“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.