The Flower Garden, By permission of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.

nothing, and that he took still another hunt in January, 1788, and chased a fox that had been captured the previous month. This, however, is the last reference that I have discovered. No doubt he was less resilient than in his younger days and found the sport less delightful than of yore, while the duties of the presidency, to which he was soon called, left him little leisure for sport. He seems to have broken up his kennels and to have given away most or all of his hounds.

Later he acquired a pair of "tarriers" and took enough interest in them to write detailed instructions concerning them in 1796.

Washington's fishing was mostly done with a seine as a commercial proposition, but he seems to have had a mild interest in angling. Occasionally he took trips up and down the Potomac in order to fish, sometimes with a hook and line, at other times with seines and nets. He and Doctor Craik took fishing tackle with them on both their western tours and made use of it in some of the mountain streams and also in the Ohio. While at the Federal Convention in 1787 he and Gouverneur Morris went up to Valley Forge partly perhaps to see the old camp, but ostensibly to fish for trout. They lodged at the home of a widow named Moore. On the trip the Farmer learned the Pennsylvania way of raising buckwheat and, it must be confessed, wrote down much more about this topic than about trout. A few days later, with Gouverneur Morris and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris, he went up to Trenton and "in the evening fished," with what success he does not relate. When on his eastern tour of 1789 he went outside the harbor of Portsmouth to fish for cod, but the tide was unfavorable and they caught only two. More fortunate was a trip off Sandy Hook the next year, which was thus described by a newspaper:

"Yesterday afternoon the President of the United States returned from Sandy Hook and the fishing banks, where he had been for the benefit of the sea air, and to amuse himself in the delightful recreation of fishing. We are told he has had excellent sport, having himself caught a great number of sea-bass and black fish--the weather proved remarkably fine, which, together with the salubrity of the air and wholesome exercise, rendered this little voyage extremely agreeable."

Our Farmer was extremely fond of fish as an article of diet and took great pains to have them on his table frequently. At Mount Vernon there was an ancient black man, reputed to be a centenarian and the son of an African King, whose duty it was to keep the household supplied with fish. On many a morning he could be seen out on the river in his skiff, beguiling the toothsome perch, bass or rock-fish. Not infrequently he would fall asleep and then the impatient cook, who had orders to have dinner strictly upon the hour, would be compelled to seek the shore and roar at him. Old Jack would waken and upon rowing to shore would inquire angrily: "What you all mek such a debbil of a racket for hey? I wa'nt asleep, only noddin'."

Another colored factotum about the place was known as Tom Davis, whose duty it was to supply the Mansion House with game. With the aid of his old British musket and of his Newfoundland dog "Gunner" he secured many a canvasback and mallard, to say nothing of quails, turkeys and other game.

After the Revolution Washington formed a deer park below the hill on which the Mansion House stands. The park contained about one hundred acres and was surrounded by a high paling about sixteen hundred yards long. At first he had only Virginia deer, but later acquired some English fallow deer from the park of Governor Ogle of Maryland. Both varieties herded together, but never mixed blood. The deer were continually getting out and in February, 1786, one returned with a broken leg, "supposed to be by a shot." Seven years later an English buck that had broken out weeks before was killed by some one. The paddock fence was neglected and ultimately the deer ran half wild over the estate, but in general stayed in the wooded region surrounding the Mansion House. The gardener frequently complained of damage done by them to shrubs and plants, and Washington said he hardly knew "whether to give up the Shrubs or the Deer!" The spring before his death we find him writing to the brothers Chickesters warning them to cease hunting his deer and he hints that he may come to "the disagreeable necessity of resorting to other means."

George Washington Custis, being like his father "Jacky" an enthusiastic hunter, long teased the General to permit him to hunt the deer and at last won consent to shoot one buck. The lad accordingly loaded an old British musket with two ounce-balls, sallied forth and wounded one of the patriarchs of the herd, which was then chased into the Potomac and there slain. Next day the buck was served up to several guests, and Custis long afterward treasured the antlers at Arlington House, the residence he later built across the Potomac from the Federal City.

