Your desire of obtaining truth, is very laudable; I wish I had more leisure to gratify it, as I am equally solicitous the undisguised verity should be known. Many circumstances will unavoidably be misconceived and misrepresented. Notwithstanding most of the papers, which may properly be deemed official, are preserved; yet the knowlege of innumerable things, of a more delicate and secret nature, is confined to the perishable remembrance of some few of the present generation.
With esteem, I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
G. WASHINGTON.
To ——.
[47] A dollar, in sterling money, is 4s6. But the price of a dollar rose in New England currency to 6s; in New York to 8s; in New Jersey, Pensylvania and Maryland to 7s6; in Virginia to 6s; in North Carolina to 8s; in South Carolina and Georgia to 4s8. This difference, originating between paper and specie, or bills, continued afterwards to exist in the nominal estimation of gold and silver.
Franklin's Miscel. Works, p. 217.
[48] A dollar was usually cut in five pieces, and each passed by toll for a quarter; so that the man who cut it gained a quarter, or rather a fifth. If the State should recoin this silver, it must lose a fifth.
[49] This pernicious opinion has prevailed in all the States, and done infinit mischief.
[50] Columbian Magazine for May, 1787.
[51] The existence of a custom of paying respect to these Indian heaps, as they are called, is proved by a ludicrous practice, that prevails among the Anglo Americans in the vicinity, of making strangers pull off their hats as they pass by this grave. A man passing by with one who is a stranger to the custom, never fails to practise a jest upon him, by telling him that a spider, a caterpillar, or some other insect is upon his hat; the unsuspecting traveller immediately takes off his hat, to brush away the offending insect, and finds by a roar of laughter, that a trick is put upon him. I have often seen this trick played upon strangers, and upon the neighbors who happen to be off their guard, to the great amusement of the country people. The jest, however, is a proof that the aborigines paid a respect to these rude monuments, and in ridicule of that respect, probably, originated the vulgar practice of the English, which exists to this day.