The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

United States, September 17th, 1796.

WASHINGTON AS AN AGRICULTURIST.

THROUGHOUT his correspondence there are indications of Washington's strong attachment to agricultural pursuits. Although so often and so long separated from his farms, and notwithstanding the number and weight of the public cares and employments to which he was called, he never neglected the oversight of his plantations, and preserved the character and the spirit of a cultivator of the soil, unimpaired and without interruption, during his whole life.

While at home, it was his daily practice to inspect, personally, all the various operations and processes going on over his wide-spread domains. During his absences from Mount Vernon, he received from his manager weekly reports, containing meteorological tables, and an exact account of every thing that had taken place, in the several divisions of his plantation. The minutest particulars were required to be inserted in these reports. All the expenditures of money or of labor, the entire profit and loss, the repairs of fences and buildings, the condition of the live stock, and of the laborers, and, indeed, all circumstances of every description connected with the estate, were carefully registered, according to methodical forms, and thus, week by week, brought before him. He regularly answered these reports, giving full directions in all points. His answers were prepared with his usual neatness, precision, and carefulness. They were generally of great length, frequently filling several sheets closely written, and copies of them all were preserved. But a more just and lively impression will be received of his character as a farmer by extracts from his own correspondence and other papers, than from any description by another. The following selections have been made, for this purpose from his published writings. The reader will see reason to conclude, that, in addition to all his other distinctions, he was one of the most intelligent and extensive farmers of his age.

The following extracts from letters, one addressed to John Witherspoon, and the other, to Arthur Young, describe the extent and character of his landed estate.

"To John Witherspoon.

"Mount Vernon, 10 March 1784.

"Upon examination, I find that I have patents under the signature of Lord Dunmore, (while he administered the government of this State,) for about 30,000 acres; and surveys for about 10,000 more, patents for which were suspended by the disputes with Great Britain, which soon followed the return of the warrants to the land-office.

"Ten thousand acres, of the above thirty, lie upon the Ohio; the rest on the Great Kenhawa, a river nearly as large, and quite as easy in its navigation, as the former. The whole of it is rich bottom land, beautifully situated on these rivers, and abounding plenteously in fish, wild-fowl, and game of all kinds."

"To Arthur Young.

"Philadelphia, 12 December, 1793. "All my landed property, east of the Appalachian Mountains, is under rent, except the estate called Mount Vernon. This, hitherto, I have kept in my own hands; but, from my present situation, from my advanced time of life, from a wish to live free from care, and as much at my ease as possible, during the remainder of it, and from other causes, which are not necessary to detail, I have latterly entertained serious thoughts of letting this estate also, reserving the Mansion-House Farm for my own residence, occupation, and amusement in agriculture; provided I can obtain what is, in my own judgement, and in the opinion of others whom I have consulted, the low rent which I shall mention hereafter; and provided also I can settle it with good farmers.

"The quantity of ploughable land, (including meadow,) the relative situation of the farms to one another, and the division of these farms into separate enclosures, with the quantity and situation of the woodland appertaining to the tract, will be better delineated by the sketch herewith sent (which is made from actual surveys, subject nevertheless to revision and correction) than by a volume of words.

"No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high, dry, and healthy country, three hundred miles by water from the sea, and, as you will see by the plan, on one of the finest rivers in the

world. Its margin is washed by more than ten miles of tide-water; from the bed of which, and the innumerable coves, inlets, and small marshes, with which it abounds, an inexhaustible fund of rich mud may be drawn, as a manure, either to be used separately, or in a compost, according to the judgement of the farmer. It is situated in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, and is the same distance by land and water, with good roads and the best navigation, to and from the Federal City, Alexandria, and Georgetown; distant from the first, twelve, from the second, nine, and from the last, sixteen miles. The Federal City, in the year 1800, will become the seat of the general government of the United States. It is increasing fast in buildings, and rising into consequence; and will, I have no doubt, from the advantages given to it by Nature, and its proximity to a rich interior country, and the Western territory, become the emporium of the United States.

"The soil of the tract, of which I am speaking, is a good loam, more inclined however to clay than sand. From use, and I might add abuse, it is become more and more consolidated, and of course heavier to work. The greater part is a grayish clay; some part is a dark mould; a very little is inclined to sand; and scarcely any to stone. A husbandman's wish would not lay the farms more level than they are; and yet some of the fields, but in no great degree, are washed into gullies, from which all of them have not as yet been recovered.

"This river, which encompasses the land the distance above mentioned, is well supplied with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; and, in the spring, with the greatest profusion of shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &c. Several valuable fisheries appertain to the estate; the whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery.

"There are, as you will perceive by the plan, four farms besides that at the mansion-house; these four contain three thousand two hundred and sixty acres of cultivable land, to which some hundreds more adjoining, as may be seen, might be added, if a greater quantity should be required; but as they were never designed for, so neither can it be said they are calculated to suit, tenants of either the first, or of the lower class; because those, who have the strength and resources proportioned to farms of from five hundred to twelve hundred acres, (which these contain,) would hardly be contented to live in such houses

as are thereon; and, if they were to be divided and subdivided, so as to accommodate tenants of small means, say from fifty to one or two hundred acres, there would be none, except on the lots which might happen to include the present dwelling-houses of my overlookers, (called bailiffs with you,) barns, and negro-cabins; nor would I choose to have the woodland (already too much pillaged of its timber) ransacked, for the purpose of building many more. The soil, however, is excellent for bricks, or for mud-walls; and to the building of such houses there would be no limitation, nor to that of thatch for the cover of them.

"The towns already mentioned, to those who might incline to encounter the expense, are able to furnish scantling, plank, and shingles, to any amount, and on reasonable terms; and they afford a ready market also for the produce of the land.

"On what is called Union Farm, (containing nine hundred and twenty-eight acres of arable and meadow,) there is a newly-erected brick barn, equal perhaps to any in America, and, for conveniences of all sorts, particularly for sheltering and feeding horses, cattle, &c., scarcely to be exceeded any where. A new house is now building in a central position, not far from the barn, for the overlooker; which will have two rooms, sixteen by eighteen feet, below, and one or two above, nearly of the same size. Convenient thereto is sufficient accommodation for fifty-odd negroes, old and young; but these buildings might not be thought good enough for the workmen or day-laborers of your country.

"Besides these, a little without the limits of the farm, as marked in the plan, are one or two other houses, very pleasantly situated, and which, in case this farm should be divided into two, as it formerly was, would answer well for the eastern division. The buildings thus enumerated are all that stand on the premises.

"Dogue-Run Farm (six hundred and fifty acres) has a small, but new building for the overlooker; one room only below, and the same above, sixteen by twenty each; decent and comfortable for its size. It has also covering for forty-odd negroes, similar to what is mentioned on Union Farm. It has a new circular barn, now finishing, on a new construction; well calculated, it is conceived, for getting grain out of the straw more expeditiously than in the usual mode of threshing. There are good sheds