Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

me.

Your advances, on this account, will be allowed always at settlement.

I agree readily to furnish her with provisions; and, from the good character you give of her daughter, make the latter a present, in my name, of a handsome but not costly gown, and other things which she may stand mostly in need of.

You may charge me also with the worth of your tenement on which she is placed; and where, perhaps, it is better she should be, than at a greater distance from your attentions to her. Feb., 22, 1795.

I am sorry to hear of the death of Mrs. H.; and will very cheerfully receive her daughter, the moment I get settled at this place; sooner, it would not be possible, because this house will be, as it has been, empty, from the time we shall quit it in October, until my final establishment in the spring.

Such necessaries as she needs in the mean time, may, however, be furnished her at my expense; and if it is inconvenient for you to retain her in your own house, let her be boarded in some respectable family, where her morals and good behavior will be attended to; at my expense also.

Let her want for nothing that is decent or proper ; and if she remains in your family, I wish, for the girl's sake, as well as for the use she may be of to your aunt, when she comes here, that Mrs. would keep her

*Mount Vernon.

industriously employed always, and instructed in the care and economy of housekeeping.

June, 1796.

*

Enclosed is a letter for S. H., left open for your perusal, before it is forwarded to her; with the contents of which, respecting the payment of ten pounds, I request you to comply; and charge the same to the account of your collection of my rents.

1798.

EDUCATION OF A STUDENT AT COLLEGE.

Having once or twice heard you speak highly of the New Jersey College, as if you had a desire of sending your son William there, (who, I am told, is a youth fond of study and instruction, and disposed to a studious life, in following which he may not only promote his own happiness, but the future welfare of others,) I should be glad, if you have no other objection to it than the expense, if you would send him to that college, as soon as convenient, and depend on me for twenty-five pounds a year for his support, so long as it may be necessary for the completion of his education.

If I live to see the accomplishment of this term, the sum here stipulated shall be annually paid. And if I die in the mean time, this letter shall be obligatory upon my heirs or executors to do it according to the true intent and meaning hereof.

* His agent

No other return is expected or wished, for this offer, than that you will accept it with the same freedom and good will with which it is made, and that you may not even consider it in the light of an obligation, or mention it as such; for, be assured, that from me it will never be known.

1769.

PUBLIC BENEFICENCE.

If it should please the General Assembly,* to permit me to turn the destination of the fund vested in me, from my private emolument, to objects of a PUBLIC nature, it will be my study, in selecting these, to prove the sincerity of my gratitude for the honor conferred on me, by preferring such as may appear most subservient to the enlightened and patriotic views of the legislature.

1785.

ALEXANDRIA ACADEMY.

To the trustees.

I give four thousand dollars, or, in other words, twenty of the shares which I hold in the Bank of Alexandria, toward the support of a FREE SCHOOL, established at, or annexed to, the Aca

* The General Assembly of Virginia made him a donation, testifying their sense of his merits. It consisted of fifty shares in the Potomac Company, and a hundred shares in the James River Company.

demy; for the purpose of educating such Orphan Children, or the children of such other poor and indigent persons as are unable to accomplish it with their own. means, and who, in the judgment of the trustees of the seminary, are best entitled to the benefit of the donation.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

I give the fifty shares which I hold in the Potomac Company, towards the endowment of a University, to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the General Government, if that government should incline to extend a fostering hand towards it.

LIBERTY HALL ACADEMY.

The hundred shares which I hold in the James River Company, I give to and for the use and benefit of Liberty Hall Academy, in the county of Rockbridge, in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Now called Washington College.

6. CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY.

Man is one:

And he hath one great heart.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

I received with great pleasure thy letter, containing an extract of another from General Washington, in which that hero, who effected, with little bloodshed, the greatest revolution in history, breathes the sentiments of true philanthropy.

A warrior clothed with humanity and wisdom, is the symbol of Minerva; and few have united them. Turenne had courage and some degree of humanity; but he it was that burnt the Palatinate, and had the Nero-like pleasure of seeing thirteen cities in flames. Scipio's humanity was stained with the destruction of Carthage; and Rome fell for want of a rival. Alexander the Great, and the modern Frederick, had their stains of cruelty. But YOUR HERO, without the lictor of Cincinnatus, was obeyed.-conquers, and retires, without the foul stain of blood. Might I presume upon communicating to him the cordial approbation his humane sentiments have impressed upon me? DR. LETSOM, of London, a member of the Society of Friends.

RECONCILIATION.

Every exertion of my colleagues and myself will be extended, to the re-establishment of peace and harmony between the mother-country and the colonies.

1775.

THE CAUSE OF THE OPPRESSED.

My anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes are irresistibly attracted, whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.

« AnteriorContinuar »