People | “Sons, Not Bastards”

“Robert Dinwiddie,” c. 1760–1765, Anonymous

Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie sent a young George Washington to warn the French from the Ohio Valley in 1753, appointed him to lead the colony’s provincial regiment after the original commander died in 1754, and then defended its officers in a letter he sent to Secretary at War Henry Fox. Following Washington’s surrender at Fort Necessity—on the fourth of July—Dinwiddie proposed another campaign against the French fort of Fort Duquesne later that autumn, and called for Virginia’s regiment to be broken up into independent companies. Washington reacted boldly—and with a striking fury—by condemning the governor’s plan for a renewed expedition and resigning his commission as provincial colonel, though he was still just twenty-two years old.

“The Family of Frederick, Prince of Wales,” 1751, George Knapton

King George II’s eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, appears in this posthumous painting as the subject of a portrait hanging in the upper left corner of this image. Arrogant, petty, and utterly self-absorbed, the prince neglected and abused his wife, Princess Augusta, who is sitting at the center of the image, attired as a recent widow. Their eldest son, the future King George III, is seated to her right, his finger pointing to a military map. Well before his death in 1751, Frederick had become so obnoxious that even his own mother—Queen Caroline—hated him.

“William Shirley,” 1750, Thomas Hudson

A deft political operator, Governor William Shirley guided Massachusetts through two imperial wars. Once stalked by a mob in the Boston streets, he lost his son, William Shirley Jr., at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755 and later clashed with the Earl of Loudoun, who commanded the British army in America. Today, Shirley is largely forgotten, buried inside an unmarked (and rarely visited) grave within a crypt deep below Boston’s King’s Chapel.

“Lady Elizabeth Yorke, Lady Anson; Holding a Drawing of Dante by Carlo Dolci,” c. 1751, Studio of Thomas Hudson

Elizabeth Yorke appears in this painting with a coy, knowing, and confident look on her face. It was surely an accurate portrayal, for Yorke remained a keen and trusted advisor within the British establishment. Following Braddock’s devastating defeat in 1755, she dispatched an urgent letter to her brother, Philip Yorke, later Earl of Hardwicke; which sharply, if implicitly, blamed the Duke of Cumberland, and perhaps even King George II, for the debacle. Married to George Anson, Baron Anson—who had famously circumnavigated the globe as a commodore—she and her husband never had children. The Anson’s political foes thus alleged (probably falsely) that George was impotent. But the pair actually enjoyed a happy life together; a genuine power couple.

“Grenadier, 49th Regiment of Foot, and Fifer and Drummer, Foot Guards,” c. 1751, David Morier

Until rumors of a planned uprising by enslaved Africans forced British officials to commit a second regiment to its defense, Jamaica’s garrison consisted of a single battalion: the 49th Foot. Such concerns proved entirely justified. Heavy manual labor, a poor diet, and savage punishments, amongst other factors, sowed unrest throughout a colony where nearly nine in ten people were enslaved. Still, the redcoats in the island’s garrison were hardly a deterrent. Service in the West Indies was notoriously brutal, as troops endured harsh tropical conditions and lethal epidemic diseases that fanned frequent desertions. To keep up its numbers, the 49th Foot thus accepted Black, White, and Biracial recruits, such as the man portrayed at the left.

“James Otis, Jr.,” 1755, Joseph Blackburn

After graduating from Harvard in 1743, this brilliant attorney from Cape Cod struggled with mental illness, which only worsened after he was assaulted, knocked down, and caned in the head by a political rival. Otis opposed Writs of Assistance in 1761, and later helped to organize and promote the Stamp Act Congress. Perhaps influenced by his brilliant sister—Mercy Otis Warren—his pamphlet: The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved electrified sympathetic readers more than a decade before the Declaration of Independence. In it, Otis not only posed a pressing question: “Are not women born as free as men?” He also contended that “colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.” Otis lived long enough to see the colonies win their independence, but died shockingly in 1783, when he was literally struck by lightning.