which I live, and the unproductiveness of my estate, will not
allow me to lessen my income while I remain in my present situation. On
the contrary, were it not for occasional supplies of money in payment
for lands sold within the last four or five years, to the amount of
upwards of fifty thousand dollars, I should not be able to support the
former without involving myself in debt and difficulties," This must be
taken, however, to apply to a single period of heavy expense when
foreign complications and other causes rendered farming unprofitable,
rather than to his whole career. Furthermore, his landed investments
from which he could draw no returns were so heavy that he had approached
the condition of being land poor and it was only proper that he should
cut loose from some of them.

CHAPTER XVII

ODDS AND ENDS

In an age when organized charity was almost unknown the burden of such
work fell mainly upon individuals. Being a man of great prominence and
known to be wealthy, the proprietor of Mount Vernon was the recipient of
many requests for assistance. Ministers wrote to beg money to rebuild
churches or to convert the heathen; old soldiers wrote to ask for money
to relieve family distresses or to use in business; from all classes and
sections poured in requests for aid, financial and otherwise.

It was inevitable that among these requests there should be some that
were unusual. Perhaps the most amusing that I have discovered is one
written by a young man named Thomas Bruff, from the Fountain Inn,
Georgetown. He states that this is his second letter, but I have not
found the first. In the letter we have he sets forth that he has lost
all his property and desires a loan of five hundred pounds. His need is
urgent, for he is engaged to a beautiful and "amiable" young lady,
possessed of an "Estate that will render me Independent. Whom I cannot
Marry in my present situation.... All my Happyness is now depending upon
your Goodness and without your kind assistance I must be forever
miserable--I should have never thought of making application to you for
this favor had it not been in Consequence of a vision by Night since my
Fathers Death who appeared to me in a Dream in my Misfortunes three
times in one Night telling me to make applycation to you for Money and
that you would relieve me from my distresses. He appeared the other
night again and asked me if I had obeyed his commands I informed him
that I had Wrote to you