1760, to sell the ground for one thousand one hundred fifty pounds, but
later, "under pretence of his wife not consenting to acknowledge her
right of dower wanted to disengage himself ... and by his shuffling
behavior convinced me of his being the trifling body represented."
Washington heard presently that Clifton had sold the land to another
man for one thousand two hundred pounds, which fully "unravelled his
conduct ... and convinced me that he was nothing less than a thorough
paced rascal." Ultimately Washington acquired Brents, but had to pay
one thousand two hundred ten pounds for it.

During the next few years he acquired other tracts, notably the Posey
plantation just below Mount Vernon and later often called by him the
Ferry Farm. With it he acquired a ferry to the Maryland shore and a
fishery, both of which industries he continued.

By 1771 he paid quit rents upon an estate of five thousand five hundred
eighteen acres in Fairfax County; on two thousand four hundred
ninety-eight acres in Frederick County; on one thousand two hundred
fifty acres in King George; on two hundred forty in Hampshire; on two
hundred seventy-five in Loudoun; on two thousand six hundred eighty-two
in Loudoun Faquier--in all, twelve thousand four hundred sixty-three
acres. The quit rent was two shillings and sixpence per hundred acres
and amounted to £15.11.7.

In addition to these lands in the settled parts of Virginia he also had
claims to vast tracts in the unsettled West. For services in the French
and Indian War he was given twenty thousand acres of wild land beyond
the mountains--a cheap mode of reward, for the Ohio region was to all
intents and purposes more remote than Yukon is to-day. Many of his
fellow soldiers held their grants so lightly that he was able to buy