Washington [119]
The three travelers rode into Philadelphia on September 4. The next morning they repaired to the City Tavern, where delegates decided to hold their meetings in Carpenters’ Hall. The choice of the jowly Peyton Randolph to chair the Congress furnished Washington with a potent ally. He’d had business as well as political dealings with Randolph, having loaned him 250 pounds a few years earlier, and Randolph had been one of four people assigned to monitor Washington’s handling of the Custis estate for the General Court.
The taciturn Washington, at forty-two, found himself in an assembly of splendid talkers who knew how to pontificate on every subject. John Adams left this slightly mocking commentary on the verbose gathering: “Every man in it is a great man—an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.”27 Relegated to a secondary role, the modest, retiring Washington wasn’t appointed to either of the two new committees: one on colonial rights, the other on trade policy with Great Britain. Nonetheless, in this conclave of talkative egomaniacs, Washington’s understated style had an inevitable appeal. Amid gifted talkers, he was a masterful listener who characterized his role as that of “an attentive observer and witness.”28 It was slowly becoming clear that, in a fractious, boisterous gathering, a calm figure of sound judgment such as Washington could inspire confidence and serve as a unifying figure.
Amid much overheated rhetoric, Washington spoke hard, plain truths. Silas Deane of Connecticut reported home that the stony-faced George Washington had a “hard countenance” and was “a tolerable speaker . . . who speaks very modestly in a cool but determined style and accent.”29 A Virginian praised Washington as “a man noted as well for his good sense as his bravery.”30 From Washington’s recent letters to Bryan Fairfax, we know that he could serve up impassioned language, so that his reticence in Philadelphia reflected not simply a circumspect personality but a fine-tuned political instinct. On the surface, Washington may have been cool and phlegmatic, but he was fiery underneath, blasting the British as “diabolic contrivers.”31
The specter of military action preoccupied delegates who sized up Washington as a prospective commander in chief. There was an esprit de corps about Washington and his self-assured Virginians. According to John Adams, the Virginians “were the most spirited” people in the hall, and one Pennsylvanian said that, in comparison, “the Bostonians are mere milksops.”32 The delegates swapped tales of Washington’s youthful exploits in the French and Indian War, with Silas Deane writing excitedly home that Washington “was in the first actions in 1753 and 1754 on the Ohio and in 1755 was with Braddock and was the means of saving the remains of that unfortunate army.”33 In an inspired mood, Dr. Solomon Drowne of Rhode Island composed a martial tribute in verse to Washington: “With manly gait / His faithful steel suspended by his side, / Pass’d W-shi-gt-n along, Virginia’s hero.” People buttonholed him and pressed him to accept the army command, if offered. While hoping to avert bloodshed, Washington warned one correspondent that “more blood will be spilt on this occasion (if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity) than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America.”34
Increasingly a seasoned politician, gifted with a light touch, Colonel Washington seemed to know that self-promotion would only backfire among delegates who, by the nature of their revolt, possessed heightened fears of power-hungry leaders. The last thing they wanted was a general who pushed himself forward too overtly. As stories about Washington swirled around the Congress, he let them do the talking. Thomas Lynch of South Carolina told John Adams that Washington “had made the most eloquent speech at the Virginia Convention that ever was made. Says he, ‘I will raise 1000