condition he quickly extricated himself. He was always in financial
straits and often appealed to his brother George for loans. In Seventeen
Hundred Eighty-one we find George Washington writing to his brother John,
"In God's name! how has Samuel managed to get himself so enormously in
debt?" The remark sounds a little like that of Samuel Johnson, who on
hearing that Goldsmith was owing four hundred pounds exclaimed, "Was ever
poet so trusted before?"

Washington's ledger shows that he advanced his brother Samuel two thousand
dollars, "to be paid back without interest." But Samuel's ship never came
in, and in Washington's will we find the debt graciously and gracefully
discharged.

Thornton Washington, a son of Samuel, was given a place in the English
army at George Washington's request; and two other sons of Samuel were
sent to school at his expense. One of the boys once ran away and was
followed by his uncle George, who carried a goodly birch with intent to
"give him what he deserved"; but after catching the lad the uncle's heart
melted, and he took the runaway back into favor. An entry in Washington's
journal shows that the children of his brother Samuel cost him fully five
thousand dollars.

Harriot, one of the daughters of Samuel, lived in the household at Mount
Vernon and evidently was a great cross, for we find Washington pleading as
an excuse for her frivolity that "she was not brung up right, she has no
disposition, and takes no care of her clothes, which are dabbed about in
every corner, and the best are always in use. She costs me enough!"

And this was about as near a complaint as the Father of his Country, and
the father of all his poor relations, ever made. In his ledger we find