From George Washington to George Lewis, 7 April 1796
To George Lewis
Philadelphia 7th April 1796
Dear Sir
Tuesday’s Post brought me a letter from a Mr Andrew Parks of Fredericksburgh, covering one from your mother; both on the subject of overtures of marriage made by the former to your cousin Harriot Washington: which, it seems, depend upon my consent for consummatn.1
My sister speaks of Mr Parks as a sober, discreet man; and one who is attentive to business. Mr Parks says of himself, that his “fortune at present, does not much exceed £3000, but with industry & œconomy, he has every expectation of rapidly improving his condition” being concerned with his brother in law Mr McElderry of Baltimore, in Mercantil⟨e⟩ business.
As I am an entire stranger to Mr Parks; to his family connexions, or his connexions in trade; to his mode of living; his habits—and to his prospects in trade; I should be glad if you wd ascertain them with as much precision as you can, and write me with as little delay as you can well avoid.2
Harriot having little or no fortune of her own, has no right to expect a great one in the man she marrys: but it is desirable that she should marry a gentleman; one who is well connected, and can support her decently, in the line she has always moved, otherwise she would not find matrimony with a large family & little means, so eligable as she may have conceived it to be. I am your sincere friend and Affectionate Uncle
Go: Washington
This letter will be accompanied by one to my Sister which I pray you to receive from the Post Office and send to her.3
ALS, PHi: Dreer Collection; ADfS, PHi: Washington Manuscripts; LB, DLC:GW. The postscript appears only on the ALS.
1. Tuesday was 5 April. The letter Andrew Parks wrote GW on 1 April enclosed Betty Washington Lewis’s letter to GW dated 27 March.
3. A draft of GW’s enclosed letter to Betty Washington Lewis, written on this date, reads: “Your letter of the 27th Ulto was enclosed to me by Mr Parks, in one from himself, dated the 1st instt on the same subject.
“Harriot having very little fortune herself, has no right to expect a great one in the man she marry’s; but if he has not a competency to support her in the way she has lived, in the circle of her friends, she will not find the matrimonial state so comfortable as she may have expected when a family is looking up to her & but scanty means to support it.
“Altho’ she has no right to expect a man of fortune, she certainly has just pretensions to expect one whose connexions are respectable, & whose relations she could have no objection to associate with. How far this is, or is not the case with Mr Parks, I know not, for neither his own letter, or yours give any acct of his family nor whether he is a native or a foreigner—& we have his own word only for his possessing any property at all altho’ he estimates his fortune at £3000. A precarious dependance this when applied to a man in Trade.
“I do not wish to thwart Harriots inclinations if her affectns are placed on Mr Park and if upon the enquiries I shall mak⟨e⟩ or cause to be made into his family & connexions, there shall be found nothing exceptionable in them; that he is, as you say “very much respected by all his acquaintance, sober, sedate, & attentive to business”; and is moreover in good business; I shall throw no impedimts in the way of their marriage, altho’ I should have preferred, if a good match had not offer’d in the meanwhile that she shd have remained single until I was once more settled at Mt Vernon & she a resident there which, if life is spared to us, will certainly happen to me in ten or eleven months—because then she would have been in the way of seeing much company, and would have had a much fairer prospect of matching respectably than with one who is little known—and of whose circumstances few or none can know much about.
“Having had no business to write to you upon—and being very much occupied by my public duties, are the only reasons why I have been silent. I am persuaded you will enjoy more ease & quiet, & meet with fewer vexations where you now are, than where you did live—It is my sincere wish that you should do so and that your days may be happy—in these Mrs Washington joins with Your most Affecte Brother” (ADfS, PPRF; LB, DLC:GW; see also Betty Washington Lewis to GW, 26 June). For the recent move of GW’s sister, see Robert Lewis to GW, 6 April, n.1.