From George Washington to Francis Fauquier, 9 December 1758
To Francis Fauquier
To The Honble Governor Fauquer.
Sir.Winchester, the 9th Dec. 1758
I arrived at this place last night, and was just setting out (tho’ very much indisposed) for my own House, when I was honored with your obliging favour of the 3d instant.1 My last letters would fully inform your Honor of the success of His Majesty’s arms under General Forbes—of the march of the Virginia Troops to Winchester—and the condition (the very distressed condition) the 1st Regiment is in. It is needless therefore, to recapitulate facts, or to trouble your Honor further on this head.
Reason, nay, common humanity itself points out that some respite should be granted to Troops returning from every toil and hardship that cold, hunger & fatigue can inflict: and I hope your honors sentiments correspond therein.
If I easily get the better of my present Disorder, I shall hope for the honor of kissing your hand, about the 25th instant. The want of almost every necessary for the journey—and a still greater inducemt if possible, the want of my Papers, requisite to a full and final settlement with the Country oblige me to take my own house in the way down.
Those matters which your honor has glanced at in your letters, have been fully communicated to me—That you had not the least share in causing it, I am equally well satisfied of;2 and shall think myself honored with your Esteem: Being, with the greatest Respect, your most obedient, and most oblig’d Humble Servant,
G:W.
LB (recopied), DLC:GW.
1. The letter has not been found. GW left Winchester with an escort for Belvoir and Mount Vernon either this day or the next (Robert Stewart to GW, 12 Dec.; , folio 52; Stewart to Forbes, 14 Jan. 1759, Scottish Record Office: Dalhousie Muniments). He was in Williamsburg by 27 Dec. (, folio 53).
2. For what Fauquier may have “glanced at,” or alluded to, in his letters, see William Ramsay to GW, 17 Oct. 1758. Fauquier may have feared that GW might blame him for the provision in the defense bill that he signed on 12 Oct. stipulating that there would be no chaplain, adjutant, quartermaster, or fort major in GW’s regiment and that he as colonel would no longer have allowance for his table (7 171–79). When writing to Forbes on 19 Nov. in response to Forbes’s inquiry about getting a little more money from the Virginia assembly, Fauquier responded that this was not a good time for him to ask it. “Some young Members chose into the Assembly,” he explained, “promised great Things to their Constituents, and set out on this principle; so that it was judged expedient by all sober minded Men not to mention many things, that the great One of keeping the Regiments in pay might not receive any Obstructions” (, 1:107–9).