Beschreibung:

WASHINGTON, George (1732-1799). Autograph draft manuscript signed ("Go: Washington" in two places, "George Washington" in text), a draft petition headed "Memorial of Col. Washington of the 1st Virginia on behalf of himself and others," to John Murray 4th Earl of Dunmore (1732-1809), last royal Governor of Virginia, containing many revisions, additions and cross-outs, n.p., n.d. [1-6 Nov. 1771]. Five pages on three sheets, 378 x 235mm. (Two sheets slightly frayed at one edge, catching a few letters of text. Otherwise in excellent condition, with a few minor mends.) A frustrated Washington petitions the Crown for his just reward for French & Indian War Service . This lengthy petition in Washington's hand documents a crucial episode in his journey from loyal British army officer to American revolutionary. In 1754, then royal governor Dinwiddie issued a proclamation, pledging all Virginia recruits a share of 200,000 acres of land in the Ohio Valley. Seventeen years later Washington had still not gotten his land, and he was amazed and enraged when the new governor Dunmore rejected this petition to speed up the process. Not until the peace with France in 1763, and then the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, did Dinwiddie's bounty at last become a reality. But, as Washington here complains to Dunmore, the terms of the proclamation were highly impractical. It called for no more than 20 surveys to allocate the land among the men within five years' time. This would result, Washington argues, in hasty surveys and some men getting stuck with "Cragged Hills and Inhospitable Val[l]eys...as to render the Grant which was intended as a reward for the most laborious, and least desirable Service that any Troops ever engaged in of little or no Value." Ten surveys performed by William Crawford as of November 1771 had encompassed just 61,796 acres. They would never get the remaining 139,000 acres accurately surveyed in just ten more tries. Washington asked that "each individual" be permitted "to Locate his own Land; Spots may be found sufficient to answer each Man's purpose, and a desirable emulation set on foot by which means the country will be explored and settled and in all human probability our Barrier strengthened beyond anything that otherwise could be hoped for." To his astonishment, the governor and his council rejected this reasonable request. But it was not just the cost and inconvenience caused by the Crown's plan that rankle. Washington sees a calculated insult in the British refusal to treat the American soldiers with appropriate respect. Again and again he reverts to the point that the soldiers will "be run to double the expence of other People to obtain these Lands" (by having to pay for additional surveys out of pocket); and "that which was intended as an Incouragement, & offered as a Bounty" will "come with more difficulty and at great[er] expence than any other Individual of the Community is Subject to." His alternative plan he describes as "reasonable, and in no wise repugnant to his Majesty's Interest, as they will be then only on the same footing...of all his other Subjects & Land Petitioner's." The day after Dunmore's action, he vented in a letter that he thought the rejection was due to "lukewarmness in those from whom we seek redress" (GW to G. Mercer, 7 Nov. 1771, Abbot, The Papers of George Washington , 8:541-544). The following year, in November 1772, Washington finally got what he wanted. He convinced the Council to apportion certain select tracts for himself and a group of other officers--men who had borne the cost and hassle of the surveying done thus far. The remainder of the claimants would then subdivide the existing surveyed land amongst themselves. He met with his old regiment in Fredericksburg and pledged that if they felt he was acting unjustly, then he would surrender his entire claim. He was frank with his men: he was asking for special treatment, "which if considered as an indulgence, it is an indulgence