"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, and must undergo & withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.“
George Washington
S1001
January 15, 1783
Extracted from a letter from George Washington to his nephew Bushrod Washington, who would eventually serve as a justice on the Supreme Court and inherit Washington’s estate: Mount Vernon.
The Treaty of Paris will be signed later this same year on September 03, 1783 and the last significant battle was the siege of Yorktown in October 1781, where British General Cornwallis surrendered to the combined American and French forces.
George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau worked closely together to coordinate the land siege, while Comte de Grasse’s fleet prevented British reinforcements or evacuation by sea. This combined land and naval operation effectively trapped British General Cornwallis and his forces, leading to their surrender on October 19, 1781.
By January 1783, the major fighting of the American Revolution (1775-1783) had already ended.
The war was essentially in a diplomatic phase. Preliminary peace negotiations had been ongoing since 1782, and both sides were working toward the final treaty terms. British forces still occupied some American cities like New York, but the formal cessation of hostilities had been declared and it was really just a matter of finalizing the peace agreement and arranging for the withdrawal of British troops.
Washington’s lengthy advice letter to Bushrod was prompted by his concern about the family’s financial pressures and his desire to ensure his nephew didn’t contribute to the problem through excessive spending or poor habits while pursuing his legal education in Philadelphia.
U1897.1.1 George Washington as Colonel in the Virginia Regiment, Charles Willson Peale, 1772. Washington-Custis-Lee Collection, Washington and Lee University, Lexington VA
Bushrod was studying law in Philadelphia under the instruction of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Judge James Wilson.
Bushrod’s father and one George Washington’s younger brothers, John Augustine Washington, had written he was having difficulty making financial remittances to support his son’s studies. The following day (on January 16th), John “in one or two of his letters” about “the difficulty he is under to make [Bushrod] remittances”.
This concerned was related to another one of George’s brothers, Samuel Washington, who had gotten “enormously in debt” through what George suspected might be “purchases,” “misfortunes,” or “shear indolence & inattention to business”. Their mother was complaining about financial difficulties and the management of her plantation. Virginia gentlemen were “driven by an accumulation of Taxes & the want of a market”.
As Washington states in the letter:
“Your Father, who seems to entertain a very favourable opinion of your prudence, & I hope, you merit it; in one or two of his letters to me, speaks of the difficulty he is under to make you remittances.
Yet when I take a view of the inexperience of youth, the temptation, & vices of Cities; and the distresses to which our Virginia Gentlemen are driven by an accumulation of Taxes & the want of a market; I am almost inclined to ascribe it in part to both. Therefore, as a friend, I give you the following advice.
It is easy to make acquaintances but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome & unprofitable they are found after we have once committed ourselves to them—the indiscretions & scrapes which very often they involuntarily lead one into, proves equally distressing & disgraceful.
George Washington at Princeton by Charles Peale Polk (American, 1767-1822), c. 1788, oil on canvas, M-4853, Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.
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, and must undergo & withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
Let your heart feel for the affliction, & distresses of every one—and let your hand give, in proportion to your purse—remembering always, the estimation of the Widows mite. But, that it is not every one who asketh, that deserveth charity; all however are worthy of the enquiry—or the deserving may suffer.”
George Washington After the Battle of Princeton by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), c. 1779-81, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Letters
- George Washington to Bushrod Washington, January 15, 1783
- George Washington to John Augustine Washington, January 16, 1783 (
Rembrandt Peale