After the election was over, Washington wrote Wood that "I hope no exception was taken to any that voted against me, but that all were alike treated, and all had enough. My only fear is that you spent with too sparing a hand." It is hardly necessary to say that such methods reversed the former election: Washington secured three hundred and ten votes, and Swearington received forty-five. From this time until he took command of the army Washington was a burgess. Once again he was elected from Frederick county, and then, in 1765, he stood for Fairfax, in which Mount Vernon was located. Here he received 208 votes, his colleague getting 148, and in the election of 1768 he received 185, and his colleague only 142. Washington spent between £40 and £75 at each of these elections, and usually gave a ball to the voters on the night he was chosen. Some of the miscellaneous election expenses noted in his ledger are:
54 galls of strong beer
52 dro. of Ale
£1.0.0. to Mr. John Muir for his fiddler,
For cakes at the election £7.11.1.
Bushrod Washington, made a real estate investment that did not suit his uncle, and Washington wrote him as follows:
"Now let me ask you what your views were in purchasing a Lott in a place which, I presume, originated with and will end in two or three Gin shops, which probably will exist no longer than they serve to ruin the proprietors, and those who make the most frequent applications to them."
He expressed an adverse opinion of the liquor business at one time, somewhat in the same line, in a contract he made with a plantation overseer:
"And whereas, there are a number of whiskey stills very contiguous to the said Plantations, and many idle, drunken and dissolute people continually resorting to the same, priding themselves in debauching sober and well-inclined persons, the said Edd Violet doth promise as well for his own sake as his employers to avoid them as he ought."
To the contrary, in hiring a gardener it was agreed as part of the compensation that the man should have "four dollars at Christmas with which he may be drunk for four days and nights; two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner at noon."