cover of a letter or piece of waste
paper;--then read on the next, noting that in like manner;--and so on
until I have got through the whole letter and reports. Then in writing my
letter to you, as soon as I have finished what I have to say on one of
these notes I draw my pen through it and proceed to another and another
until the whole is done--crossing each as I go on, by which means if I am
called off twenty times whilst I am writing, I can never with these notes
before me finished or unfinished, omit anything I wanted to say; and
they serve me also, as I keep no copies of letters I wrote to you, as
Memorandums of what has been written if I should have occasion at any time
to refer to them."

Another indication of his own knowledge of defects is shown by his fear
about his public papers. When his Journal to the Ohio was printed by order
of the governor, in 1754, in the preface the young author said, "I think I
can do no less than apologize, in some Measure, for the numberless
imperfections of it. There intervened but one Day between my Arrival in
Williamsburg, and the Time for the Council's Meeting, for me to prepare
and transcribe, from the rough Minutes I had taken in my Travels, this
Journal; the writing of which only was sufficient to employ me closely the
whole Time, consequently admitted of no Leisure to consult of a new and
proper Form to offer it in, or to correct or amend the Diction of the
old." Boucher states that the publication, "in Virginia at least, drew on
him some ridicule."

This anxiety about his writings was shown all through life, and led
Washington to rely greatly on such of his friends as would assist him,
even to the point, so Reed thought, that he "sometimes adopted draughts of
writing when his own would have been better ... from an extreme diffidence
in himself," and Pickering said, in writing to an aide,--

"Although the General's private correspondence was doubtless, for the most
part, his own, and extremely acceptable to the persons addressed; yet, in
regard to whatever was destined to meet the public eye, he seems to have
been fearful to exhibit his own compositions, relying too much on the
judgment of his friends, and sometimes adopted draughts that were
exceptionable. Some parts of his private correspondence must have
essentially differed from other parts in the style of composition. You
mention your own aids to the General in this line. Now, if I had your
draughts before me, mi