George Mason by William G. Hyland

Author:William G. Hyland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regnery History

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Virginia Ratifying Convention

* * *

I believe there are few men in whom [Washington] placed greater confidence; but it is possible my opposition to the new government, both as a member of the national and of the Virginia Convention, may have altered the case.

— GEORGE MASON to his son John (1789)

Weary and graying at sixty-two after the Philadelphia Convention, Mason went home to Gunston Hall and threw himself into improvements of his beloved estate. Mason retreated to the bosom of his devoted family, writing: “[A]t my time of life, my only satisfaction and pleasure is in my children, and all my views are centered in their welfare and happiness.”1 There is little doubt that during his time in Philadelphia Mason suffered political and psychological wounds that never completely healed. He was happy to be returning home, but the severe accident when his carriage overturned on the way back was perhaps an omen. Daniel Carroll, a delegate to the Convention from Maryland, wrote to James Madison chronicling Mason’s accident. After leaving Philadelphia he had overtaken Mason and a traveling companion, James McHenry, on the road: “By the time they had reachd within 9 Miles of Baltimore, they had exhausted all the stories of their youth &ca. and had enterd into a discusn. of the rights to the Western World. You know they are champions on opposite sides of this question. The Majr. having pushd the Col. hard on the Charters of Virginia the latter had just wax’d warm, when his Char[i]oteer put an end to the dispute, by jumbling their Honors together by an oversett. I came up soon after. They were both hurt—the Col. most so—he lost blood at Baltimore, & is well.”2

Mason himself described the accident in a letter to Washington shortly after his return from Philadelphia: “I got very much hurt in my Neck & Head, by the unlucky Accident on the Road; it is now wearing off; tho’ at times still uneasy to me.”3 Washington mentioned the accident in his reply: “I am sorry to hear you met with an accident on your return. I hope you experience no ill effect from it. The family here join me in compliments and good wishes to you, Mrs Mason and Family. I am Dr Sir, Yr Most Obed. & Affecte Hble Servant.”4

It is ironic, perhaps a foreshadowing, that Washington had also suffered misfortune on his way back from the Convention. Washington had set out for Mount Vernon from Philadelphia on the afternoon of September 18, 1787, along with fellow Virginia delegate John Blair. He was in such a hurry to return to his beloved estate that he refused to wait when heavy rains prevented the pair from crossing a ford at Elkton, Maryland. He attempted to send his carriage, loaded with baggage, over an old abandoned bridge. He and Blair got out of the carriage as a precaution against accidents—fortuitously, because the bridge collapsed. One of Washington’s horses, still in harness, dropped fifteen feet, and the other came close to falling, which would have crushed Washington’s carriage.

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