Washington [21]
In a bizarre piece of timing, George attempted a bit of courtship from his sick-bed. He sought to win the hand of sixteen-year-old Elizabeth “Betsy” Fauntleroy, whose father was a luminary in Richmond County. The adolescent George seemed to daydream about one rich, unattainable girl after another. Having now recovered from the charms of the “Low Land Beauty,” he was stalking bigger game. From a letter that he wrote to William Fauntleroy, Betsy’s father, we can see that the girl had already rejected his advances. As George apprised the father, he intended “as soon as I recover my strength to wait on Miss Betsy in hopes of a revocation of the former, cruel sentence and see if I can meet with any alteration in my favor.”45 Unfortunately we do not have the father’s response to this letter, leaving us to wonder whether Fauntleroy scoffed at George as a bumptious parvenu who aspired above his social rank.
Fate was about to hand George some advantages that would bring such a lofty marriage within his grasp. Lawrence’s hope that Bermuda would rejuvenate him turned out to be his last illusion: returning to Virginia, he died at Mount Vernon on July 26, 1752. For George, his brother’s death at age thirty-four was emotionally equivalent to the death of a second father and possibly more devastating. He had identified with Lawrence, shared in his professional life, and participated intimately in his terminal illness. Lawrence left his affairs in such a disorderly state that George, as an executor, bewailed their being in “the utmost confusion.”46 Luckily, the debts proved manageable, and Lawrence’s death provided another bonanza for George, on whom windfalls showered at the most implausible moments. In his will, Lawrence bequeathed to him three parcels of land in Fredericksburg. Far more consequential was a clause stipulating that, if Ann and their infant daughter died without an heir, George would inherit the 2,500 acres of Mount Vernon and adjoining properties “in consideration of the natural love and affection” which Lawrence had borne “unto his loving brother George Washington.”47 At the time of Lawrence’s death, this eventuality seemed a distant prospect, many decades away, if ever.
George had long hoped to emulate his admired brother, but now he would almost graft his life onto Lawrence’s, as if George would extend his brother’s short life and fulfill its golden promise. The older brother became a revered figure in George’s memory, “a young man of the most promising talents.”48 Though George was poorly equipped for such a post, lacking military experience, he vigorously pursued the position of adjutant general left vacant by his brother’s death. Inspired by Lawrence’s example, he decided to swap a surveyor’s life for that of a soldier. The colony had now been divided into four districts, with an adjutant responsible for each. Naturally, George wanted to serve as adjutant in the district covering the Northern Neck. When he was awarded the Southern District instead, he seemed not thrilled by his assignment to an important post but dismayed by the low-prestige district.
At twenty, George already had enough powerful patrons in Williamsburg to jockey to alter the decision. When William Fitzhugh, who was named to the Northern Neck adjutancy, moved to Maryland, Washington saw an opening to lobby to replace him. “I am sensible my best endeavors will not be wanting and doubt not but by a constant application to fit myself for the office,” he wrote to Dinwiddie. “Could I presume your Honour had not in view a more deserving person, I flatter myself I should meet with the approbation of the Gentlemen of the council.”49 The young Washington could be alternately fawning and assertive, appealingly modest and distressingly pushy. While he knew the social forms, he could never quite restrain, much less conceal,