Upon the whole we must conclude that Washington was one of the best sportsmen of all our Presidents. He was not so much of an Izaak Walton as was one of his successors, nor did he pursue the lion and festive bongo to their African lairs as did another, but he had a keen love of nature and the open country and would have found both the Mighty Hunter and the Mighty Angler kindred spirits.

CHAPTER XV

About thirty miles down the river Potomac, a gentleman, of the name of Grimes, came up to us in his own boat[8]. He had some little time before shot a man who was going across his plantation; and had been tried for so doing, but not punished. He came aboard, and behaved very politely to me: and it being near dinner time, he would have me go ashore and dine with him: which I did. He gave me some grape-juice to drink, which he called Port wine, and entertained me with saying he made it himself: it was not to my taste equal to our Port in England, nor even strong beer; but a hearty welcome makes everything pleasant, and this he most cheerfully gave me. He showed me his garden; the produce of which, he told me, he sold at Alexandria, a distance of thirty miles. His garden was in disorder: and so was everything else I saw about the place; except a favourite stallion, which was in very good condition--a pretty figure of a horse, and of proper size for the road, about fifteen hands high. He likewise showed me some other horses, brood-mares and foals, young colts, &c. of rather an useful kind. His cattle were small, but all much better than the land.

[8] This chapter is taken from A Tour of America in 1798, 1799, and 1800, by Richard Parkinson, who has already been several times quoted. Parkinson had won something of a name in England as a scientific agriculturist and had published a book called the Experienced Farmer. He negotiated by letter with Washington for the rental of one of the Mount Vernon farms, and in 1798, without having made any definite engagement, sailed for the Potomac with a cargo of good horses, cattle and hogs. His plan for renting Washington's farm fell through, by his account because it was so poor, and ultimately he settled for a time near Baltimore, where he underwent such experiences as an opinionated Englishman with new methods would be likely to meet. Soured by failure, he returned to England, and published an account of his travels, partly with the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America. His opinion of the country he summed up thus: "If a man should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let him take her to America, and keep her there three or four years in a country-place at some distance from a town, and afterwards bring her back to England; if she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there is no remedy." I have rearranged his account in such a way as to make it consecutive, but otherwise it stands as originally published.

He praised the soil very highly. I asked him if he was acquainted with the land at Mount Vernon. He said he was; and represented it to be rich land, but not so rich as his. Yet his I thought very poor indeed; for it was (as is termed in America) gullied; which I call broken land. This effect is produced by the winter's frost and summer's rain, which cut the land into cavities of from ten feet wide and ten feet deep (and upwards) in many places; and, added to this, here and there a hole, which makes it look altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that have been carried away by those hasty showers in the summer, which no man who has not seen them in this climate could form any idea of or believe possible....

In two days after we left this place, we came in sight of Mount Vernon; but in all the way up the river, I did not see any green fields. The country had to me a most barren appearance. There were none but snake-fences; which are rails laid with the ends of one upon another, from eight to sixteen in number in one length. The surface of the earth looked like a yellow-washed wall; for it had been a very dry summer; and there was not any thing that I could see green, except the pine trees in the woods, and the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view as we sailed up the Potomac. It is indeed a most beautiful river.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that General Washington was at Philadelphia; but his steward[9] had orders from the General to receive me and my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which I had on board. A boat was, therefore, got ready for landing them; but that could not be done, as the ship must be cleared out at some port before anything was moved: so, after looking about a few minutes at Mount Vernon, I returned to the ship, and we began to make way for Alexandria....

[9] No doubt Anderson, Washington's last manager.

When I had been about seven days at Alexandria, I hired a horse and went to Mount Vernon, to view my intended farm; of which General Washington had given me a plan, and a report along with it--the rent being fixed at eighteen hundred bushels of wheat for twelve hundred acres, or money according to the price of that grain. I must confess that if he would have given me the inheritance of the land for that sum, I durst not have accepted it, especially with the incumbrances upon it; viz. one hundred seventy slaves young and old, and out of that number only twenty-seven[10] in a condition to work, as the steward represented to me. I viewed the whole of the cultivated estate--about three thousand acres; and afterward dined with Mrs. Washington and the family. Here I met a Doctor Thornton, who is a very pleasant agreeable man, and his lady; with a Mr. Peters and his lady, who was a grand-daughter of Mrs. Washington. Doctor Thornton living at the city of Washington, he gave me an invitation to visit him there: he was one of the commissioners of the city.

