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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

1762. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. II (1758-1775) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Vol. II (1758-1775).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


1762.

[TO GEORGE WILLIAM FAIRFAX]?

Mount Vernon, 30 October, 1762.

Dear Sir,

I am sorry to be the messenger of the news, but it is incumbent upon me to inform you of the death of the mare, you committed to my care. How she died, I am able to give you but a very unsatisfactory account. For on the 3rd inst., I set out for Frederick and left her to all appearance as well as a creature could be, Mr. Green and I observing a day or two before, how fat and frolicksome she seemed. And on my return in 8 days time, I got the news of her death. She discovered no visible signs of ailment, as I am told, in the morning of the 7th, when let out of the stable; but before night was swelled to a monstrous size and died in a few hours. Bishop (my old servant) opened her, but could perceive no hurt bruise or other apparent cause of so sudden a death which inclines me to think it was occasioned by eating blasted corn, a piece of which I had in ground I wanted to clean and never could fence my chariot Horses of it. The rest consequently followed, and this I am persuaded puffed her up in the manner related. She had no foal in her, which assures me that she never would breed, as I am convinced, she had a competent share of Ariel’s performances; not content with which, she was often catched in amorous mood with a young horse of mine, notwithstanding my utmost endeavors to keep them under. You will feel the loss of this accident more sensibly but can not be more concerned at the account than I was, for I had pleased myself with the thoughts of delivering her to you in fine order, when you returned to below.

We received the news of your return with a great deal of pleasure and if there is any thing previous to it in which I can be serviceable, I hope you will command me. You did me singular services in a like case, and why won’t you give me an opportunity of making a grateful return. Mrs. Washington writes to Mrs. Fairfax under this cover, to whom and Miss Fairfax please to offer my best wishes. I am &c.1

[1 ]“I shall beg leave to say a little now in regard to Jno. Askew. That he went to work at your House, was not only with my knowledge but by my express desire, and had he stayd there ’til this time it would have been perfectly agreeable to me; but as you know when he left your work, so I can assure you that he never came to mine until Wednesday or Thursday last. I then asked him if he did not think himself one of the most worthless and ungrateful fellows that ever lived for his treatment of me—for you must know Sir that so small a job as making the Front Gate in my yard was left him to do when I went to Williamsburg abt the 10th of May last, and was found undone at my return, altho I urged him in the strongest manner I could to get it finished for this very prevalent Reason namely, that I might inclose my Chariot Horses in a Pasture round my House secured by a Post & Rail fence and by that means prevent them from breaking into a field where I had about 10 acres of Peas, that is now by his Idleness and there letting in my sheep, entirely rooted out. This as I before said he neglected, and I was from that time untill a day or two before Mr. Carlyle asked for him to go to Belvoir, ere I coud get him to work again; so that you may partly judge from this of the provocation he has given me, but you will be more convinced of it when I tell you that the Ballce, he owes me is for Tools Imported for him, and money actually lent to keep him from starving, and from a Goal, from whence (at least the Sheriff’s custody) I have once or twice redeemed him—and lent him money to cloath & by necessaries for his Family. This is the real truth of the case, and it is so far from any wanting to keep him (longer than he will finish the Gate, and repays 7 days work due to my Carpenters, and how about) that I never desire to see his face again, if he can fall upon any method of paying me what he owes me in money.

“I have made an exchange of Plantations with old Saml. Johnson, giving the place where Clifton lived for the Lots he held in the Neck, otherwise I shd have been glad to have obliged Doctr Cockburne.”—Washington to George William Fairfax, 1763.