About thirty miles down the river Potomac, a gentleman, of the name of Grimes, came up to us in his own boat[8]. He had some little time before shot a man who was going across his plantation; and had been tried for so doing, but not punished. He came aboard, and behaved very politely to me: and it being near dinner time, he would have me go ashore and dine with him: which I did. He gave me some grape-juice to drink, which he called Port wine, and entertained me with saying he made it himself: it was not to my taste equal to our Port in England, nor even strong beer; but a hearty welcome makes everything pleasant, and this he most cheerfully gave me. He showed me his garden; the produce of which, he told me, he sold at Alexandria, a distance of thirty miles. His garden was in disorder: and so was everything else I saw about the place; except a favourite stallion, which was in very good condition--a pretty figure of a horse, and of proper size for the road, about fifteen hands high. He likewise showed me some other horses, brood-mares and foals, young colts, &c. of rather an useful kind. His cattle were small, but all much better than the land.
[8] This chapter is taken from A Tour of America in 1798, 1799, and 1800, by Richard Parkinson, who has already been several times quoted. Parkinson had won something of a name in England as a scientific agriculturist and had published a book called the Experienced Farmer. He negotiated by letter with Washington for the rental of one of the Mount Vernon farms, and in 1798, without having made any definite engagement, sailed for the Potomac with a cargo of good horses, cattle and hogs. His plan for renting Washington's farm fell through, by his account because it was so poor, and ultimately he settled for a time near Baltimore, where he underwent such experiences as an opinionated Englishman with new methods would be likely to meet. Soured by failure, he returned to England, and published an account of his travels, partly with the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America. His opinion of the country he summed up thus: "If a man should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let him take her to America, and keep her there three or four years in a country-place at some distance from a town, and afterwards bring her back to England; if she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there is no remedy." I have rearranged his account in such a way as to make it consecutive, but otherwise it stands as originally published.
He praised the soil very highly. I asked him if he was acquainted with the land at Mount Vernon. He said he was; and represented it to be rich land, but not so rich as his. Yet his I thought very poor indeed; for it was (as is termed in America) gullied; which I call broken land. This effect is produced by the winter's frost and summer's rain, which cut the land into cavities of from ten feet wide and ten feet deep (and upwards) in many places; and, added to this, here and there a hole, which makes it look altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that have been carried away by those hasty showers in the summer, which no man who has not seen them in this climate could form any idea of or believe possible....
In two days after we left this place, we came in sight of Mount Vernon; but in all the way up the river, I did not see any green fields. The country had to me a most barren appearance. There were none but snake-fences; which are rails laid with the ends of one upon another, from eight to sixteen in number in one length. The surface of the earth looked like a yellow-washed wall; for it had been a very dry summer; and there was not any thing that I could see green, except the pine trees in the woods, and the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view as we sailed up the Potomac. It is indeed a most beautiful river.
When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that General Washington was at Philadelphia; but his steward[9] had orders from the General to receive me and my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which I had on board. A boat was, therefore, got ready for landing them; but that could not be done, as the ship must be cleared out at some port before anything was moved: so, after looking about a few minutes at Mount Vernon, I returned to the ship, and we began to make way for Alexandria....
[9] No doubt Anderson, Washington's last manager.
When I had been about seven days at Alexandria, I hired a horse and went to Mount Vernon, to view my intended farm; of which General Washington had given me a plan, and a report along with it--the rent being fixed at eighteen hundred bushels of wheat for twelve hundred acres, or money according to the price of that grain. I must confess that if he would have given me the inheritance of the land for that sum, I durst not have accepted it, especially with the incumbrances upon it; viz. one hundred seventy slaves young and old, and out of that number only twenty-seven[10] in a condition to work, as the steward represented to me. I viewed the whole of the cultivated estate--about three thousand acres; and afterward dined with Mrs. Washington and the family. Here I met a Doctor Thornton, who is a very pleasant agreeable man, and his lady; with a Mr. Peters and his lady, who was a grand-daughter of Mrs. Washington. Doctor Thornton living at the city of Washington, he gave me an invitation to visit him there: he was one of the commissioners of the city.
[10] Most certainly a mistake.
I slept at Mount Vernon, and experienced a very kind and comfortable reception; but did not like the land at all. I saw no green grass there, except in the garden: and this was some English grass, appearing to me to be a sort of couch-grass; it was in drills. There were also six saintfoin plants, which I found the General valued highly. I viewed the oats which were not thrashed, and counted the grains upon each head; but found no stem with more than four grains, and these a very light and bad quality, such as I had never seen before: the longest straw was of about twelve inches. The wheat was all thrashed, therefore I could not ascertain the produce of that: I saw some of the straw, however, and thought it had been cut and prepared for the cattle in the winter; but I believe I was mistaken, it being short by nature, and with thrashing out looked like chaff, or as if chopped with a bad knife. The General had two thrashing machines, the power given by horses. The clover was very little in bulk, and like chaff; not more than nine inches long, and the leaf very much shed from the stalk. By the stubbles on the land I could not tell which had been wheat, or which had been oats or barley; nor could I see any clover-roots where the clover had grown. The weather was hot and dry at that time; it was in December. The whole of the different fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge--something like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in England; and the steward told me nothing would eat it, which is true. Indeed, he found fault with everything, just like a foreigner; and even told me many unpleasant tales of the General, so that I began to think he feared I was coming to take his place. But (God knows!) I would not choose to accept of it: for he had to superintend four hundred slaves, and there would be more now. This part of his business especially would have been painful to me; it is, in fact, a sort of trade of itself.
I had not in all this time seen what we in England call a corn-stack, nor a dung-hill. There were, indeed, behind the General's barns, two or three cocks of oats and barley; but such as an English broad-wheeled waggon would have carried a hundred miles at one time with ease. Neither had I seen a green plant of any kind: there was some clover of the first year's sowing: but in riding over the fields I should not have known it to be clover, although the steward told me it was; only when I came under a tree I could, by favour of the shade, perceive here and there a green leaf of clover, but I do not remember seeing a green root. I was shown no grass-hay of any kind; nor do I believe there was any.