When trying to win the Indians to the English cause in 1754, Washington in his journal states that he “let the young Indians who were in our camp know that the French wanted to kill the Half King,” a diplomatic statement he hardly believed, which the writer says “had its desired effect,” and which the French editor declared to be an “imposture.”  In this same campaign he was forced to sign a capitulation which acknowledged that he had been guilty of assassination, and this raised such a storm in Virginia when it became known that Washington hastened to deny all knowledge of the charge having been contained among the articles, and alleged that it had not been made clear to him when the paper had been translated and read.  On the contrary, another officer present at the reading states that he refused to “sign the Capitulation because they charged us with Assasination in it.”

In writing to an Indian agent in 1755, Washington was “greatly enraptured” at hearing of his approach, dwelt upon the man’s “hearty attachment to our glorious Cause” and his “Courage of which I have had very great proofs.”  Inclosing a copy of the letter to the governor, Washington said, “the letter savors a little of flattery &c., &c., but this, I hope is justifiable on such an occasion.”

With his London agent there was a little difficulty in 1771, and Washington objected to a letter received “because there is one paragraph in particular in it ... which appears to me to contain an implication of my having deviated from the truth.”  A more general charge was Charles Lee’s:  “I aver that his Excellencies letter was from beginning to the end a most abominable lie.”

As a ruse de guerre Washington drew up for a spy in 1779 a series of false statements as to the position and number of his army for him to report to the British.  And in preparation for the campaign of 1781 “much trouble was taken and finesse used to misguide and bewilder Sir Henry Clinton by making a deceptive provision of ovens, forage and boats in his neighborhood.”  “Nor were less pains taken to deceive our own army,” and even “the highest military as well as civil officers” were deceived at this time, not merely that the secret should not leak out, but also “for the important purpose of inducing the eastern and middle states to make greater exertions.”

When travelling through the South in 1791, Washington entered in his diary, “Having suffered very much by the dust yesterday—­and finding that parties of Horse, & a number of other Gentlemen were intending to attend me part of the way to-day, I caused their enquiries respecting the time of my setting out, to be answered that, I should endeavor to do it before eight o’clock; but I did it a little after five, by which means I avoided the inconveniences above mentioned.”