a) To SAMUEL WASHINGTON, July 12, 1797.
“You may be assured that there is no practice more dangerous than that of borrowing money . . . . For when money can be had in this way, repayment is seldom thought of in time; the Interest becomes a moth; exertions to raise it by dint of Industry ceases—it comes easy and is spent freely; and many things indulged in that would never be thought of, if to be purchased by the sweat of the brow.—In the meantime the debt is accumulating like a snowball in rolling.”
2. Debt
a) To JOHN AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON, Newburgh,
January 16, 1783.
“…how did my brother Samuel contrive to get himself so enormously in debt? Was it by making purchases? By misfortunes? Or sheer indolence and inattention to business? From whatever cause it proceeded, the matter is now the same, and curiosity only prompts me to the enquiry, as it does to know what will be saved, and how it is disposed of. . . . I have lately received a letter from my mother, in which she complains much of the knavery of the overseer at the Little Falls quarter.”
b) To JAMES WELCH, April 7, 1799.
“To contract new Debts is not the way to pay old ones.”
c) To ROBERT STEWART, April 27, 1763.
“I wish, my dear Stewart, that the circumstances of my affairs would have permitted me to have given you an order . . . for £400 . . . or even twice that sum . . . But, alas! To show my inability in this respect, I enclose you a copy of Mr. Cary’s last account current against me, which upon my honor and the faith of a Christian, is a true one. . .
“This, upon my soul, is a genuine account of my affairs in England.”
d) To LUND WASHINGTON, Newburgh, February 12, 1783.
“I have often told you, and I repeat it with much truth, that the entire confidence which I placed in your integrity made me easy, and I was always happy at thinking that my affairs were in your hands—which I could not have been if they had been under the care of a common manager. . . . I want to know before I come home (as I shall come home with empty pockets, whenever Peace shall take place) how affairs stand with me, and what my dependence is.”
3. Security for Loans
a) To DANIEL McCARTY, Mount Vernon, November 13, 1797.
“It is a maxim with me, to take landed security which from its nature is unchangeable, to personal security which is subject to numberless vissitudes.”
b) To BURGES BALL, New York, January 18, 1790.
“I hope you have got through your difficulties on account of your surety-ship for Major Willis, and without loss. When you engaged in this business you neglected the advice of the Wise man, than which no better I believe is to be found in his whole book, or among all his sayings, ‘Beware of surety-ship.” Offer my love and good wishes to Fanny and the family, accept the same yourself and those of Mrs. Washington. I am etc.”
4. Money Limited
a) To FIELDING LEWIS, Mount Vernon, February 27, 1784.
“You very much mistake my circumstances when you suppose me in a condition to advance money. I made no money from my Estate during the nine years I was absent from it, and brought none home with me. those who owed me, for the most part, took advantage of the depreciation and paid me off with six pence in the pound. those to whom I was indebted, I have yet to pay, without other means, if they will not wait, than selling part of my Estate; or distressing those who were too honest to take advantage of the tender Laws to quit scores with me.”
b) To CHARLES CARTER, Philadelphia, March 10, 1795.
“My friends entertain a very erroneous idea of my pecuniary resources, when they set me down for a money lender, or one who (now) has a command of it. You may believe me, when I assert that the Bonds which were due to me before the Revolution, were discharged during the progress of it, with a few exceptions in depreciated paper (in some instances as low as a shilling in the pound). That such has been the management of my estate, for many years past, especially since my absence from home, now six years, as scarcely to support itself. That my public allowance (whatever the world may think of it) is inadequate to the expence of living in this city; to such an extravagant height has the necessaries as well as the conveniences of life, arisen. And, moreover, that to keep myself out of debt; I have found it expedient, now and then, to sell lands, or something else to effect this purpose.
“These are facts I have no inclination to publish to the world, nor should I have disclosed them on this occasion, had it not been due to friendship, to give you some explanation of my inability to comply with your request. If, however, by joining with nine others, the sum required can be obtained, notwithstanding my being under these circumstances, and notwithstanding the money will be to be withdrawn from another purpose, I will contribute one hundred pounds towards the accommodation of your sons wants, without any view to the receipt of interest there from.”
c) To SAMUEL WASHINGTON, Mount Vernon, July 12, 1797.