[10] Most certainly a mistake.

I slept at Mount Vernon, and experienced a very kind and comfortable reception; but did not like the land at all. I saw no green grass there, except in the garden: and this was some English grass, appearing to me to be a sort of couch-grass; it was in drills. There were also six saintfoin plants, which I found the General valued highly. I viewed the oats which were not thrashed, and counted the grains upon each head; but found no stem with more than four grains, and these a very light and bad quality, such as I had never seen before: the longest straw was of about twelve inches. The wheat was all thrashed, therefore I could not ascertain the produce of that: I saw some of the straw, however, and thought it had been cut and prepared for the cattle in the winter; but I believe I was mistaken, it being short by nature, and with thrashing out looked like chaff, or as if chopped with a bad knife. The General had two thrashing machines, the power given by horses. The clover was very little in bulk, and like chaff; not more than nine inches long, and the leaf very much shed from the stalk. By the stubbles on the land I could not tell which had been wheat, or which had been oats or barley; nor could I see any clover-roots where the clover had grown. The weather was hot and dry at that time; it was in December. The whole of the different fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge--something like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in England; and the steward told me nothing would eat it, which is true. Indeed, he found fault with everything, just like a foreigner; and even told me many unpleasant tales of the General, so that I began to think he feared I was coming to take his place. But (God knows!) I would not choose to accept of it: for he had to superintend four hundred slaves, and there would be more now. This part of his business especially would have been painful to me; it is, in fact, a sort of trade of itself.

I had not in all this time seen what we in England call a corn-stack, nor a dung-hill. There were, indeed, behind the General's barns, two or three cocks of oats and barley; but such as an English broad-wheeled waggon would have carried a hundred miles at one time with ease. Neither had I seen a green plant of any kind: there was some clover of the first year's sowing: but in riding over the fields I should not have known it to be clover, although the steward told me it was; only when I came under a tree I could, by favour of the shade, perceive here and there a green leaf of clover, but I do not remember seeing a green root. I was shown no grass-hay of any kind; nor do I believe there was any.

The cattle were very poor and ordinary, and the sheep the same; nor did I see any thing I liked except the mules, which were very fine ones, and in good condition. Mr. Gough had made a present to General Washington of a bull calf. The animal was shown to me when I first landed at Mount Vernon, and was the first bull I saw in the country. He was large, and very strong-featured; the largest part was his head, the next his legs. The General's steward was a Scotchman, and no judge of animals--a better judge of distilling whiskey.

I saw here a greater number of negroes than I ever saw at one time, either before or since.

The house is a very decent mansion: not large, and something like a gentleman's house in England, with gardens and plantations; and is very prettily situated on the banks of the river Potowmac, with extensive prospects.... The roads are very bad from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

The General still continuing at Philadelphia, I could not have the pleasure of seeing him; therefore I returned to Alexandria.

I returned [to Mount Vernon some weeks later] ... to see General Washington. I dined with him; and he showed me several presents that had been sent him, viz. swords, china, and among the rest the key of the Bastille. I spent a very pleasant day in the house, as the weather was so severe that there were no farming objects to see, the ground being covered with snow.

Would General Washington have given me the twelve hundred acres I would not have accepted it, to have been confined to live in that country; and to convince the General of the cause of my determination, I was compelled to treat him with a great deal of frankness. The General, who had corresponded with Mr. Arthur Young and others on the subject of English farming and soils, and had been not a little flattered by different gentlemen from England, seemed at first to be not well pleased with my conversation; but I gave him some strong proofs of his mistakes, by making a comparison between the lands in America and those of England in two respects.

