He
was accustomed, even in the time of his greatest difficulties, to
contribute largely, out of his slender means, to her comfort; and
one of his last acts of filial duty was to write 'Rasselas'
for the purpose of paying her little debts and defraying
her funeral charges.
George Washington was only eleven years of age--the eldest of
five children--when his father died, leaving his mother a widow.
She was a woman of rare excellence--full of resources, a good
woman of business, an excellent manager, and possessed of much
strength of character. She had her children to educate and bring
up, a large household to govern, and extensive estates to manage,
all of which she accomplished with complete success. Her good
sense, assiduity, tenderness, industry, and vigilance, enabled her
to overcome every obstacle; and as the richest reward of her
solicitude and toil, she had the happiness to see all her children
come forward with a fair promise into life, filling the spheres
allotted to them in a manner equally honourable to themselves, and
to the parent who had been the only guide of their, principles,
conduct, and habits. (6)
The biographer of Cromwell says little about the Protector's
father, but dwells upon the character of his mother, whom he
describes as a woman of rare vigour and decision of purpose: "A
woman," he says, "possessed of the glorious faculty of self-help
when other assistance failed her; ready for the demands of fortune
in its extremest adverse turn; of spirit and energy equal to her
mildness and patience; who, with the labour of her own hands, gave
dowries to five daughters sufficient to marry them into families
as honourable but more wealthy than their own; whose single pride
was honesty, and whose passion was love; who preserved in the
gorgeous palace at Whitehall the simple tastes that distinguished
her in the old brewery at Huntingdon; and whose only care, amidst
all her splendour, was for the safety of her son in his dangerous
eminence.
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