“I perceive by your letter of the 7th Instant that you are under the same mistake that many others are, in supposing that I have money always at Command.
“The case is so much the reverse of it, that I found it expedient before I retired from public life to sell all my Lands (near 5000 Acres) in Pennsylvania in the Counties of Washington and Fayette, and my lands in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, in order to enable me to defray the expences of my station, and to raise money for other purposes.”
5. Rents
a) To ROBERT LEWIS, Mount Vernon, October 15, 1791. “From long experience I have laid it down as an unerring maxim that to exact rents with punctuality is not only the right t of the Landlord, but that it is also for the benefit of the Tenant, that it should be so; unless by uncontroulable events, and providential strokes the latter is rendered unable to pay them; in such cases he should not only meet with indulgence, but, in some instances with a remittal of the rent. But, in the ordinary course of these transactions, the rents ought to be collected with the most rigid exactness.”
VII. POLITICS AND MEDIA
A. Politics
1. Censure/Criticism
a) To THE EARL OF LOUDOUN, [January], 1757.
“Therefore, it is not to be wondered at, if, under such peculiar circumstances, I should be sicken’d in a service, which promises so little of a soldier’s reward. I have long been satisfied of the impossibility of continuing in this service, without loss of honor. Indeed, I was fully convinced of it before I accepted the command the second time, (seeing the cloudy prospect that stood before me;) and did for this reason reject the offer, (until I was ashamed any longer to refuse,) not caring to expose my character to public censure. But the solicitations of the country overcame my objections, and induced me to accept it.”
b) To PRESIDENT JOSEPH REED, West-point, July 29, 1779.
“If I had ever assumed the Character of a Military genius and the Officer of experience. If undr. these false colors I had solicited the command I was honoured with, or if after my appointment, I had presumptuously driven on under the sole guidance of my own judgment and self will, and misfortunes the result of obstinacy and misconduct, not of necessity, had followed, I should have thought myself a proper subject for the lash, not only of his, but the pen of every other writer, and a fit object for public resentment.”
c) To MRS. MARTHA WASHINGTON, Philadelphia, June 18, 1775.
“It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment, without exposing my character to such censures, as would have reflected dishonor upon myself, and given pain to my friends.”
d) To JOHN AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON, Cambridge,
March 31, 1776.
“Many of my difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that in order to conceal them from the Enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, indeed from my own Army, thereby subjecting my Conduct to interpretations unfavourable to my Character, especially by those at a distance, who could not, in the smallest degree be acquainted with the Springs that govern’d it.”
e) To ROBERT DINWIDDIE, Fort Loudoun, September 17, 1757.
“It is hard to have my character arraigned, and my actions condemned, without a hearing.”
f) To DAVID HUMPHREYS, June 12, 1796.
“I am attacked for a steady opposition to every measure which has a tendency to disturb the peace and tranquility of it. But these attacks, unjust and unpleasant as they are, will occasion no change in my conduct; nor will they work any other effect in my mind, than to increase the anxious desire which has long possessed my breast, to enjoy in the shades of retirement the consolation of having rendered my Country every service my abilities were competent to, uninfluenced by pecuniary or ambitious considerations as they respected myself, and without any attempt to provide for my friends farther than their merits, abstractedly, entitle them to; nor an attempt in any instance to bring a relation of mine into Office. Malignity therefore may dart her shafts; but no earthly power can deprive me of the consolation of knowing that I have not in the course of my administration been guilty of a wilful error, however numerous they may have been from other causes.” (emphasis in the original)
2. Politics
a) To LAFAYETTE, December 25, 1798.
“I wish well to all nations and to all men. My politics are plain and simple. I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it shall live most happy; provided it infracts no right, or is not dangerous to others; and that no governments ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another, except for the security of what is due to themselves.”
3. Opinions
