Geo. Washington."

There is a very general belief that success in politics and truthfulness
are incompatible, yet, as already shown, Washington prospered in politics,
and the Rev. Mason L. Weems is authority for the popular statement that at
six years of age George could not tell a lie. Whether this was so, or
whether Mr. Weems was drawing on his imagination for his facts, it seems
probable that Washington partially outgrew the disability in his more
mature years.

When trying to win the Indians to the English cause in 1754, Washington in
his journal states that he "let the young Indians who were in our camp
know that the French wanted to kill the Half King," a diplomatic statement
he hardly believed, which the writer says "had its desired effect," and
which the French editor declared to be an "imposture." In this same
campaign he was forced to sign a capitulation which acknowledged that he
had been guilty of assassination, and this raised such a storm in Virginia
when it became known that Washington hastened to deny all knowledge of the
charge having been contained among the articles, and alleged that it had
not been made clear to him when the paper had been translated and read.
On the contrary, another officer present at the reading states that
he refused to "sign the Capitulation because they charged us with
Assasination in it."

In writing to an Indian agent in 1755, Washington was "greatly enraptured"
at hearing of his approach, dwelt upon the man's "hearty attachment to our
glorious Cause" and his "Courage of which I have had very great proofs."
Inclosing a copy of the letter to the governor, Washington said, "the
letter savors a little of flattery &c., &c., but this, I hope is
justifiable on such an occasion."

With his London agent there was a little difficulty in 1771, and
Washington objected to a letter received "because there is one paragraph
in particular in it ... which appears to me to contain an implication of
my having deviated from the truth." A more general charge was Charles
Lee's: "I aver that his Excellencies letter was from beginning to the end
a most abominable lie."

As a _ruse de guerre_ Washington drew up for a spy in 1779 a series of
false statements as to the position and number of his army for him to
report to the British. And in preparation for the campaign of 1781 "much
trouble was taken and finesse used to misguide and bewilder Sir Henry
Clinton by making a deceptive provision of