Wherever he happened to be, the laundress was in constant demand.  His bill from the washer-lady for the week succeeding his inauguration as President, and before his domestic menage was in running order, was for “6 Ruffled shirts, 2 plain shirts, 8 stocks, 3 pair Silk Hose, 2 White hand. 2 Silk Handks. 1 pr.  Flanl.  Drawers, 1 Hair nett.”

The barber, too, was a constant need, and Washington’s ledger shows constant expenditures for perfumed hair-powder and pomatum, and also for powder bags and puffs.  Apparently the services of this individual were only for the arranging of his hair, for he seems never to have shaved Washington, that being done either by himself or by his valet.  Of this latter individual Washington said (when the injury to William Lee unfitted him for the service), “I do not as yet know whether I shall get a substitute for William:  nothing short of excellent qualities and a man of good appearance, would induce me to do it—­and under my present view of the matter, too, who would employ himself otherwise than William did—­that is as a butler as well as a valette, for my wants of the latter are so trifling that any man (as William was) would soon be ruined by idleness, who had only them to attend to.”

In food Washington took what came with philosophy.  “If you meet with collegiate fare, it will be unmanly to complain,” he told his grandson, though he once complained in camp that “we are debarred from the pleasure of good living; which, Sir, (I dare say with me you will concur,) to one who has always been used to it, must go somewhat hard to be confined to a little salt provision and water.”  Usually, however, poor fare was taken as a matter of course.  “When we came to Supper,” he said in his journal of 1748, “there was neither a Cloth upon ye Table nor a Knife to eat with but as good luck would have it we had Knives of our own,” and again he wrote, “we pull’d out our Knapsack in order to Recruit ourselves every one was his own Cook our Spits was Forked Sticks our Plates was a Large Chip as for Dishes we had none.”  Nor was he squeamish about what he ate.  In the voyage to Barbadoes he several times ate dolphin; he notes that the bread was almost “eaten up by Weavel & Maggots,” and became quite enthusiastic over some “very fine Bristol tripe” and “a fine Irish Ling & Potatoes.”  But all this may have been due to the proverbial sea appetite.

Samuel Stearns states that Washington “breakfasts about seven o’clock on three small Indian hoe-cakes, and as many dishes of tea,” and Custis relates that “Indian cakes, honey, and tea formed this temperate repast.”  These two writers tell us that at dinner “he ate heartily, but was not particular in his diet, with the exception of fish, of which he was excessively fond.  He partook sparingly of dessert, drank a home-made beverage, and from four to five glasses of Madeira wine” (Custis), and that “he dines, commonly on a single dish, and drinks from half a pint to a pint