First, in the article of sheep. He supposed himself to have fine sheep, and a great quantity of them. At the time of my viewing his five farms, which consisted of about three thousand acres cultivated, he had one hundred sheep, and those in very poor condition. This was in the month of November. To show him his mistake in the value and quality of his land, I compared this with the farm my father occupied, which was less than six hundred acres. He clipped eleven hundred sheep, though some of his land was poor and at two shillings and sixpence per acre--the highest was at twenty shillings; the average weight of the wool was ten pounds per fleece, and the carcases weighed from eighty to one hundred twenty pounds each: while in the General's hundred sheep on three thousand acres, the wool would not weigh on an average more than three pounds and a half the fleece, and the carcases at forty-eight pounds each. Secondly, the proportion of the produce in grain was similar. The General's crops were from two to three[11] bushels of wheat per acre; and my father's farm, although poor clay soil, gave from twenty to thirty bushels.

[11] A misstatement, of course.

During this conversation Colonel Lear, aide-de-camp to the General, was present. When the General left the room, the Colonel told me he had himself been in England, and had seen Arthur Young (who had been frequently named by the General in our conversation); and that Mr. Young having learnt that he was in the mercantile line, and was possessed of much land, had said he thought he was a great fool to be a merchant and yet have so much land; the Colonel replied, that if Mr. Young had the same land to cultivate, it would make a great fool of him. The Colonel did me the honour to say I was the only man he ever knew to treat General Washington with frankness.

The General's cattle at that time were all in poor condition: except his mules (bred from American mares), which were very fine, and the Spanish ass sent to him as a present by the king of Spain. I felt myself much vexed at an expression used at dinner by Mrs. Washington. When the General and the company at table were talking about the fine horses and cattle I had brought from England, Mrs. Washington said, "I am afraid, Mr. Parkinson, you have brought your fine horses and cattle to a bad market; I am of opinion that our horses and cattle are good enough for our land." I thought that if every old woman in the country knew this, my speculation would answer very ill: as I perfectly agreed with Mrs. Washington in sentiment; and wondered much, from the poverty of the land, to see the cattle good as they were.

The General wished me to stay all night; but having some other engagement, I declined his kind offer. He sent Colonel Lear out after I had parted with him, to ask me if I wanted any money; which I gladly accepted.

CHAPTER XVI

It must be admitted, however, that comparatively little of his fortune, which amounted at his death to perhaps three-quarters of a million dollars, was made by the sale of products from his farm. Few farmers have grown rich in that way. Washington's wealth was due in part to inheritance and a fortunate marriage, but most of all to the increment on land. Part of this land he received as a reward for military services, but much of it he was shrewd enough to buy at a low rate and hold until it became more valuable.

The task of analyzing his fortune and income in detail is an impossible one for a number of reasons. We do not have all the facts of his financial operations and even if we had there are other difficulties. A farmer, unlike a salaried man, can not tell with any exactness what his true income is. The salaried man can say, "This year I received four thousand dollars," The farmer can only say--if he is the one in a hundred who keeps accounts--"Last year I took in two thousand dollars or five thousand dollars," as the case may be. From this sum he must deduct expenses for labor, wear and tear of farm machinery, pro rata cost of new tools and machinery, loss of soil fertility, must take into account the fact that some of the stock sold has been growing for one, two or more years, must allow for the butter and eggs bartered for groceries and for the value of the two cows he traded for a horse, must add the value of the rent of the house and grounds he and his family have enjoyed, the value of the chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and other produce of the farm consumed--as he proceeds the problem becomes infinitely more complex until at last he gives it up as hopeless.

This much, however, is plain--a farmer can handle much less money than a salaried man and yet live infinitely better, for his rent, much of his food and many other things cost him nothing.

