Chapter XI. The Mutterings of the Storm
And now for several years Washington lived
the life of a country
gentleman. He had enough to do, taking care of his plantations,
hunting
foxes with his sport-loving neighbors, and sitting for a part
of each
year in the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg.
He was a tall man--more than six feet in height. He had a
commanding
presence and a noble air, which plainly said: "This is
no common man."
He was shrewd in business. He was the best horseman and the
best
walker in Virginia. And no man knew more about farming than
he.
And so the years passed pleasantly enough at Mount Vernon,
and there
were few who dreamed of the great events and changes that were
soon to
take place.
King George the Third of England, who was the ruler of the
thirteen
colonies, had done many unwise things.
He had made laws forbidding the colonists from trading with
other
countries than his own.
He would not let them build factories to weave their wool
and flax into
cloth.
He wanted to force them to buy all their goods in England,
and to send
their corn and tobacco and cotton there to pay for them.
And now after the long war with France he wanted to make the
colonists
pay heavy taxes in order to meet the expenses of that war.
They must not drink a cup of tea without first paying tax
on it - they
must not sign a deed or a note without first buying stamped
paper on
which to write it.
In every colony there was great excitement on account of the
tea tax
and the stamp act, as it was called.
In the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, a young man, whose
name was
Patrick Henry, made a famous speech in which he declared that
the king
had no right to tax them without their consent.
George Washington heard that speech, and gave it his approval.
Not long afterward, news came that in Boston a ship-load of
tea had been
thrown into the sea by the colonists. Rather than pay the tax
upon it,
they would drink no tea.
Then, a little later, still other news came. The king had
closed the
port of Boston, and would not allow any ships to come in or
go out.
More than this, he had sent over a body of soldiers, and had
quartered
them in Boston in order to keep the people in subjection.
The whole country was aroused now. What did this mean? Did
the king
intend to take away from the colonists all the liberties that
are so
dear to men?
The colonies must unite and agree upon doing something to
protect
themselves and preserve their freedom. In order to do this
each colony
was asked to send delegates to Philadelphia to talk over the
matter and
see what would be the best thing to do.
George Washington was one of the delegates from Virginia.
Before starting he made a great speech
in the House of Burgesses. "If
necessary, I will raise a thousand men," he said, "subsist
them at my
own expense, and march them to the relief of Boston."
But the time for marching to Boston had not quite come.
The delegates from the different colonies met in Carpenter's
Hall, in
Philadelphia, on the 5th of September, 1774. Their meeting
has since
been known as the First Continental Congress of America.
For fifty-one days those wise, thoughtful men discussed the
great
question that had brought them together. What could the colonists
do to
escape the oppressive laws that the King of England was trying
to force
upon them?
Many powerful speeches were made, but George Washington sat
silent. He
was a doer rather than a talker.
At last the Congress decided to send an address to the king
to remind
him of the rights of the colonists, and humbly beg that he
would not
enforce his unjust laws.
And then, when all had been done that could be done, Washington
went
back to his home at Mount Vernon, to his family and his friends,
his big
plantations, his fox-hunting, and his pleasant life as a country
gentleman.
But he knew as well as any man that more serious work was
near at hand.
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