or example, in giving your mind a wrong bias, shun them as you would a pestilence; for, be assured, it is not with such qualities as these you ought to be allied, or with those who possess them to have any friendship.

These sentiments are dictated by the purest regard for your welfare, and from an earnest desire to promote your true happiness, in which all your friends feel an interest, and would be much gratified to see accomplished, while it would contribute in an eminent degree to your respectability in the eyes of others.

Your endeavors to fulfill these reasonable wishes of ours can not fail of restoring all the attentions, protection, and affection of one who has ever been, and will continue to be, your sincere friend.