In Washington's case the problem is further complicated by a number of circumstances. As a result of his marriage he had some money upon bond. For his military services in the French war he received large grants of land and the payment during the Revolution of his personal expenses, and as President he had a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

Yet another difficulty discloses itself when we come to examine his cash accounts. We find, for example, that from August 3, 1775, to September, 1783, leaving out of the reckoning his military receipts, he took in a total of about eighty thousand one hundred sixty-seven pounds. What then more simple than to divide this sum by seven and ascertain his average receipts during the years of the Revolution? But when we come to examine some of the details more closely we are brought to pause. We discover such facts as that in 1780 a small steer, supposed to weigh about three hundred pounds, brought five hundred pounds in money! A sheep sold for one hundred pounds; six thousand five hundred sixty-nine pounds of dressed beef brought six thousand five hundred sixty-nine pounds; the stud fee for "Steady" was sixty pounds. In other words, the accounts in these years were in depreciated paper and utterly worthless for our purposes. Washington himself gave the puzzle up in despair toward the end of the war and paid his manager in produce, not money.

We of to-day have, in fact, not the faintest conception of the blessing we enjoy in a uniform and fairly stable monetary system. Even before the days of the "Continentals" there was depreciated paper afloat that had been issued by the colonial governments and, unless the fact is definitely stated, when we come upon figures of that period we can never be sure whether they refer to pounds sterling or pounds paper, or, if the latter, what kind of paper. People had to be constantly figuring the real value of Pennsylvania money, or Virginia money or Massachusetts money, and one meets with many such calculations on the blank leaves of Washington's account books. Even metallic money was a Chinese puzzle except to the initiated, there were so many kinds of it afloat. Among our Farmer's papers I have found a list of the money that he took with him to Philadelphia on one occasion--6 joes, 67 half joes, 2 one-eighteenth joes, 3 doubloons, 1 pistole, 2 moidores, 1 half moidore, 2 double louis d'or, 3 single louis d'or, 80 guineas, 7 half guineas, besides silver and bank-notes.

The depreciation of the paper currency during the Revolution proved disastrous to him in several ways. When the war broke out much of the money he had obtained by marriage was loaned out on bond, or, as we would say to-day, on mortgage. "I am now receiving," he soon wrote, "a shilling in the pound in discharge of Bonds which ought to have been paid me, & would have been realized before I left Virginia, but for my indulgences to the debtors." In 1778 he said that six or seven thousand pounds that he had in bonds upon interest had been paid in depreciated paper, so that the real value was now reduced to as many hundreds. Some of the paper money that came into his hands he invested in government securities, and at least ten thousand pounds of these in Virginia money were ultimately funded by the federal government for six thousand two hundred and forty-six dollars in three and six per cent. bonds.

And yet, by examining Washington's accounts, one is able to estimate in a rough way the returns he received from his estate, landed and otherwise. We find that in ten months of 1759 he took in £1,839; from January 1, 1760, to January 10, 1761, about £2,535; in 1772, £3,213; from August 3, 1775, to August 30, 1776, £2,119; in 1786, £2,025; in 1791, about £2,025. Included in some of these entries, particularly the earlier ones, are payments of interest and principal on his wife's share of the Custis estate. Of the later ones, that for 1786--a bad farming year--includes rentals on more than a score of parcels of land amounting to £282.15, £25 rental on his fishery, payments for flour, stud fees, etc.

Upon the average, therefore, I am inclined to believe that his annual receipts were roughly in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars a year from his estate.

As regards Mount Vernon alone, he sometimes made estimates of what the crop returns ought to

A Page from a Cash Memorandum Book.

be; in other words, counted his chickens before they were hatched. Thus in 1789 he drew up alternative plans and estimated that one of these, if adopted, ought to produce crops worth a gross of £3,091, another £3,831, and a third £4,449, but that from these sums £1,357, £1,394 and £1,445 respectively would have to be deducted for seed, food for man and beasts, and other expenses.

