He served there for fifteen years, living the life of the
typical Virginia planter on his estate of Mount Vernon, which had passed
into his possession through the death of his brother's only
child. He had become one of the most important men of the colony, whose
opinion was respected and whose influence was very great.
During all this period, the feeling against England was growing more and
more bitter. Let us be candid about it. The expulsion of the French from
the continent had freed the colonies from the danger of French
aggression and from the feeling that they needed the aid of the mother
country. That they should have been taxed to help defray the great
expense of this war against the French seems reasonable enough, but
there happened to be in power in England, at the time, a few obstinate
and bull-headed statesmen, serving under an obstinate and ignorant king,
and they handled the question of taxation with so little tact and
delicacy that, among them, they managed to rouse the anger of the
colonies to the boiling point.
For the colonists, let us remember, were of the same obstinate and
bull-headed stock, and it was soon evident that the only way to settle
the difference was to fight it out. But the impartial historian must
write it down that the colonies had much more to thank England for than
to complain about, and that at first, the idea of a war for independence
was not a popular one.
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