One incident of this early period should not be passed by unmentioned.  Admiral Vernon offered him an appointment as midshipman in the navy, but Washington’s mother objected so strongly that Washington gave up the opportunity.  We may well wonder whether, if he had accepted it, his career might not have been permanently turned aside.  Had he served ten or a dozen years in the navy, he might have grown to be so loyal to the King, that, when the Revolution came, he would have been found in command of one of the King’s men-of-war, ordered to put down the Rebels in Boston, or in New York.  Thus Fate suggests amazing alternatives to us in the retrospect, but in the actual living, Fate makes it clear that the only course which could have happened was that which did happen.

In 1751 the health of Washington’s brother, Lawrence, became so bad from consumption that he decided to pass the winter in a warm climate.  He chose the Island of Barbados, and his brother George accompanied him.  Shortly before sailing, George was commissioned one of the Adjutants-General of Virginia, with the rank of Major, and the pay of L150 a year.  They sailed on the Potomac River, perhaps near Mount Vernon, on September 28, 1751, and landed at Bridgetown on November 3d.  The next day they were entertained at breakfast and dinner by Major Clark, the British officer who commanded some of the fortifications of the island.  “We went,” says George Washington, in a journal he kept, “myself with some reluctance, as the smallpox was in his family.”  Thirteen days later, George fell ill of a very strong case of smallpox which kept him housed for six weeks and left his face much disfigured for life with pock marks, a fact which, so far as I have observed his portraits, the painters have carefully forgotten to indicate.

The brothers passed a fairly pleasant month and a half at the Barbados.  Major Clark, and other gentlemen and officials of the island, showed them much attention.  They enjoyed the hospitality of the Beefsteak and Tripe Club, which seems to have been the fashionable club.  On one occasion, Washington was taken to the play to see the “Tragedy of George Barnwell.”  This may have been the first time that he went to the theatre.  He refers to it in his journal with his habitual caution: 

Was treated with a play ticket by Mr. Carter to see the Tragedy of George Barnwell acted:  the character of Barnwell and several others was said to be well perform’d there was Musick a Dapted and regularly conducted by Mr.

But Lawrence Washington’s consumption did not improve:  he grew homesick and pined for his wife and for Mount Vernon.  The physicians had recommended him to spend a full year at Barbados, in order to give the climate and the regimen there a fair trial, but he could not endure it so long, and he sailed from there to Bermuda, whence he shortly returned to Virginia and Mount Vernon.  George, meanwhile, had also gone back to Virginia, sailing December 22,