returned indoors five hours later. Still in his cold, wet clothes, he
tended to some correspondence and ate dinner. Next morning he awoke with a
sore throat, and later in the day his voice grew hoarse. About 2 A.M. on
December 14 he awoke suddenly with severe chills and was having trouble
breathing and speaking. Three doctors attended him—his personal physician
and longtime friend Dr. James Craik and consultants Drs. Gustavus Richard
Brown and Elisha Cullen Dick. They diagnosed his condition as inflammatory
quinsy. The patient was bled on four separate occasions, a standard
practice of the period. Washington tried to swallow a concoction of
molasses, vinegar, and butter to soothe his raw throat but could not get it
down. He was able to take a little calomel and tartar emetic and to inhale
vinegar vapor, but his pulse remained weak throughout the day. The
physicians raised blisters on his throat and lower limbs as a counter-
irritant and applied a poultice, but neither was effective. Finally,
Washington told his doctors to give up and about 10 P.M. spoke weakly to
Tobias Lear, his fide, "I am just going. Have me decently buried and do not
let my body be put into a vault in less than two days after I am dead. Do
you understand me?" "Yes, sir," replied Lear. "'Tis well,"12 said
Washington. These were his last words. Soon thereafter he died while taking
his own pulse. After a lock of his hair was removed, his body was placed
in a mahogany coffin bearing the Latin inscriptions Surge Ad Judicium and
Gloria Deo. The funeral services, con ducted by the Reverend Thomas Davis
on December 18, were far from the simple ceremony Washington had requested.
A procession of mourners filed between two long rows of soldiers, a band
played appropriate music, guns boomed in tribute from a ship anchored in
the Potomac, and the Masonic order to which Washington belonged sent a
large contingent. His remains were deposited in the family tomb at Mount
Vernon. In his last will and testament, a 42-page document executed in his
own hand in July 1799, Washington provided his widow with the use and
benefit of the estate, valued at more than $500,000, during her lifetime.
He freed his personal servant William with a $30 annuity and ordered the
rest of the slaves freed upon Martha's death. He left his stock in the Bank
of Alexandria to a school for poor and orphaned children and ordered his
stock in the Potomac Company to be applied toward the construction of a
national university. He forgave the debts of his brother Samuel's family
and that of his brother-in-law Bartholomew Dandridge. He also ensured that
his aide Tobias Lear would live rent free for the rest of his life. To
nephew Bushrod Washington he left Mount Vernon, his personal papers, and
his library. His grandchildren Mrs. Nellie Lewis and George Washington
Parke Custis received large, choice tracts. In sundry other bequests, the
gold-headed cane Benjamin Franklin had given him went to his brother
Charles, his writing desk and chair to Doctor Craik, steel pistols taken
from the British during the Revolution to Lafayette, and a sword to each of
five nephews on the assurance that they will never "unsheath them for the
purpose of shedding blood except it be for self-defence, or in defence of
their country and its rights, and in the latter case to keep them
unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, to the
relinquishment thereof."
WASHINGTON PRAISED: "A gentleman whose skill and experience as an
officer, whose independent fortune, great talents and excellent universal
character would command the approbation of all America and unite the
cordial exertions of all the Colonies better than any other person in the
union."—John Adams, in proposing Washington as commander in chief of the
Continental army, 1775.
"You would, at this side of the sea [in Europe], enjoy the great
reputation you have acquired, pure and free from those little shades that
the jealousy and envy of a man's countrymen and contemporaries are ever
endeavouring to cast over living merit. Here you would know, and enjoy,
what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly
the same effect with a thousand years. The feeble voice of those grovelling
passions cannot extend so far either in time or distance. At present I
enjoy that pleasure for you, as I frequently hear the old generals of this
martial country [France] (who study the maps of America and mark upon them
all your operations) speak with sincere approbation and great applause of
your conduct; and join in giving you the character of one of the greatest
captains of the age." – Benjamin Franklin, 1780.
"More than any other individual, and as much as to one individual was
possible, has he contributed to found this, our wide spreading empire, and
to give to the Western World independence and freedom."—John Marshall.
"To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in
the hearts of his countrymen."—Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, 1799.
WASHINGTON CRITICIZED: "If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the
American nation has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation was
deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington.
Let his conduct, then, be an example to future ages; let it serve to be a
warning that no man may be an idol."17—Philadelphia Atirora, 1796.
"An Anglican monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose
avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done
the forms, of the British government. ... It would give you a fever were I
to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who
were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had
their heads shorn by the harlot England."—Thomas Jefferson, in the wake of
Washington's support of Jay's Treaty, 1796.
"You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and swallowing
the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from one end to the
other, to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many
addresses in your chest as James the II. ... The character which Mr.
Washington has attempted to act in this world, is a sort of non-
describable, camelion-colored thing, called prudence. It is, in many cases,
a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy, that it
easily slides into it. ... And as to you, sir, treacherous to private
friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and
a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you
are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles,
or whether you ever had any?"—Thomas Paine, in an open letter to
Washington, 1796.
WASHINGTON QUOTES: "It is easy to make acquaintances but very difficult
to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found after we
have once committed ourselves to them. ... Be courteous to all but intimate
with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your
confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth."
"As the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our
liberties, so it ought to be the first to be laid aside when those
liberties are firmly established."—1776
"Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be
braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution
be reprehended: if defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be
trampled upon whilst it has an existence."—1786
"[Political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an
artificial and extraordinary force to put, in the place of the delegated
will of the Nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and
enterprizing minority of the community; and according to the alternate
triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror
of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the
organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and
modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the
above description may now and then answer Popular ends, they are likely in
the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning,
ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the
People and to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying
afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust
dominion."—1796 (Farewell Address).'
BOOKS ABOUT WASHINGTON.
1. Childrens Britanica “Presidents of the USA”
2. “The complete book of U.S. Presidents”
3. American’s First President. “Focus on the U.S.A.”
4. George Washington: Man and Monument”. (Cunliffe, Marcus)
5. James T. Flexner. “George Washington: A Biography”.
