andria, I hired a horse and went
to Mount Vernon, to view my intended farm; of which General Washington
had given me a plan, and a report along with it--the rent being fixed at
eighteen hundred bushels of wheat for twelve hundred acres, or money
according to the price of that grain. I must confess that if he would
have given me the inheritance of the land for that sum, I durst not have
accepted it, especially with the incumbrances upon it; viz. one hundred
seventy slaves young and old, and out of that number only
twenty-seven[10] in a condition to work, as the steward represented to
me. I viewed the whole of the cultivated estate--about three thousand
acres; and afterward dined with Mrs. Washington and the family. Here I
met a Doctor Thornton, who is a very pleasant agreeable man, and his
lady; with a Mr. Peters and his lady, who was a grand-daughter of Mrs.
Washington. Doctor Thornton living at the city of Washington, he gave me
an invitation to visit him there: he was one of the commissioners of
the city.

[10] Most certainly a mistake.

I slept at Mount Vernon, and experienced a very kind and comfortable
reception; but did not like the land at all. I saw no green grass there,
except in the garden: and this was some English grass, appearing to me
to be a sort of couch-grass; it was in drills. There were also six
saintfoin plants, which I found the General valued highly. I viewed the
oats which were not thrashed, and counted the grains upon each head; but
found no stem with more than four grains, and these a very light and bad
quality, such as I had never seen before: the longest straw was of about
twelve inches. The wheat was all thrashed, therefore I could not
ascertain the produce of that: I saw some of the straw, however, and
thought it had been cut and prepared for the cattle in the winter; but I
believe I was mistaken, it being short by nature, and with thrashing out
looked like chaff, or as if chopped with a bad knife. The General had
two thrashing machines, the power given by horses. The clover was very
little in bulk, and like chaff; not more than nine inches long, and the
leaf very much shed from the stalk. By the stubbles on the land I could
not tell which had been wheat, or which had been oats or barley; nor
could I see any clover-roots where the clover had grown. The weather was
hot and dry at that time; it was in December. The whole of the different
fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, co