In anticipation of the upcoming burgesses election, GW wrote Bryan Fairfax 4 July: “I entreated several gentlemen at our church yesterday to press Colonel [George] Mason to take a poll. . . . And therefore I again express my wish, that either you or Colonel Mason would offer. I can be of little assistance to either, because I early laid it down as a maxim not to propose myself, and solicit for a second” (WRITINGS description begins John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799. 39 vols. Washington, D.C., 1931–44. description ends , 3:227–28).