no
evidence that he discovered a negro that suited him.

In 1794, in explaining to Tobias Lear his reasons for desiring to sell
some of his western lands, he said: "_Besides these I have another
motive which_ makes me earnestly wish for these things--it is indeed
more powerful than all the rest--namely to liberate a certain species of
property which I possess very repugnantly to my own feelings; but which
imperious necessity compels, and until I can substitute some other
expedient, by which expenses, not in my power to avoid (however well I
may be disposed to do it) can be defrayed."

Later in the same year he wrote to General Alexander Spotswood: "With
respect to the other species of property, concerning which you ask my
opinion, I shall frankly declare to you that I do not like even to
think, much less to talk of it.--However, as you have put the question,
I shall, in a few words, give _my ideas_ about it.--Were it not then,
that I am principled agt. selling negroes, as you would cattle at a
market, I would not in twelve months from this date, be possessed of one
as a slave.--I shall be happily mistaken, if they are not found to be a
very troublesome species of property ere many years pass over
our heads."

"I wish from my soul that the Legislature of the State could see the
policy of a gradual abolition of slavery," he wrote to Lawrence Lewis
three years later. "It might prevent much future mischief."

His ideas on the subject were in accord with those of many other great
Southerners of his day such as Madison and Jefferson. These men realized
the inconsistency of slavery in a republic dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal, and vaguely they foresaw the
irrepressible conflict that was to divide their country and was to be
fought out on a hundred bloody battle-fields. They did not attempt to
defend slavery as other than a temporary institution to be eliminated
whenever means and methods could be found to do it. Not until the cotton
gin had made slavery more profitable and radical abolitionism arose in
the North did Southerners of prominence begin to champion slavery as
praiseworthy and permanent.

And yet, though Washington in later life deplored slavery, he was human
and illogical enough to dislike losing his negroes and pursued runaways
with energy. In October, 1760, he spent seven shillings in advertising
for an absconder, and the next year paid a minister named Green four
pounds for taki