George Washington

C

3

End of Hostilities

Washington’s judgment, patience, and soldierly fortitude had established the military foundation on which U.S. independence was to be erected. However, his duties as commander in chief were not yet ended. Although hostilities had virtually ceased by April 1782, Washington knew that the British king, George III, had yielded to the wishes of the House of Commons reluctantly. He was most anxious that there should be no visible relaxation of American vigilance while the peace negotiations dragged along their weary course. “There is nothing,” he wrote, “which will so soon produce a speedy and honorable peace, as a state of preparedness for war.”

Washington rejected, with anger and abhorrence, a suggestion, which had some support in the army, of establishing a monarchy with himself as king. In March 1783, with Congress still dawdling, anonymous letters appeared calling a meeting of officers. Washington promptly broke this up by calling a meeting on his own authority. He begged the officers to do nothing “that would tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated throughout Europe for its fortitude and patriotism.” His appeal averted what might have been serious trouble.

V

Return Home

Peace was officially proclaimed on April 19, 1783, but not until November 25, as the last British boats put off to the ships, did Washington’s troops enter New York City. On December 4, Washington took leave of his principal officers at Fraunces Tavern and departed at last for home and the peace and quiet of a planter’s life. He stopped at Annapolis, Maryland, where Congress was temporarily meeting, to take his leave of the civilian power he had always so meticulously obeyed and to surrender his commission as commander in chief. He reached Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve of 1783. There he hoped ardently, as he wrote in a letter at the time, to remain “a private citizen, under the shadow of my own vine and my own figtree [and] move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers.”

At Mount Vernon, Washington found himself confronted by financial problems. After eight years of relative neglect, Mount Vernon needed much rebuilding and there was little capital to do it with. During the dark war years of 1778 to 1780, Washington had refused pay for his services and had unhesitatingly poured almost all of his private fortune into the purchase of loan certificates issued by Congress to finance the war. This paper was of dubious value, either then or later. But he made no complaint and firmly refused offers of a grant or other stipend from Congress.

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A

Ohio Valley Lands

Washington spent a busy summer in 1784 devoting himself to his farms, making improvements on his mansion, and entertaining countless visitors, some uninvited and unwelcome. Then in the fall he visited his lands in the Ohio River valley, where he held more than 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres). He found some of his property settled by squatters, who refused to move, and he could not reach his holdings near the mouth of the Kanawha River because of Native American unrest. On his return journey he looked over the terrain of the region where the Potomac River’s headwaters are nearest those of the Monongahela. This investigation reflected his interest in creating a system of canals and portages that would give access, through the mountains, to the broad Western lands.

B

Potomac Company

At Mount Vernon again in October 1784, Washington became absorbed in this new project. A combination of waterways and roads connecting the Potomac with the Ohio valley would benefit the nation by hastening settlement of the western lands, increasing trade, and binding the settlers closer to the United States.

Washington asked the Virginia legislature to pass measures providing for a company managed jointly with Maryland to make the Potomac navigable. The legislature complied with Washington’s request and appointed him as Virginia’s representative in negotiations with Maryland. After conferences at Annapolis he had the satisfaction of seeing his proposal embodied in identical bills passed by the two state legislatures to create the Potomac Company, complete with an appropriation of money to get the plan under way.

Washington’s own careful preparation, and rough but effective surveys of the region of the headwaters, had played an important part in achieving this agreement in little more than three months.

C

Fears for the Confederation

The two-state agreement had been necessary because, under the Articles of Confederation by which the United States was then governed, Congress could do nothing of much importance without the consent of the states affected. Washington was deeply troubled about the national government’s weakness and disunity. In 1785 he wrote: “The Confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance.” Problems had arisen that the central government should have settled but could not: Rhode Island and Connecticut were not paying their taxes on imported goods. The British placed commercial sanctions against the United States and refused to remove their troops from forts along the northern frontier. This indicated to Washington that Britain hoped to force eventual resubmission of the 13 states to British authority.

The forts enabled the British to control the Great Lakes and thus threatened the hundreds of U.S. settlers north of the Ohio. Washington, who knew the western country better than most Americans of his day, realized that an increasing flood of settlers would be crossing the Appalachian Mountains to seek new opportunities. Unless the U.S. government gave the settlers protection and provided a ready access to markets on the Atlantic seaboard, they might eventually seek protection and markets from the British. Without a strong central government and assured revenues, the United States could do none of these things.

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