I stood still a minute, and then went to the house and told Lawrence, and asked him to have the man looked after. Lawrence, being very angry, said: “This comes of your hot temper. Once our father nearly killed a man for a small matter, and that cured him; I hope this may cure you.” I said nothing, and went to see if the man was badly hurt. Peter only laughed and said: “Master George, you hit mighty hard.” I liked the man, and, although no one else spoke of the matter again, it had more effect on me than the many good resolutions I had written or made as to keeping my temper. I have rarely lost it completely since that time: once at Monmouth, once after Edmund Randolph’s treachery, and once when General Knox, then of my cabinet, showed me a vile caricature of myself being guillotined.
Like other men, I have had my times of being irritable, but open anger is with me like to a tornado, and if I give way I am as is a ship in a storm when no anchors hold. General Hamilton, on one occasion, observed to me that there were some talents which it was good that men should know you to be possessed of, because once they were aware of this, you were not so apt to be called upon to use them, and this may be true of that rage of anger I now speak of. But I cannot think it a thing of value, nor of any real use; for if it follow another’s actions, it can do no good, and there are better ways of showing disapprobation.
The other matter to which his lordship alludes is that I was, at this time, the victim of one of those attachments to a lady older than myself from which lads are apt to suffer. It was not the last, for in the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter. My fancy lasted for some months, but was cured at last by hard work and life in the saddle. It was full time that I got away from the easy hospitality of Belvoir and Mount Vernon. A masterful nature amid slaves is not so well situated as among scenes where he has to contend with those who can resist. Since I became a man I never approved of human slavery, and surely the worst thing ever done to the colonies was the act of England in forcing upon us an endurance of the trade in slaves. The evil results of this tyranny I do not propose to discuss fully, but sure I am that the continuance of this form of servitude will some day give rise to troubles. I find myself, however, inclined to believe that the habit of mastery, also the aristocratic turn which society acquired in Virginia, had a certain value in our war with the mother country. In Virginia the minor officers, such as captains, were of a higher class than their privates, and for this reason, and on account of being from youth upward accustomed to command obedience and exact discipline, were in this respect well fitted for warfare. In New England, especially, under more democratic circumstances, and also because there were few slaves, the officers, such as captains and lieutenants, were unused to control men who, being of their own class, acknowledged of late years no such differences of position as in Virginia, and were very insubordinate. I found in this state of things a serious obstacle to discipline when I first took command at Cambridge.