“Spurriers,” November 23, 1790.

[He is now on his journey to Philadelphia in his own travelling carriage with Mrs. Washington; the children, and the servants in attendance on the children, being in the stage-coach hired for the occasion.]

He dates from this tavern twelve or fourteen miles south of Baltimore.  The roads, he says, are in-famous—­no hope of reaching Baltimore that night, as they had not yet gone to dinner but were waiting for it.  The letter is only of a few lines, and evidently written in haste, though he never makes apologies on that account.

Georgetown, March 28, 1791.

[The General and family arrived in Philadelphia and took possession of Mr. Morris’s house.  The session of Congress passed over.  It was the short session.  He was now on his return to Mount Vernon, having reached the above town on the Maryland side of the Potomac, from which he dates.]

This letter is on his private affairs.  He expresses dissatisfaction at the conduct of ****** one of his agents in the State of——­, in letting out his property and receiving his rents; he is too well acquainted, he says, with facts that bear upon the case to be imposed upon by the tale he tells; and even his own letter proves him to be what he would not call him.

Mount Vernon, April 3, 1791.  This letter is also in part on his private affairs.  It contains further complaints of this agent.  In the closing parts of it [there being at this time growing apprehensions of trouble with the Indians] he makes the remark, that until we could restrain the turbulence and disorderly conduct of our own borderers, it would be in vain he feared to expect peace with the Indians; or that they would govern their own people better than we did ours.

     [It was in the following autumn that General St. Clair’s
     army was defeated by them in the neighborhood of the Miami
     Villages.]

Mount Vernon, April 6, 1791.  A short letter.  It mentions his intention of continuing his journey southward the next day; his horses being well recruited, he hopes they will go on better than they have come from Philadelphia.  He incloses Mr. Lear, who remains in Philadelphia, some letters to be put on file, and requests him to pay a man who had been working in the garden.

[The journey southward next day was the commencement of his tour to the Southern States, having made one into the Northern States before he became President.  Having completed his tour, he passed several days in Georgetown to execute the powers vested in him for fixing on a place for the permanent seat of government for the United States under the new constitution.]

Richmond, April 12, 1791.  This is a letter of four closely written pages, mainly, though not exclusively, about his servants and the difficulties with them under the non-slavery laws of Philadelphia; but as he requests that the knowledge of its contents and the sentiments he expresses may be confined to Mrs. Lear and Mrs. Washington, I notice no more of it.