“I find I am going,” Washington said to him.  “My breath cannot last long.  I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal.  Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers.  Arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than anyone else, and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters which he has begun.”

Washington asked Lear whether he thought of anything else that ought to be done; he had but a very short time, he said, to remain with his friends.  The secretary answered that he could think of nothing, and that he hoped the General was not so near his end as he thought.  Washington smiled, and said that he certainly was, “and that, as it was a debt which we must all pay, he looked on the event with perfect resignation.”

Sometimes he seemed to be in pain and distress from the difficulty of breathing, and was very restless.  Lear would then lie down upon the bed and raise and turn him as gently as possibly.  Washington often said, “I am afraid I shall fatigue you too much”; and when the young man assured him that he wished for nothing but to give him ease, Washington replied: 

“Well, it is a debt we must pay to each other, and I hope that when you want aid of this kind you will find it.”

He noticed that his servant, Christopher, had been standing most of the day, and told him to sit down.  He asked when his nephew Lewis and his adopted son Custis, who were away from home, would return.  When his lifelong friend, Dr. Craik, came to his bedside, he said:  “Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.  I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it.  My breath cannot last long.”  The doctor was unable to answer from grief, and could only press his hand.

He afterward said to all the physicians:  “I feel myself going.  I thank you for your attentions; but, I pray you, take no more trouble about me.  Let me go off quietly; I cannot last long.”  He continued to be restless and uneasy, but made no complaints, only asking now and then what time it was.  When Lear helped him to move, he gave the secretary a look of gratitude.  About ten o’clock at night he made several efforts to speak to Lear before he could do so.  He finally said:  “I am just going.  Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.”  Lear nodded, for he could not speak.

“Do you understand?” asked Washington.

“Yes.”

“’Tis well,” said the dying man.

About ten minutes before death his breathing became easier; he felt his own pulse, and the expression of his face changed.  One hand presently fell from the wrist of the other.  Lear took it in his and pressed it to his bosom.

Mrs. Washington, who sat near the foot of the bed, asked in a firm voice, “Is he gone?”

Lear was unable to speak, but made a sign that Washington was dead.