course of events, pursued
his daily business regularly, attended the House of Burgesses when it
was in session, said little, but thought much. He did not break
out into invective or patriotic appeals. No doubt many of his
acquaintances thought him lukewarm in spirit and non-committal; but
persons who knew him well knew what his decision must be. As early as
April 5, 1769, he wrote his friend, George Mason:

At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be
satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American
freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done
to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty, which we have
derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer
the purpose effectually, is the point in question.

That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use a--ms in
defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil
of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet a--ms, I would beg
leave to add, should be the last resource, the dernier resort.
Addresses to the throne, and remonstrances to Parliament, we have
already, it is said, proved the inefficiency of. How far, then,
their attention to our rights and privileges is to be awakened or
alarmed, by starving their trade and manufacturers, remains to be
tried.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, II, 263-64.]

Thus wrote the Silent Member six years before the outbreak of
hostilities, and he did not then display any doubt either of his
patriotism, or of the course which every patriot must take. To his
intimates he spoke with point-blank candor. Years later, George Mason
wrote to him:

I never forgot your declaration, when I had last the pleasure of
being at your house in 1768, that you were ready to take your
musket upon your shoulder whenever your country called upon you.

Some writers point out that Washington excelled rather as a critic of
concrete plans than of constitutional and legal aspects. Perhaps this
is true. Assuredly he had no formal legal training. There were many
other men in Massachusetts, in Virginia, and in some of the other
Colonies, who could and did analyze minutely the Colonists' protest
against taxation without representation, and the British rebuttal
thereof; but Washington's strength lay in his primal wisdom, the
wisdom which is based not on conventions, even though they be laws and
constitutions, but on a kno