's well-beloved with such
sentiments, a slight clue is possibly furnished. Nor was this the only
rhyme that his emotions led to his inscribing in his journal: and he
confided to it the following:

"Oh Ye Gods why should my Poor Resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and Power
At Last surrender to cupids feather'd Dart
And now lays Bleeding every Hour
For her that's Pityless of my grief and Woes
And will not on me Pity take
He sleep amongst my most inveterate Foes
And with gladness never wish to wake
In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close
That in an enraptured Dream I may
In a soft lulling sleep and gentle repose
Possess those joys denied by Day."

However woe-begone the young lover was, he does not seem to have been
wholly lost to others of the sex, and at this same time he was able to
indite an acrostic to another charmer, which, if incomplete, nevertheless
proves that there was a "midland" beauty as well, the lady being
presumptively some member of the family of Alexanders, who had a
plantation near Mount Vernon.

"From your bright sparkling Eyes I was undone;
Rays, you have; more transperent than the Sun.
Amidst its glory in the rising Day
None can you equal in your bright array;
Constant in your calm and unspotted Mind;
Equal to all, but will to none Prove kind,
So knowing, seldom one so Young, you'l Find.

Ah! woe's me, that I should Love and conceal
Long have I wish'd, but never dare reveal,
Even though severely Loves Pains I feel;
Xerxes that great, was't free from Cupids Dart,
And all the greatest Heroes, felt the smart."

When visiting Barbadoes, in 1751, Washington noted in his journal his
meeting a Miss Roberts, "an agreeable young lady," and later he went with
her to see some fireworks on Guy Fawkes day. Apparently, however, the
ladies of that island made little impression on him, for he further noted,
"The Ladys Generally are very agreeable but by ill custom or w[ha]t effect
the Negro style." This sudden insensibility is explained by a letter he
wrote to William Fauntleroy a few weeks after his return to Virginia:

"Sir: I should have been down long before this, but my business in
Frederick detained me somewhat longer than I expected, and immediately
upon my return from thence I was taken with a violent Pleurise, but
purpose as soon as I recover my strength, to wait on Miss Betsy, in hopes
of a revocation of the former cruel sentence, and see if I can meet with
a