Washington [297]
On May 22, 1782, Colonel Lewis Nicola of the Continental Army had the effrontery to suggest to Washington that he reign as America’s first monarch. He sent him a seven-page diatribe, citing “the weakness of republics” and the Continental Army’s privations at the hands of a feckless Congress, then conjured up a benevolent monarchy with Washington seated splendidly on the throne. “Some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny and monarchy as to find it very difficult to separate them . . . but if all other things are once adjusted, I believe strong arguments might be produced for admitting the title of king.”15
While he had roundly berated congressional ineptitude, Washington had never entertained the idea of a monarchy and was left to wonder whether Nicola was the instrument of a covert army faction that favored a king. His reply, sent the same day, fairly breathed with horror. What makes the letter so impressive is its finality—this serpent must be killed in the egg: “Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed and [that] I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity.”16 He didn’t dare tell a soul about Nicola’s letter, he said, lest it contaminate men’s minds: “I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable . . . Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind.”17 Washington set such store by this momentous letter that, for the only time in the war, he demanded proof from his aides that his response was sealed and posted. Stunned, Nicola stammered out three replies in as many days, offering apologies for broaching the taboo subject.
During the summer of 1782 Washington showed his willingness to accept recognition of a more democratic sort when the newly incorporated Washington College was named in his honor in Chestertown, Maryland. Washington seldom allowed the use of his name, suggesting that he was flattered by this distinction. “I am much indebted for the honor conferred on me by giving my name to the college at Chester,” he wrote to the Reverend William Smith, the school’s first president, a Scottish Anglican clergyman. Washington donated fifty guineas to the school—promptly used to purchase optical instruments—and also served on its board.18 Always regretting his own lack of a college education, Washington had surrounded himself with college-educated men, and his patronage of Washington College was perhaps a final way of wiping away that ancient stigma. In 1789 he received an honorary degree from the school.
At times during this uneventful year, Washington sent halfhearted letters to Rochambeau, proposing operations against New York or Charleston—suggestions that came to naught. Suspecting a British ploy, Washington scoffed at rumors of a negotiated peace in the offing and grew especially vigilant after Admiral Rodney defeated de Grasse in the Caribbean in April, sending London into a delirium of joy. Even when official word came in August from the British command in New York that peace talks had been opened in Paris, Washington still couldn’t conquer his ingrained suspicion. “That the King will push the war as long as the nation will find men or money admits not of a doubt in my mind,” he said flatly.19 A thoroughgoing skeptic in foreign policy, Washington denigrated the British as devoid of idealism and driven only by pride and self-interest. Before setting aside arms, he wanted nothing less than “an absolute, unequivocal admission