GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2009, 31 July 1919, Page 4

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

NEARLY JOINED THE BRITISH NAVY. A MOTHER WHO CHANGED HISTORY. The London Daily Telegraph recently instituted an appeal for public contributions towards a fund of £25,000 for the purchase of Sulgrave Manor, in Northamptonshire, the-home of the ancestors of George Washington. The object of the purchase is to establish “something which will remind us all of our common origin, whether our home be on this or the other side of the Atlantic.” To Sulgrave Manor, George Washington —“that great Englishman who was also a great American” —could trace his ancestors. There they lived in the spacious Tu-dor-period, and to the robust British traditions which animated their lives he owed that strength of character which enabled him to become the lirst President of the American Republic. It is therefore, says the Telegraph, a link between the two great divisions of the-Anglo-Saxon race, and the present scheme is inspired by the ideal that it shall develop into a permanent pledge of friendship.

Mr Archibald Hurd recalls the fact that George Washington only narrowly escaped becoming an officer of the British Navy, following in the footsteps of his half-brother, Lawrence, and that he died at the house on the River Potomac which perpetuates the memory of one of the outstanding figures of the British Naval Service in the eighteenth century. It was the fears of an anxious parent which robbed the Royal Navy of a budding admiral, and gave to the Republic of the United States its first President. It may be that if Mrs Washington had not hesitated at the last moment, when the midshipman’s’ warrant for George Washington had been received, wc should have counted him among our naval heroes, commemorating his services much as we do those of Nelson. For if he had been an admiral, assuredly he would have been a great admiral. But this is to invade the realm of the might-have-beens.

Lawrence Washington, George’s eldest half-brother, who was much his senior, served with some distinction under Admiral Edward Vernon, an officer who was a good deal of a character, and was known as “Old Grog” in the service. Hence, when in order to check drunkenness, he directed water to be mixed with the seamen’s rum, the mixture came to be described as “grog,” and is so described to this day. Lawrence Washington formed a great affection for this strange man, and a close friendship sprang up between them. The original Washington to settle on the other side of the Atlantic bequeathed to his son an estate on the Potomac — Little Hunting Creek Plantation. This eventually passed to George Washington’s father, and on his death came into the possession of Lawrence. He had recently quitted the British naval service, having fought beside Boscawen at the attack .on Carthagena under Vernon’s orders, and when he put up a villa on the estate as a residence more to his taste, he named it Mount Vernon. In due course this house became the home of George Washington, and though in the-meantime a new page of the world’s history had been opened, to be devoted to the story of the great American Republic, the name was never changed. As one of the most cherished heirlooms of the American people, Mount Vernon perpetuates on that side of the Atlantic the fame of a British naval officer whose name is hardly remembered in this country.

It should be added that Lawrence Washington’s enthusiasm for the British Navy led him to suggest to his stepmother, then a widow, that George should become an officer in it. He enlisted the assistance of Admiral Vernon to that end, and in 1746 a midshipman’s warrant was obtained. Then the mother wavered. Should she let her boy, only 14 years of age, go to sea? She hesitated for some time, but at last decided against the suggestion. Thus was the course of history changed by the imaginings and forebodings of a fond mother!

George Washington nevertheless grew up to be an officer of the King, and in 1758 he reduced Fort Dequesne, having the privilege to “march and plant the British flag on the yet 'smoking ruins.”