A much better idea of the financial returns from his home estate can be obtained from his actual balances of gain and loss. One of these, namely for 1798, which was a poor year, was as follows:

BALANCE OF GAIN AND LOSS, 1798

DR. GAINED                           CR. LOST

Dogue Run Farm  397.11.2         Mansion House .. 466.18. 2-1/2
Union Farm .... 529.10.11-1/2    Muddy Hole Farm   60. 1. 3-1/2
River Farm .... 234. 4.11        Spinning .......  51. 2. 0
Smith's Shop ..  34.12.09-1/2    Hire of Head
Distillery ....  83.13. 1          overseer ..... 140. 0. 0
Jacks .........  56.1
Traveler ......   9.17
  (stud horse)
Shoemaker .....  28.17. 1
Fishery ....... 165.12. 0-1/4     By clear gain on
Dairy .........  30.12. 3          the Estate.....£898.16. 4-1/4

Mr. Paul Leicester Ford considered this "a pretty poor showing for an estate and negroes which had certainly cost him over fifty thousand dollars, and on which there was live stock which at the lowest estimation was worth fifteen thousand dollars more." In some respects it was a poor showing. Yet the profit Washington sets down is about seven per cent. upon sixty-five thousand dollars, and seven per cent. is more than the average farmer makes off his farm to-day except through the appreciation in the value of the land. The truth is, however, that Mount Vernon, including the live stock and slaves, was really worth in 1798 nearer two hundred thousand dollars than sixty-five thousand, so that the actual return would only be about two and a fourth per cent.

But Washington failed to include in his receipts many items, such as the use of a fine mansion for himself and family, the use of horses and vehicles, and the added value of slaves and live stock by natural increase.

Besides in some other years the profits were much larger.

And lastly, in judging a man's success or failure as a farmer, allowance must be made for the kind of land that he has to farm. The Mount Vernon land was undoubtedly poor in quality, and it is probable that Washington got more out of it than has ever been got out of it by any other person either before or since. Much of it to-day must not pay taxes.

Washington died possessed of property worth about three-quarters of a million, although he began life glad to earn a doubloon a day surveying. The main sources of this wealth have already been indicated, but when all allowance is made in these respects, the fact remains that he was compelled to make a living and to keep expenses paid during the forty years in which the fortune was accumulating, and the main source he drew from was his farms. Not much of that living came from the Custis estate, for, as we have seen, a large part of the money thus acquired was lost. During his eight years as Commander-in-Chief he had his expenses--no more. Of the eight years of his presidency much the same can be said, for all authorities agree that he expended all of his salary in maintaining his position and some say that he spent more. Yet at the end of his life we find him with much more land than he had in 1760, with valuable stocks and bonds, a house and furniture infinitely superior to the eight-room house he first owned, two houses in the Federal City that had cost him about $15,000, several times as many negroes, and live stock estimated by himself at $15,653 and by his manager at upward of twice that sum.

Such being the case--and as no one has ever ventured even to hint that he made money corruptly out of his official position--the conclusion is irresistible that he was a good business man and that he made farming pay, particularly when he was at home.

It is true that only three months before his death he wrote: "The expense at which I live, and the unproductiveness of my estate, will not allow me to lessen my income while I remain in my present situation. On the contrary, were it not for occasional supplies of money in payment for lands sold within the last four or five years, to the amount of upwards of fifty thousand dollars, I should not be able to support the former without involving myself in debt and difficulties," This must be taken, however, to apply to a single period of heavy expense when foreign complications and other causes rendered farming unprofitable, rather than to his whole career. Furthermore, his landed investments from which he could draw no returns were so heavy that he had approached the condition of being land poor and it was only proper that he should cut loose from some of them.

CHAPTER XVII

It was inevitable that among these requests there should be some that were unusual. Perhaps the most amusing that I have discovered is one written by a young man named Thomas Bruff, from the Fountain Inn, Georgetown. He states that this is his second letter, but I have not found the first. In the letter we have he sets forth that he has lost all his property and desires a loan of five hundred pounds. His need is urgent, for he is engaged to a beautiful and "amiable" young lady, possessed of an "Estate that will render me Independent. Whom I cannot Marry in my present situation.... All my Happyness is now depending upon your Goodness and without your kind assistance I must be forever miserable--I should have never thought of making application to you for this favor had it not been in Consequence of a vision by Night since my Fathers Death who appeared to me in a Dream in my Misfortunes three times in one Night telling me to make applycation to you for Money and that you would relieve me from my distresses. He appeared the other night again and asked me if I had obeyed his commands I informed him that I had Wrote to you some time ago but had Received no answer nor no information Relative to the Business he then observed that he expected my letter had not come to hand and toald me to Write again I made some Objections at first and toald him I thought it presumption in me to trouble your Excellency again on the subject he then in a Rage drew his Small Sword and toald me if I did not he would run me through. I immediately in a fright consented."

