In a wonderfully illuminating book, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, Garry Wills tells the story of a conversation that took place during the Revolutionary War between England’s King George III and his court painter, the Pennsylvania-born Benjamin West. The king asked West what he thought General Washington would do if he happened to defeat the British, and West replied that he would simply return to his plantation at Mount Vernon. George replied that if Washington did that he would be the greatest man who ever lived.
