that had been captured the previous month. This, however, is the last
reference that I have discovered. No doubt he was less resilient than in
his younger days and found the sport less delightful than of yore, while
the duties of the presidency, to which he was soon called, left him
little leisure for sport. He seems to have broken up his kennels and to
have given away most or all of his hounds.

Later he acquired a pair of "tarriers" and took enough interest in them
to write detailed instructions concerning them in 1796.

Washington's fishing was mostly done with a seine as a commercial
proposition, but he seems to have had a mild interest in angling.
Occasionally he took trips up and down the Potomac in order to fish,
sometimes with a hook and line, at other times with seines and nets. He
and Doctor Craik took fishing tackle with them on both their western
tours and made use of it in some of the mountain streams and also in the
Ohio. While at the Federal Convention in 1787 he and Gouverneur Morris
went up to Valley Forge partly perhaps to see the old camp, but
ostensibly to fish for trout. They lodged at the home of a widow named
Moore. On the trip the Farmer learned the Pennsylvania way of raising
buckwheat and, it must be confessed, wrote down much more about this
topic than about trout. A few days later, with Gouverneur Morris and Mr.
and Mrs. Robert Morris, he went up to Trenton and "in the evening
fished," with what success he does not relate. When on his eastern tour
of 1789 he went outside the harbor of Portsmouth to fish for cod, but
the tide was unfavorable and they caught only two. More fortunate was a
trip off Sandy Hook the next year, which was thus described by a
newspaper:

"Yesterday afternoon the President of the United States returned from
Sandy Hook and the fishing banks, where he had been for the benefit of
the sea air, and to amuse himself in the delightful recreation of
fishing. We are told he has had excellent sport, having himself caught a
great number of sea-bass and black fish--the weather proved remarkably
fine, which, together with the salubrity of the air and wholesome
exercise, rendered this little voyage extremely agreeable."

Our Farmer was extremely fond of fish as an article of diet and took
great pains to have them on his table frequently. At Mount Vernon there
was an ancient black man, reputed to be a centenarian and the son of an
African King, whose duty it was to keep the house