through its early difficulties, and finally saved it from the wreck
with which it was threatened by unreasoning popular prejudice. All
these things were successfully managed, but at much expense of time
and thought.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON RESIGNING HIS COMMISSION AT ANNAPOLIS]

Then again, apart from this mass of labor thrust upon him by
outsiders, there were his own concerns. His personal affairs required
looking after, and he regulated accounts, an elaborate business always
with him, put his farms in order, corresponded with his merchants
in England, and introduced agricultural improvements, which always
interested him deeply. He had large investments in land, of which from
boyhood he had been a bold and sagacious purchaser. These investments
had been neglected and needed his personal inspection; so in
September, 1784, he mounted his horse, and with a companion and a
servant rode away to the western country to look after his property.
He camped out, as in the early days, and heartily enjoyed it, although
reports that the Indians were moving in a restless and menacing manner
shortened his trip, and prevented his penetrating beyond his settled
lands to the wild tracts which he owned to the westward. Still he
managed to ride some six hundred and eighty miles and get a good taste
of that wild life which he never ceased to love, besides gathering a
stock of information on many points of deeper and wider interest than
his own property.

In the midst of all these employments, too, he attended closely to his
domestic duties. At frequent intervals he journeyed to Fredericksburg
to visit his mother, who still lived, and to whom he was always a
dutiful and affectionate son. He watched over Mrs. Washington's