think, to give our money for their exports, whether we will or
not; and certain I am, none of their traders will part from them
without a valuable consideration. Where then, is the utility of
the restrictions? As to the Stamp Act, taken in a single view, one
and the first bad consequence attending it, I take to be this,
our courts of judicature must inevitably be shut up; for it
is impossible, (or next of kin to it), under our present
circumstances, that the act of Parliament can be complied with,
were we ever so willing to enforce the execution; for, not to say,
which alone would be sufficient, that we have not money to pay the
stamps, there are many other cogent reasons, to prevent it; and if
a stop be put to our judicial proceedings, I fancy the merchants
of Great Britain, trading to the colonies, will not be among the
last to wish for a repeal of it.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, II, 209-10.]

This passage would suffice, were there not many similar which might be
quoted, to prove that Washington was from the start a loyal American.
A legend which circulated during his lifetime, and must have been
fabricated by his enemies, for I find no evidence to support it either
in his letters or in other trustworthy testimony, insinuated that he
was British at heart and threw his lot in with the Colonists only when
war could not be averted. In 1770 the merchants of Philadelphia
drew up an agreement in which they pledged themselves to practise
non-importation of British goods sent to America. Washington's wise
neighbor and friend, George Mason, drafted a plan of association of
similar purport to be laid before the Virginia Burgesses. But Lord
Botetourt, the new Royal Governor, deemed some of these resolutions
dangerous to the prerogative of the King, and dissolved the Assembly.