From George Washington to George Washington Parke Custis, 27 February 1797
To George Washington Parke Custis
Philadelphia 27th Feby 1797
Dear Washington,
Your letter of the 22d inst., as also one of the first, have been duly received.1 The affectionate sentiments contained in them, are highly pleasing to me. But that which affords a still higher gratification, is to hear that you are not only attentive to your studies, but pleased with them also. Hence, I draw the most agreeable presages, that you will reward my cares & anxieties to see you a polished scholar, & a useful member of society, by persevering with assiduity & steadiness in the course you are now in. It will be the source, through life, from whence your most pleasing & happy reflexions will flow; and when the results are compared with the conduct of the idle, & dissipated youth, of whom too many examples are to be seen, they will afford you abundant cause for heart felt rejoicings.
I am unacquainted with the design or tendency of the Whig Society, of which you say you have become a member;2 of course I can express no opinion thereon; but as youth always require the experience of age, my advice to you is, to enter into no Society while you are at college that is not sanctioned by the Professors; and in a particular manner by the President thereof; whom I would wish you to consider always in the light of a friend, as well as a Preceptor.
I have confidence that your expences will always be reasonable & proper; & when that is the case, they will never be disputed. The amount of Doctr Smiths account is, or immediately will be paid to his order; and as you will want the means of transporting yourself to Mt Vernon during the vacation, get that Gentleman to form an estimate of them, that the money may be sent to you before I leave this City.3 Your Grand Mamma will be attentive to the articles you left here.
As the Curtain of my Political life is about to drop, I am, as you may suppose, a good deal hurried in the closing scenes of it—if no other evidences of it could be given, the hurry with which this letter is written, & the many interlineations which are to be found therein,4 would ascertain the fact. As early in next week as I can possibly prepare for it, my journey for Mount Vernon will commence:5 where we shall expect to see you immediately after the Vacation, that you may remain with your friends there as long as the time allowed for it, will permit. Your Grand Mamma, Sister & the rest of the family are all well—so are Mr Law & Mr Lear, both of whom are now in this City.6 I wish you a continuance of health and am very affectionately Yours always
Go: Washington
ALS, ViHi: Custis Papers.
1. Custis’s letters to GW dated 1 and 22 Feb. have not been found.
2. Founded at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in June 1769 by James Madison, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Philip Freneau, and others, the American Whig Society was a secret literary association similar to its rival the Cliosophic Society, which was organized in 1770. Initially comprised primarily of students native to Pennsylvania and the southern states, the American Whig Society at Princeton suspended its meetings at the outset of the Revolutionary War but resumed activities in 1782. The society’s meetings involved literary exercises in speaking, composition, reading, and spelling. Members wrote compositions on a variety of topics, such as history and religion, and also took part in debates. The society’s objective was to train future leaders in public speaking and parliamentary procedure. The American Whig and Cliosophic societies later merged in 1941 to form the American Whig-Cliosophic Society (see , 2–16, 59; see also An Historical Sketch of the College of New Jersey [Philadelphia, 1859], 26–27).
3. On 25 Feb., GW paid $171.84 on “Saml S[tanhope] Smiths dft in favor of Enos Kelsey,” treasurer of the College of New Jersey, “for Expenses of G: W. Custis at Princeton College” (). On 5 March, four days before he left Philadelphia, GW recorded a payment of $100 “Sent Dr Smith for Mr Custis’s Expences to Mount Vernon” (). Custis left Princeton for Mount Vernon in April and was back at school in late May (see Custis to GW, 25 March 1797, and GW to Custis, 3 April and 22 May 1797, in 1:48–49, 69–70, 152–53). On 29 Aug. 1797, GW gave Custis £45 Virginia currency to transmit to Smith, the president of the College of New Jersey, for Custis’s “board schooling & other exps.” (, 30). Custis terminated his studies at Princeton in October 1797, when GW paid Smith the remainder of the money owed for Custis’s schooling (see GW to Samuel Stanhope Smith, 9 Oct. 1797, and notes 1 and 2 to that document, in 1:396).
4. GW interlined a total of six words and phrases in this letter. A long interlined phrase, which includes the words “in the course you are now in,” is found in the first paragraph.
5. GW left Philadelphia on 9 March and reached Mount Vernon on 15 March (see , 6:236, 239).
6. For Thomas Law’s plans to travel to Philadelphia in early February and for Tobias Lear’s intended departure for that city during the week of 12 Feb., see Law to GW, c.10 Feb., n.2; and Lear to GW, 10 February.