Probably the neatest turn was his course on one occasion with General Tryon, who sent him some British proclamations with the request, “that through your means, the officers and men under your command may be acquainted with their contents.”  Washington promptly replied that he had given them “free currency among the officers and men under my command,” and enclosed to Tryon a lot of the counter-proclamation, asking him to “be instrumental in communicating its contents, so far as it may be in your power, to the persons who are the objects of its operation.  The benevolent purpose it is intended to answer will I persuade myself, sufficiently recommend it to your candor.”

To a poetess who had sent him some laudatory verses about himself he expressed his thanks, and added, “Fiction is to be sure the very life and Soul of Poetry—­all Poets and Poetesses have been indulged in the free and indisputable use of it, time out of mind.  And to oblige you to make such an excellent Poem on such a subject without any materials but those of simple reality, would be as cruel as the Edict of Pharoah which compelled the children of Israel to manufacture Bricks without the necessary Ingredients.”

Twice he joked about his own death.  “As I have heard,” he said after Braddock’s defeat, “since my arrival at this place, a circumstancial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter.”  Many years later, in draughting a letter for his wife, he wrote,—­

“I am now by desire of the General to add a few words on his behalf; which he desires may be expressed in the terms following, that is to say,—­that despairing of hearing what may be said of him, if he should really go off in an apoplectic, or any other fit (for he thinks all fits that issue in death are worse than a love fit, a fit of laughter, and many other kinds which he could name)—­he is glad to hear beforehand what will be said of him on that occasion; conceiving that nothing extra will happen between this and then to make a change in his character for better, or for worse.  And besides, as he has entered into an engagement ... not to quit this world before the year 1800, it may be relied upon that no breach of contract shall be laid to him on that account, unless dire necessity should bring it about, maugre all his exertions to the contrary.  In that same, he shall hope they would do by him as he would do by them—­excuse it.  At present there seems to be no danger of his thus giving them the slip, as neither his health nor spirits, were ever in greater flow, notwithstanding, he adds, he is descending, and has almost reached the bottom of the hill; or in other words, the shades below.  For your particular good wishes on this occasion he charges me to say that he feels highly obliged, and that he reciprocates them with great cordiality.”