it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall. But [if] the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country and offered upon such terms as can’t be objected against, it would reflect dishonour upon me to refuse it and that, I am sure, must, or ought, to give you greater cause of uneasiness than my going in an honourable com[man]d.”1 One notes the pointed rebuke tucked into that word “ought.” Everyone in the colony seemed to cheer on George Washington as a bona fide hero except his own mother.
