The bridal couple spent two or three months at the White House.  The Custis estates were large and in so much need of oversight that if Washington had not appeared at this time, a bailiff, or manager, would have had to be hired for them.  Henceforth Washington seems to have added the care of the White House to that of Mount Vernon, and the two involved a burden which occupied most of his time, for he had retired from the army.  His fellow citizens, however, had elected him a member of the House of Burgesses, a position he held for many years; going to Williamsburg every season to attend the sessions of the Assembly.  On his first entrance to take his seat, Mr. Robinson, the Speaker, welcomed him in Virginia’s name, and praised him for his high achievements.  This so embarrassed the modest young member that he was unable to reply, upon which Speaker Robinson said, “Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language that I possess.”  In all his life, probably, Washington never heard praise more genuine or more deserved.  He had just passed his twenty-seventh year.  In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member.  He never acquired the art of a debater.  He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on the subject under discussion.  How careful he was to observe the scope and effects of parliamentary speaking appears from a letter which he wrote many years later.

Agriculture has always been a particularly fine training-ground for statesmen.  To persons who do not watch it closely, it may seem monotonous.  In reality, while the sum of the conditions of one year tally closely with those of another, the daily changes and variations create a variety which must be constantly watched and provided for.  A sudden freshet and unseasonable access of heat or cold, a scourge of hail, a drought, a murrain among the cattle, call for ingenuity and for resourcefulness; and for courage, a higher moral quality.  Constant comradeship with Nature seems to beget placidity and quiet assurance.  From using the great natural forces which bring to pass crops and the seasons, they seem to work in and through him also.  The banker, the broker, even the merchant, lives in a series of whirlwinds, or seems to be pursuing a mirage or groping his way through a fog.  The farmer, although he be not beyond the range of accident, deals more continually with causes which regularly produce certain effects.  He knows a rainbow by sight and does not waste his time and money in chasing it.

No better idea of Washington’s activity as a planter can be had than from his brief and terse journals as an agriculturist.  He sets down day by day what he did and what his slaves and the free employees did on all parts of his estate.  We see him as a regular and punctual man.  He had a moral repugnance to idleness.  He himself worked steadily and he chided the incompetent, the shirkers, and the lazy.