Enough has been said to show that our Farmer was impatient, perhaps even
a bit querulous, but innumerable incidents prove that he was also
generous and just. Thus when paper currency depreciated to a low figure
he, of his own volition, wrote to Lund Washington that he would not hold
him to his contract, but would pay his wages by a share in the crops,
and this at a time when his own debtors were discharging their
indebtedness in the almost worthless paper.

If ever a square man lived, Washington was that man. He believed in the
Golden Rule and he practiced it--not only in church, but in business. It
was not for nothing that as a boy he had written as his one hundred
tenth "Rule of Civility": "Labor to keep alive in your Breast that
Little Spark of Celestial fire called Conscience."

In looking through his later letters I came upon one, dated January 7,
1796, from Pearce stating that Davenport, a miller whom Washington had
brought from Pennsylvania, was dead. He had already received six
hundred pounds of pork and more wages than were due him as advances for
the coming year. What should be done? asked the manager. "His Wife and
Children will be in a most Distressed Situation." As I examined the
papers that followed I said to myself: "I will see if I know what his
answer will be." I thought I did, and so it proved. Back from
Philadelphia came the answer:

"Altho' she can have no _right_ to the Meat, I would have none of it
taken from her.--You may also let her have middlings from the Mill,--and
until the house may become indispensably necessary for the succeeding
Miller, let her remain in it.--As she went from these parts she can have
no friends (by these I mean relations) where she is. If therefore she
wishes to return back to his, or her own relations, aid her in
doing so."

Not always were his problems so somber as this. Consider, for example,
the case of William M. Roberts, an employee who feared that he was about
to get the sack. "In your absence to Richmond," writes anxious William,
November 25, 1784, "My Wife & I have had a Most Unhappy falling out
Which I Shall not Trouble you with the Praticlers No farther than This.
I hapened To Git to Drinking one Night as She thought Two Much. & From
one Cros Question to a nother Matters weare Carred to the Langth it has
been. Which Mr. Lund Washington will Inform you For My part I am
Heartily Sorry in my Sole My Wife appares to be the Same & I am of a
pinion that We Shall