obligation I was under to their father when living, who from his youth
attached himself to my person, and followed my fortunes through the
vicissitudes of the late Revolution, afterwards devoting his time for many
years whilst my public employments rendered it impracticable for me to do
it myself, thereby affording me essential services and always performing
them in a manner the most filial and respectful."

Of his wife's kith and kin Washington was equally fond. Both alone and
with Mrs. Washington he often visited her mother, Mrs. Dandridge, and in
1773 he wrote to a brother-in-law that he wished "I was master of
Arguments powerful enough to prevail upon Mrs. Dandridge to make this
place her entire and absolute home. I should think as she lives a lonesome
life (Betsey being married) it might suit her well, & be agreeable, both
to herself & my Wife, to me most assuredly it would." Washington was also
a frequent visitor at "Eltham," the home of Colonel Bassett, who had
married his wife's sister, and constantly corresponded with these
relatives. He asked this whole family to be his guests at the Warm
Springs, and, as this meant camping out in tents, he wrote, "You will have
occasion to provide nothing, if I can be advised of your intentions, so
that I may provide accordingly." To another brother-in-law, Bartholomew
Dandridge, he lent money, and forgave the debt to the widow in his will,
also giving her the use during her life of the thirty-three negroes he had
bid in at the bankruptcy sale of her husband's property.

The pleasantest glimpses of family feeling are gained, however, in his
relations with his wife's children and grandchildren. John Parke and
Martha Parke Custis--or "Jack" and "Patsey," as he called them--were
at the date of his marriage respectively six and four years of age, and in
the first invoice of goods to be shipped to him from London after he had
become their step-father, Washington ordered "10 shillings worth of Toys,"