It was said that Alexander the Great liked to receive petitions and grant them lavishly, but never gave to those who did not ask. Washington could rarely resist an appeal, and he went often out of his way to volunteer benefits to those too meek or too proud to ask for them.

There was, for example, the letter he wrote, in 1769, apparently out of a clear sky, to his old friend, William Ramsay, the founder of Alexandria, Virginia:

"Having once or twice of late heard you speak highly in praise of the Jersey College, as if you had a desire of sending your son William there (who, I am told, is a youth fond of study and instruction, and disposed to a sedentary studious life, in following of which he may not only promote his own happiness, but the future welfare of others), I should be glad, if you have no other objection to it than what may arise from the expense, if you would send him there as soon as it is convenient, and depend on me for twenty-five pounds this currency a year for his support, so long as it may be necessary for the completion of his education. If I live to see the accomplishment of this term, the sum here stipulated shall be annually paid; and if I die in the mean while, this letter shall be obligatory upon my heirs, or executors, to do it according to the true intent and meaning hereof. No other return is expected, or wished, for this offer, than that you will accept it with the same freedom and good will, with which it is made, and that you may not even consider it in the light of an obligation, or mention it as such; for, be assured, that from me it will never be known."

" 23

So kind, indeed, was Washington's heart that, at a time when he was almost frantic with his many worries, he could write the following letter to his old friend, John West, who, feeling himself about to die, asked Washington to assume the burden of the guardianship of his only son:

"Your letter of the 8th, which is just handed to me, could not have given you more pain in writing, than it has given me in reading, because I never deny or even hesitate in granting any

request, that is made to me, especially by persons I esteem, and in matters of moment, without feeling inexpressible uneasiness. I do not wonder at your solicitude on account of your only son. The nurturing and bringing him up in a proper course is, no doubt, an object of great concern to you, as well as importance to him; but two things are essentially necessary in the man to whom this charge is committed, a capacity of judging with propriety of measures proper to be taken in the government of a youth, and leisure sufficient to attend to the execution of these measures. . . . I can solemnly declare to you, that, for a year or two past, there has been scarce a moment, that I could properly call my own.

"What with my own business, my present ward's, my mother's, which is wholly in my hands, Colonel Colvill's, Mrs. Savage's, Colonel Fairfax's, Colonel Mercer's, and the little assistance I have undertaken to give in the management of my brother Augustine's concerns (for I have absolutely refused to qualify as an executor), together with the share I take in public affairs, I have been kept constantly engaged in writing letters, settling accounts, and negotiating one piece of business or another; by which means I have really been deprived of every kind of enjoyment, and had almost fully resolved to engage in no fresh matter, till I had entirely wound up the old.

"Thus much, Sir, candor, indeed the principle of common honesty, obliged me to relate to you, as it is not my wish to deceive any person by promising what I do not think it in my power to perform with that punctuality and rectitude, which I conceive the nature of the trust will require. I do not, however, give a flat refusal to your request. I rather wish you to be fully informed of my situation, that you may think with me, or as I do, that, if it should please the Almighty to take you to himself as soon as you apprehend (but I hope without just cause), your son may be placed in better hands than mine. If you think otherwise, I will do the best I can, merely as a guardian.

"You will act very prudently in having your will revised by some person skilled in the law, as a testator's intentions are often defeated by different interpretations of statutes, which require the whole business of a man's life to be perfectly conversant with them. I shall not, after what I have here said, add any thing more than my wishes, which are sincerely offered, for your recovery, and that you may live to see the accomplishment of your son's education." 24

Like magnanimity he revealed in endless instances. For the sake of his friends and his wards he became a kind of genius of kindliness with an infinite capacity for taking pains in behalf of others.

G

IX

HIS STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH

ET-RICH-QUICK handbooks were as much in

favor in Washington's day as in this. Then, as now, neither the authors nor the readers seem to have profited by the mystic lore.

As soon as Washington married Martha he wrote to London for "a Small piece in Octavo-called a New System of Agriculture, or a Speedy Way to grow Rich." Either there is a contradiction in terms or the system is still so new as to be undiscovered.

The fact that Washington had captured one of the richest women in America did not make him indolent, but rather quickened his energies.

Martha brought him an estate of about 15,000 acres, town lots and houses, 150 negroes, and a hundred thousand dollars in cash and securities. These belonged to her and, through her, to her second husband, and to her son and daughter by her first marriage in equal shares. By law he became administrator and he immensely increased the value of his tract.

The guardianship of the children's shares also fell to him, and he doubled the value of their property in the seventeen years of his administration. The difficulties of his task can be imagined if it is remembered that there was not one bank in all the thirteen colonies until 1782, and only three in 1789.2

Jack Custis inherited fifteen thousand acres of land, cultivated and uncultivated, in various Virginia counties. Their management involved tremendous labor for Wash

ington, for they were farmed by slaves under the supervision of overseers, or leased to tenants who paid their rental in shares of the crop. The crops themselves had to be watched, harvested, sent to warehouses, shipped to England and the West Indies, and the money received for them collected in an intricate manner with a lack of nearly all the facilities afforded by modern banking. Strict accounts of all these details had to be kept, and Washington spent numberless hours at his desk, posting his books, verifying his vouchers, and keeping all straight.

The fidelity and the vigor of his administration is shown in the fact that when Jacky Custis reached his majority he found himself the richest young man in Virginia.

It is one of the sharpest sarcasms with which fate rewarded Washington's toil and honesty, that a large part of the Custis fortune and his own was lost through the almost ludicrous depreciation of the currency put forth by the young nation which he made such sacrifices to create and defend.

3

While he had more than enough to do in conserving the Custis estates, he had his own personal fortune to build. He kept the wheels turning at his father's mill, and he ran a wholesale fishery and many other businesses.

His honesty was so automatic that, while he exacted the least penny due himself, he also exacted from himself the least penny due to another.

He was a money-lender who could never quite succeed in being a Shylock. He never exacted a pound of flesh or blood-money, or usury. He was rather the typically generous financier, lending to everyone who comes begging and thereafter becoming a beggar himself, pleading for some return of the money laid out and humiliating himself to explain that he would not ask for it if he were not in desperate straits himself.

When he was cheated, or thought himself cheated, he