2.5, while on
the seventh he won L12.8. This was the most serious game that I have
found a record of, and the cards must either have run well for him or
else he had unskilful opponents. The following March, when attending the
Burgesses at Williamsburg, he got into a game, probably at Mrs.
Campbell's tavern, where he took his meals, and dropped L7.10.

In one of his account books I find two pages devoted to striking a
balance between what he won and what he lost from January 7, 1772, to
January 1, 1775. In that time he won L72.2.6 and lost L78.5.9. Hence we
find the entry: "By balance against Play from Jany. 1772 to this
date ... L6.3.3." But he must have had a lot of fun at a cost of that
six pounds three shillings and three pence!

It should be remarked here that gaming was then differently regarded in
Virginia from what it is now. Many even of the Episcopal clergymen
played cards for money and still kept fast hold upon their belief that
they would go to Heaven.

The same may also be said of lotteries, in which Washington now and then
took a flier. Many of the churches of that day, even in New England,
were built partly or wholly with money raised in that way. January 5,
1773, Washington states that he has received sixty tickets in the
Delaware lottery from his friend Lord Stirling and that he has "put 12
of the above Sixty into the Hands of the Revd. Mr. Magowan to sell." And
"the Revd." sold them too!

In his journal of the trip to Barbadoes taken with his brother Lawrence
we find that on his way home he attended "a Great Main of cks [cocks]
fought in Yorktown between Gloucester & York for 5 pistoles each battle
& 10 ye. odd." Occasionally he seems to have witnessed other mains, but
I have found no evidence that he made the practice in any sense a habit.

As a counterweight to his interest in so brutal a sport I must state
that he was exceedingly fond of afternoon teas and of the social
enjoyments connected with tea drinking. Tea was regularly served at his
army headquarters and in summer afternoons on the Mount Vernon veranda.

There is abundant evidence that he also enjoyed horse racing. In
September, 1768, he mentions going "to a Purse race at Accotinck," a
hamlet a few miles below Mount Vernon where a race track was maintained.
In 1772 he attended the Annapolis races, being a guest of the Governor
of Maryland, and he repeated the trip in 1773. In the following May he
went to a race and barbecue at Johnson's