Washington [72]
IN MARRYING MARTHA CUSTIS , George Washington inherited the posh commercial connection that Daniel Parke Custis had formed with the top-drawer London firm of Robert Cary and Company. That spring Washington sent an authenticated copy of his marriage certificate to this London agent and advised that “for the future please to address all your letters which relate to the affairs of the late Dan[ie]l Parke Custis Esqr. to me.”31 Like his previous London representative, Richard Washington, Robert Cary and Company were factors who received tobacco shipments from Virginia plantations, sold them at the best possible price, then used the proceeds to purchase wares from fashionable London purveyors. The firm had also collected dividends for Martha from her former husband’s stock in the Bank of England. Robert Cary was a larger and more prestigious house than Richard Washington, providing further proof of Washington’s swift ascent.
Washington’s relationship with Robert Cary formed an integral part of his quest for refinement. A profligate spender, he promptly placed an order with Cary for a new bedroom set, complete with a four-poster bed, window curtains, a bedspread, and four chairs, all upholstered in matching blue and white fabric to give the “uniformly handsome and genteel” effect he desired.32 From this first order, it was plain that the young couple planned to entertain in high style. They ordered a “fashionable set” of dessert glasses, special stands for sweetmeats and jellies, and silver knives and forks with ivory handles. In this first lengthy order, there was also an ominous hint of early dental trouble for Washington, who ordered from an apothecary on Ludgate Hill six bottles of a special brew concocted to cleanse teeth and cure toothaches.
In placing orders for goods from London, Washington often employed two adjectives that nicely sum up his taste: neat and fashionable. In the eighteenth century, the word neat differed subtly from its usage today. According to The Oxford English Dictionary, neat then meant “characterized by elegance of form without unnecessary embellishment; of agreeable but simple appearance; nicely made or proportioned.” In other words, Washington preferred things that were stylish but subdued, denoting his worldly status without showily advertising it. Although he never lived to see England (he told one correspondent in 1760 that he “ardently desired” to go), this young provincial yearned to resemble the better class of London people. 33 In a typical order to his London agents, he wrote, “I have no doubt but you will choose a fashionable colored cloth as well as a good one and make it in the best taste.”34 The Virginia planter trusted blindly to the sartorial judgment of his London tailors. When he ordered “two pair of work[e]d ruffles at a guinea each pair,” he added that “if work[e]d ruffles should be out of fashion, send such as are not.”35 After years of a rough soldierly life, Washington ordered breeches of black silk and crimson velvet. He was careful, however, to warn against lace or embroidery or anything that might stereotype him as a fop. Many of his clothing orders stressed practicality. When ordering a blue hooded greatcoat,