ose of discouraging emigration to America. His
opinion of the country he summed up thus: "If a man should be so
unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let
him take her to America, and keep her there three or four years in a
country-place at some distance from a town, and afterwards bring her
back to England; if she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there
is no remedy." I have rearranged his account in such a way as to make it
consecutive, but otherwise it stands as originally published.

He praised the soil very highly. I asked him if he was acquainted with
the land at Mount Vernon. He said he was; and represented it to be rich
land, but not so rich as his. Yet his I thought very poor indeed; for
it was (as is termed in America) _gullied_; which I call broken land.
This effect is produced by the winter's frost and summer's rain, which
cut the land into cavities of from ten feet wide and ten feet deep (and
upwards) in many places; and, added to this, here and there a hole,
which makes it look altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that
have been carried away by those hasty showers in the summer, which no
man who has not seen them in this climate could form any idea of or
believe possible....

In two days after we left this place, we came in sight of Mount Vernon;
but in all the way up the river, I did not see any green fields. The
country had to me a most barren appearance. There were none but
snake-fences; which are rails laid with the ends of one upon another,
from eight to sixteen in number in one length. The surface of the earth
looked like a yellow-washed wall; for it had been a very dry summer; and
there was not any thing that I could see green, except the pine trees in
the woods, and the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view as we
sailed up the Potomac. It is indeed a most beautiful river.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that General Washington was at
Philadelphia; but his steward[9] had orders from the General to receive
me and my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which I had on board.
A boat was, therefore, got ready for landing them; but that could not be
done, as the ship must be cleared out at some port before anything was
moved: so, after looking about a few minutes at Mount Vernon, I returned
to the ship, and we began to make way for Alexandria....

[9] No doubt Anderson, Washington's last manager.

When I had been about seven days at Alex