There can be no doubt that Washington felt his lack of education very keenly as he came to act upon a larger sphere than as a Virginia planter.  “I am sensible,” he wrote a friend, of his letters, “that the narrations are just, and that truth and honesty will appear in my writings; of which, therefore, I shall not be ashamed, though criticism may censure my style.”  When his secretary suggested to him that he should write his own life, he replied, “In a former letter I informed you, my dear Humphreys, that if I had talents for it, I have not leisure to turn my thoughts to Commentaries.  A consciousness of a defective education, and a certainty of the want of time, unfit me for such an undertaking.”  On being pressed by a French comrade-in-arms to pay France a visit, he declined, saying, “Remember, my good friend, that I am unacquainted with your language, that I am too far advanced in years to acquire a knowledge of it, and that, to converse through the medium of an interpreter upon common occasions, especially with the Ladies, must appear so extremely awkward, insipid, and uncouth, that I can scarce bear it in idea.”

In 1788, without previous warning, he was elected chancellor of William and Mary College, a distinction by which he felt “honored and greatly affected;” but “not knowing particularly what duties, or whether any active services are immediately expected from the person holding the office of chancellor, I have been greatly embarrassed in deciding upon the public answer proper to be given....  My difficulties are briefly these.  On the one hand, nothing in this world could be farther from my heart, than ... a refusal of the appointment ... provided its duties are not incompatible with the mode of life to which I have entirely addicted myself; and, on the other hand, I would not for any consideration disappoint the just expectations of the convocation by accepting an office, whose functions I previously knew ...  I should be absolutely unable to perform.”

Perhaps the most touching proof of his own self-depreciation was something he did when he had become conscious that his career would be written about.  Still in his possession were the letter-books in which he had kept copies of his correspondence while in command of the Virginia regiment between 1754 and 1759, and late in life he went through these volumes, and, by interlining corrections, carefully built them into better literary form.  How this was done is shown here by a single facsimile.

With the appointment to command the Continental Army, a secretary was secured, and in an absence of this assistant he complained to him that “my business increases very fast, and my distresses for want of you along with it.  Mr. Harrison is the only gentleman of my family, that can afford me the least assistance in writing.  He and Mr. Moylan,... have heretofore afforded me their aid; and ... they have really had a great deal of trouble.”

Most of Washington’s correspondence during the Revolution was written by his aides.  Pickering said,—­