52671Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
Lieutenant General Rochambeau had suggested in August that he and Rear Admiral Ternay meet GW to devise a strategy for taking New York City from the British. GW promised to meet them when it was safe to do so and directed Rochambeau to specify a location. Rochambeau chose Hartford, and GW then picked 20 Sept. for the gathering. Erroneously convinced that a fleet under French rear admiral...
52672To George Washington from “A Friend to the People,” 13 September 1796 (Washington Papers)
Have we not a right as a nation, to demand the Marquis La’ Fayette as a Citizen of our Country. The People love him—we all love him—and our God knows his goodness and virtue. ALS , DNA : RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters. For efforts to free Lafayette from prison, see Justus Erick Bollman to GW, 1 April , and La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt to GW, 25 July ; see also GW to La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 8...
52673Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
GW’s nomination on 22 Dec. 1791 of Thomas Pinckney, Gouverneur Morris, and William Short as ministers at London, Paris, and The Hague, respectively, occasioned significant Senate debates that ultimately involved the meaning of the “advice and consent” provision of the Constitution and the extent of presidential authority over foreign affairs. Early in his first administration the president had...
52674To George Washington from Officers among the Sappers and Miners, 19 December 1780 (Washington Papers)
[ West Point, 19 Dec. 1780 ]. Capt. Lt. David Bushnell and four other officers write about “the many disagreeable circumstances that attend us and the many embarrasments under which we labour.” They do not receive “equal priviledges with the rest of the Officers in the Continental Army,” and their service “has hitherto been such as not to entitle us to any great share of Military respect.”...
52675Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
Upon his marriage to the widow of Daniel Parke Custis on 6 Jan. 1759, GW assumed the management of what was at the time one of the most profitable estates in Virginia. The Custis estate, which included plantations in six counties in eastern Virginia worked by slaves valued at nearly £9,000 Virginia currency, was largely the creation of Martha Custis’s father-in-law, the eccentric John Custis...
52676Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
E ditorial note . In Feb. 1795 GW resumed making notations on the calendar pages of his almanacs and continued to do so until the end of 1798. In some cases the notations are clear. For example, in Jan. 1797, he temporarily kept some daily temperature readings on that month’s calendar, and during 1795 and 1796 he occasionally recorded stops on his journeys between Mount Vernon and...
52677To George Washington from the Philadelphia Society for the Information and Assistance of Persons Emigrating from Foreign … (Washington Papers)
You are now approached by a society thro their Committee whose province it is to take the Emigrant stranger by the hand on his arrival to our happy shores, and point him to such objects as may render him servicable to society and himself; and to assist those in more indigent circumstances until they can engage in useful employment. Such a society uniting with others of their fellow citizens in...
52678Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
The unwillingness of the French expeditionary force to leave Rhode Island to combine with the Continental army for a concerted effort to oust the British from New York City frustrated both Major General Lafayette and GW. The two men again felt frustration when logistical failures foiled an opportunity to overwhelm an enemy force on Staten Island, New York. Not wanting to see the entire...
52679Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
In the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, GW devoted considerable time and effort to the acquisition of large tracts of land in western Virginia and in the Ohio Valley. By 1775 he laid claim to over 37,000 acres in the West, acquired under the proclamations of 1754 and 1763 for his military services during the French and Indian War or through purchases from other veterans. In...
52680Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
GW’s older half brother Lawrence had been in poor health during the decade following the British assault upon Spanish bases in the Caribbean, an encounter commonly termed the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He had led a Virginia military company in the 1741 attack on Cartagena, becoming so fond of Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, naval commander of the expedition, that he later named his own home Mount...