Mount Vernon, November 12, 1790.  This letter is a duplicate written to inform Mr. Lear that he depended upon P****’s coach, horses, and driver, for taking on the children to Philadelphia.  His reasons for writing the duplicate was, that Giles (one of his servants), who was sent on Wednesday to Alexandria with his first letter with directions that if the stage had gone to pursue it to Georgetown so as to overtake the mail, had put the letter into the hands of a passenger, who “all but forced it from him,” so anxious was this passenger to do an obliging thing, as he “knew General Washington.”  This passenger told his name, but it was “so comical,” he could not recollect it.  This was Giles’s story; and the General adds that as he knew what little dependence was to be placed on the punctual conveyance of letters by a private hand, he writes this duplicate by post to repeat his request that Mr. Lear will inform him, by return of post, what he has to expect with certainty as to the coach hired for taking on a part of his family to Philadelphia.  His house is full of company, he adds, and concludes as usual.

Mount Vernon, November 14, 1790.  This letter manifests his concern about the house in Philadelphia; for, besides that it is still unfinished, the rent, he says, has not yet been fixed, though he has long since wished it; he is at a loss to understand it all.  He hopes that the additions and alterations made on his account whilst neat, have not been in an extravagant style.  The latter would not only be contrary to his wishes but repugnant to his interest and convenience, as it would be the means of keeping him from the use and comforts of the house until a later day; and because the furniture and everything else must then be in accordance with its expensive finish, which would not agree with his present furniture, and he had no wish to be taxed to suit the taste of others.  The letter is of more length than usual and marked “private;” being, with one other, the only ones in the collection so marked.  I will, therefore, notice its contents no further than barely to add, that in a part where he alludes to the still possible intention of making the public in Philadelphia pay his rent, his terms of dissent become very emphatic.  In reference to his coach, he would rather have heard that, as repaired, it was “plain and elegant” than “rich and elegant.”  Conclusion as usual.

Mount Vernon, Nov. 17, 1790.  This, he says, is a very bad day.  He is just setting off for Alexandria to a dinner given to him by the citizens of that place.  The caps (jockey caps) of Giles and Paris (two of his postilions) being so much worn that they will be unfit for use by the time he has completed his journey to Philadelphia, he requests that new ones may be made, the tassels to be of better quality than the old ones; and that a new set of harness may be made for the leaders, with a postilion saddle; the saddle-cloth of which to be like the hammer-cloth, that all may be of a piece when necessary to use six horses. [This he sometimes did in travelling.] The letter concludes as usual.