rding to this devise there may be some who from old age, or bodily
infirmities & others who on account of their infancy, that will be unable
to support themselves, it is my will and desire that all who come under
the first and second description shall be comfortably cloathed and fed by
my heirs while they live and that such of the latter description as have
no parents living, or if living are unable or unwilling to provide for
them, shall be bound by the Court until they shall arrive at the age of
twenty five years.... The negroes thus bound are (by their masters and
mistresses) to be taught to read and write and to be brought up to some
useful occupation."

In this connection Washington's sentiments on slavery as an institution
may be glanced at. As early as 1784 he replied to Lafayette, when told of
a colonizing plan, "The scheme, my dear Marqs., which you propose as a
precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this
Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking
evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in
so laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business,
till I have the pleasure of seeing you." A year later, when Francis Asbury
was spending a day in Mount Vernon, the clergyman asked his host if he
thought it wise to sign a petition for the emancipation of slaves.
Washington replied that it would not be proper for him, but added, "If the
Maryland Assembly discusses the matter; I will address a letter to that
body on the subject, as I have always approved of it."

When South Carolina refused to pass an act to end the slave-trade, he
wrote to a friend in that State, "I must say that I lament the decision of
your legislature upon the question of importing slaves after March 1793. I
was in hopes that motives of policy as well as other good reasons,
supported by the direful effects of slavery, which at this moment are
presented, would have operated to produce a total prohibition of the
importation of slaves, whenever the question came to be agitated in any
State, that might be interested in the measure." For his own State he
expressed the "wish from my soul that the Legislature of this State could
see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery; it would prev't much
future mischief." And to a Pennsylvanian he expressed the sentiment, "I
hope it will not be conceived from these observations, that it is my wish
to hold the unh