[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.