For the affectionate and flattering manner, in which you have been pleased to express your regrets on the occasion of my relinquishing public employments, and for your congratulations on my return to my longforsaken residence at Mount Vernon, I pray you to accept my warmest acknowledgments, and the assurances of the additional pleasure I shall derive from the prospect of spending the remainder of my days in ease and tranquillity among you, employed in rural pursuits and in the discharge of domestic and other duties. For the prosperity of the town and neighbourhood, and for your individual happiness, I offer my best APPENDIX. No. I. CORRESPONDENCE ON AGRICULTURE, AFFAIRS OF BUSINESS, AND MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS. TO ROBERT CARY AND COMPANY, MERCHANTS, LONDON. GENTLEMEN, Mount Vernon, 20 September, 1759. This will make the fourth letter I have written to you since my marriage with Mrs. Martha Custis. The two first served to cover invoices of such goods as I wanted, and to advise you at the same time of the change in her affairs, and how necessary it would be to address, for the future, all your letters, which relate to the estate of the deceased Colonel Custis, to me. The last tended only to order insurance on fifteen hogsheads of tobacco, sent by the Fair American. I shall now endeavour to take notice of such parts of your letters, as require answering, and then advise what is needful to be done as matters are circumstanced at present. In regard to the former, there remains no great deal to be said, unless you will permit me to condemn your premature sales of the estate's tobacco by Whelden, in which I should have thought a little delay would have appeared absolutely advisable for another reason, besides that mentioned by you, of an additional duty taking place; and that was the great demand for tobacco, and rising price in the country, of which you could not be unadvised from your correspondents in Virginia. However, I dare say you did for the best, and we must therefore be satisfied. And in this place, as an individual, give me leave to offer you my thanks for the opposition you made to this duty. Had all your brethren in the trade merited our acknowledgments in the same manner, this duty, probably, might never have been laid. |