One might suppose that so ingenious a request, picturing the deadly danger in which a young man stood from the shade of his progenitor, especially a young man who was thereby forced to keep a young lady waiting, would have aroused Washington's most generous impulses and caused him to send perhaps double the amount desired. Possibly he was hard up at the time. At all events he indorsed the letter thus:

"Without date and without success."

Many times, however, our Farmer was open-handed to persons who had no personal claim on him. For example, he loaned three hundred and two pounds to his old comrade of the French War--Robert Stewart--the purpose being to buy a commission in the British army. So far as I can discover it was never repaid; in fact, I am not sure but that he intended it as a gift. Another advance was that made to Charles L. Carter, probably the young man who later married a daughter of Washington's sister, Betty Lewis. Most of the story is told in the following extract from a letter written by Carter from Fredericksburg, June 2, 1797:

"With diffidence I now address you in consequence of having failed after my first voyage from China, to return the two hundred Dollars you favored me with the Loan of. Be assured Dr. Sir that I left goods unsold at the time of my Departure from Philadelphia on the second voyage, & directed that the money arising therefrom should be paid to you, but the integrity of my agent did not prove to be so uncorrupted as I had flattered myself. I have, at this late period, sent by Mr. G. Tevis the sum of two hundred Dollars with interest therefrom from the 15th of March 1795 to the 1st June, 1797. That sum has laid the foundation of a pretty fortune, for which I shall ever feel myself indebted to you."

He added that he had been refused the loan by a near relation before Washington had so kindly obliged him and that his mother, who was evidently acquainted with Washington, joined in hearty thanks for the benefit received.

Washington had experienced enough instances of ingratitude to be much pleased with the outcome of this affair. He replied in the kindest terms, but declined to receive the interest, saying that he had not made the loan as an investment and that he did not desire a profit from it.

Another recipient of Washington's bounty was his old neighbor, Captain John Posey. Posey sold Washington not only his Ferry Farm but also his claim to western lands. He became financially embarrassed, in fact, ruined; his family was scattered, and he made frequent applications to Washington for advice and assistance. Washington helped to educate a son, St. Lawrence, who had been reduced to the hard expedient of tending bar in a tavern, and he also kept a daughter, Milly, at Mount Vernon, perhaps as a sort of companion to Mrs. Washington. The Captain once wrote:

"I could [have] been able to [have] Satisfied all my old Arrears, some months AGoe, by marrying [an] old widow woman in this County. She has large soms [of] cash by her, and Prittey good Est.--She is as thick as she is high---And gits drunk at Least three or foure [times] a weak---which is Disagreable to me--has Viliant Sperrit when Drunk--its been [a] great Dispute in my mind what to Doe,--I beleave I shu'd Run all Resks--if my Last wife, had been [an] Even temper'd woman, but her Sperrit, has Given me such [a] Shock--that I am afraid to Run the Resk again."

Evidently the Captain did not find a way out of his troubles by the matrimonial route, for somewhat later he was in jail at Queenstown, presumably for debt, and we find in one of Washington's cash memorandum books under date of October 15, 1773: "By Charity--given Captn. Posey," four pounds. One of the sons later settled in Indiana, and the "Pocket" county is named after him.

