Her eldest son followed in his father’s footsteps, and displeased Washington with requests for loans.  He angered him still more by conduct concerning which Washington wrote to him as follows: 

“Sir, Your letter of the 11th of Octor. never came to my hands ’till yesterday.  Altho’ your disrespectful conduct towards me, in coming into this country and spending weeks therein without ever coming near me, entitled you to very little notice or favor from me; yet I consent that you may get timber from off my Land in Fauquier County to build a house on your Lott in Rectertown.  Having granted this, now let me ask you what your views were in purchasing a Lott in a place which, I presume, originated with and will end in two or three Gin shops, which probably will exist no longer than they serve to ruin the proprietors, and those who make the most frequent applications to them.  I am, &c.”

[Illustration:  Mrs Fielding Lewis (Betty Washington)]

Other of the Lewis boys pleased him better, and he appointed one an officer in his own “Life Guard.”  Of another he wrote, when President, to his sister, “If your son Howell is living with you, and not usefully employed in your own affairs, and should incline to spend a few months with me, as a writer in my office (if he is fit for it) I will allow him at the rate of three hundred dollars a year, provided he is diligent in discharging the duties of it from breakfast until dinner—­Sundays excepted.  This sum will be punctually paid him, and I am particular in declaring beforehand what I require, and what he may expect, that there may be no disappointment, or false expectations on either side.  He will live in the family in the same manner his brother Robert did.”  This Robert had been for some time one of his secretaries, and at another time was employed as a rent-collector.

Still another son, Lawrence, also served him in these dual capacities, and Washington, on his retirement from the Presidency, offered him a home at Mount Vernon.  This led to a marriage with Mrs. Washington’s grandchild, Eleanor Custis, a match which so pleased Washington that he made arrangements for Lawrence to build on the Mount Vernon estate, in his will named him an executor, and left the couple a part of this property, as well as a portion of the residuary estate.

As already noted, much of Washington’s early life was passed at the homes of his elder (half-) brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, who lived respectively at Mount Vernon and Wakefield.  When Lawrence developed consumption, George was his travelling companion in a trip to Barbadoes, and from him, when he died of that disease, in 1752, came the bequest of Mount Vernon to “my loveing brother George.”  To Augustine, in the only letter now extant, Washington wrote, “The pleasure of your company at Mount Vernon always did, and always will afford me infinite satisfaction,” and signed himself “your most affectionate brother.”  Surviving this brother, he left handsome bequests to all his children.