George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 21 March 1781
To Benjamin Harrison
New Windsor 21st March 1781.
My Dr Sir,
Upon my return to this place last night,1 I met your private & friendly letter of the 25th of February. I do not delay a moment to thank you for the interesting matter contained in it, and to express my surprize at that part which respects a pension for my mother.2
True it is, I am but little acquainted with her present situation, or distresses, if she is under any. As true it is, a year or two before I left Virginia (to make her latter days comfortable, & free from care) I did, at her request but at my own expence, purchase a commodious house, Garden & Lotts (of her own choosing) in Fredericksburg, that she might be near my Sister Lewis, her only daughter3—and did moreover agree to take her Land & Negroes at a certain yearly Rent, to be fixed by Colo. Lewis & others (of her own nomination,) which has been an annual expence to me ever since, as the Estate never raised one half the rent I was to pay4—Before I left Virginia, I answered all her calls for money; and since that period, have directed my Steward to do the same.5 Whence her distresses can arise therefore, I know not, never having received any complaint of his inattention or neglect on that head; tho’ his inability to pay my own taxes, is such I know, as to oblige me to sell negroes for this purpose6—the taxes being the most unequal (I am told) in the world—some persons paying for things of equal value, four times, nay ten times, the rate that others do. But putting these things aside, which I could not avoid mentioning, in exculpation of a presumptive want of duty on my part; confident I am that she has not a child that would not divide the last sixpence to relieve her from real distress.7 This she has been repeatedly assured of by me: and all of us, I am certain, would feel much hurt, at having our mother a pensioner, while we had the means of supporting her; but in fact she has an ample income of her own.
I lament exceedingly that your letter, which conveyed the first hint of this matter, did not come to my hands sooner; but I request, in pointed terms if the matter is now in agitation in your Assembly, that all proceedings on it may be stopped—or in case of a decision in her favor, that it may be done away, & repealed at my request.8
I must defer answering your public Letter, ’till the next post9—This is written in much haste to go by the present mail, which is on the point of closing. The measures I had taken previous to the date of your letter (for the reduction of Arnolds Corps) were, you may be assured, every thing that was possible, in my circumstances, to do10—If the States will not, or cannot provide me with the means; it is in vain for them to look to me for the end, and accomplishment of their wishes. Bricks are not to be made without straw.11 As our eyes are turned to your quarter for interesting events, we have few occurrences of moment here, none pleasing12—I shall only add an expression of my sincere concern for the damage & losses I hear you have sustained by that arch traitor, Arnold,13 & my assurances of being with much truth, Your affecte friend & servant
G: Washington
LB, DLC:GW.
This letter has influenced interpretations of Mary Ball Washington and of GW’s relationship with his mother since its inclusion in the second large-scale edition of GW’s documentary record (see , 9:182–84; see also , 21:340–42). GW’s biographers have tended to view the letter as evidence of Mary Washington being domineering and a constant source of difficulty for her dutiful eldest son (see, for example, , 17–21; , 3:606–9; , 5:281–82; and , 396–97). For a more sympathetic portrayal of Mary Washington, see , 94–95. Using a broader contextual lens, Mary Washington’s biographers have suggested the reasonableness of her desiring or seeking state support within the framework of the war’s social and economic disruptions (see , 263–67, and , 215–17; see also Alice Curtis Desmond, George Washington’s Mother [New York, 1962], 173–74). Commentators have not taken fully into account that GW wrote this letter immediately after returning from an arduous trip of nearly three weeks and on a day when he caught up with several correspondents. Both factors likely played some role in the letter’s tone. For sensitive overviews and related scholarship of GW’s relationship with his mother, see Philip Levy, George Washington Written Upon the Land: Nature, Memory, Myth, & Landscape (Morgantown, W.Va., 2015), 49–58, 67–75; and , 19–38.
1. GW had returned from Rhode Island (see his letters to Alexander Hamilton, 7 March, source note, and to Rochambeau, 16 March, n.1).
2. Harrison’s letter to GW dated 25 Feb. also reported military intelligence from southern Virginia.
3. Betty Washington Lewis was Mary Washington’s only daughter to survive to adulthood; her youngest child, Mildred, had died shortly after her first birthday, in October 1740.
4. GW completed arrangements to rent his mother’s farmland and slaves in later 1771. He annually paid £30 for the land and £92 for Mary Washington’s ten slaves (see the entries for 12–14 Sept. 1771 in , 3:52–53). He also purchased for £275 a house and two lots in Fredericksburg, Va., with the deed being conveyed to him on 18 Sept. 1772 (see the entry for 8 Nov. 1771 in , 3:69). Mary Washington subsequently lived in that house without charge until her death in 1789.
5. GW presumably means his distant cousin Lund Washington, the Mount Vernon farm manager during GW’s absence with the Continental army. For a summary of GW’s monetary payments to Mary Washington between September 1771 and March 1775, see Account with Mary Washington, 27 April 1775, in 10:347–49. For earlier instances of Mary Washington receiving money from GW, see Cash Accounts, December 1767, March 1769, May 1769, and December 1769, in 8:60, 169, 193, and 268.
6. For evidence that GW had pondered selling slaves to purchase land, but not pay taxes, see his letter to Lund Washington, 15 Aug. 1778, and Lund Washington to GW, 2 Sept. 1778; see also GW to Lund Washington, 24–26 Feb. 1779.
7. Besides GW and his sister Betty Washington Lewis, who lived in Fredericksburg, Mary Washington’s sons Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles still were living.
8. No evidence of subsequent formal action in the Virginia legislature on a pension or payment for Mary Washington has been identified. For GW’s later remarks on his mother’s complaints, and for reflections on his correspondence with Harrison, see his letter to John Augustine Washington, 16 Jan. 1783 (DLC:GW); see also GW to Mary Ball Washington, 15 Feb. 1787, and n.3 to that document, in 5:33–37.
9. See Harrison to GW, 16–20 Feb. 1781, and GW to Harrison, 27 March.
10. GW alludes primarily to the detachment sent to Virginia under Major General Lafayette (see GW’s second letter to Lafayette, 20 Feb., source note). For the British expedition to Virginia under Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold, see GW to Samuel Huntington, 27 Dec. 1780, and n.2 to that document.
11. GW would reuse this phrase (see his letter to John Armstrong, 26 March 1781; see also GW to Joseph Jones, 7 June, DLC:GW). For its prevalence during the period, see Bartlett Jere Whiting, Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 45–46.
12. GW probably refers to the continuing shortages of provisions and supplies for the Continental army.
13. For the destruction that Arnold’s command had wreaked on Richmond and on Harrison’s nearby plantation, see Steuben to GW, 8 Jan., and , 221–25.