Another boy toward whose education Washington contributed was the son of Doctor James Craik--the boy being a namesake. Doctor Craik was one of Washington's oldest and dearest friends. He was born in Scotland two years before Washington saw the light at Wakefield, graduated from Edinburgh University, practised medicine in the West Indies for a short time and then came to Virginia. He was Washington's comrade in arms in the Fort Necessity campaign, was subsequently surgeon general in the Continental Army, and accompanied Washington to the Ohio both in 1770 and 1784. He married Mariane Ewell, a relative of Washington's mother, and resided many years in Alexandria. He was a frequent visitor at Mount Vernon both as a friend and in a professional capacity, and Washington declared that he would rather trust him than a dozen other doctors. Few men were so close to the great man as he, and he was one of the few who in his letters ventured to tell chatty matters of gossip. Thus, in August, 1791, he wrote a letter apropos of the bad health of George A. Washington and added: "My daughter Nancy is there [Mt. Vernon] by way of Amusement awhile. She begins to be tired of her Fathers house and I believe intends taking an old Batchelor Mr. Hn. for a mate shortly." Another young lady, Miss Muir, who had recently gone to Long Island for the benefit of the sea baths was "pursued" by a Mr. Donaldson and the latter now writes that "he shall bring back a wife with him." Craik was a thorough believer in Washington's destiny, and in the dark days of the Revolution would hearten up his comrades by the story of the Indian chieftain met upon the Ohio in 1770 who had vainly tried to kill Washington in the battle of the Monongahela and had finally desisted in the belief that he was invulnerable.

To friends, family, church, education and strangers our Farmer was open-handed beyond most men of his time. His manager had orders to fill a corn-house every year for the sole use of the poor in the neighborhood and this saved numbers of poor women and children from extreme want. He also allowed the honest poor to make use of his fishing stations, furnishing them with all necessary apparatus for taking herring, and if they were unequal to the task of hauling the seine, assistance was rendered them by the General's servants.

To Lund Washington he wrote from the camp at Cambridge: "Let the hospitality of the house, with respect to the poor, be kept up. Let no one go hungry away. If any of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessaries, provided that it does not encourage them to idleness; and I have no objection to you giving my money in charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a year, when you think it well bestowed. What I mean by having no objection is, that it is my desire it should be done. You are to consider that neither myself nor wife is now in the way to do these good offices."

His relations with his own kindred were patriarchal in character. His care of Mrs. Washington's children and grandchildren has already been described. He gave a phaeton and money to the extent of two thousand five hundred dollars to his mother and did not claim possession of some of the land left him by his father's will. To his sister Betty Lewis he gave a mule and many other presents, as well as employment to several of her sons. He loaned his brother Samuel (five times married) considerable sums, which he forgave in his will, spent "near five thousand dollars" on the education of two of his sons, and cared for several years for a daughter Harriot, notwithstanding the fact that she had "no disposition ... to be careful of her cloaths." To his nephew, Bushrod Washington, he gave money and helped him to obtain a legal education, and he assisted another nephew, George A. Washington, and his widow and children, in ways already mentioned. Over forty relatives were remembered in his will, many of them in a most substantial manner.

In the matter of eating and drinking Washington was abstemious. For breakfast he ordinarily had tea and Indian cakes with butter and perhaps honey, of which he was very fond. His supper was equally light, consisting of perhaps tea and toast, with wine, and he usually retired promptly at nine o'clock. Dinner was the main meal of the day at Mount Vernon, and was served punctually at two o'clock. One such meal is thus described by a guest:

"He thanked us, desired us to be seated, and to excuse him a few moments.... The President came and desired us to walk in to dinner and directed us where to sit, (no grace was said).... The dinner was very good, a small roasted pigg, boiled leg of lamb, roasted fowls, beef, peas, lettice, cucumbers, artichokes, etc., puddings, tarts, etc. etc. We were desired to call for what drink we chose. He took a glass of wine with Mrs. Law first, which example was followed by Dr. Croker Crakes and Mrs. Washington, myself and Mrs. Peters, Mr. Fayette and the young lady whose name is Custis. When the cloth was taken away the President gave 'all our Friends.'"

The General ordinarily confined himself to a few courses and if offered anything very rich would reply, "That is too good for me." He often drank beer with the meal, with one or two glasses of wine and perhaps as many more afterward, often eating nuts, another delicacy with him, as he sipped the wine.

He was, in fact, no prohibitionist, but he was a strong believer in temperance. He and the public men of his time, being aristocrats, were wine drinkers and few of them were drunkards. The political revolution of 1830, ushered in by Jackson, brought in a different type--Westerners who drank whisky and brandy, with the result that drunkenness in public