MAY 16th
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“My estate for the last 11 years has not been able to make both ends meet. I am encumbered now with the deficiency. I mention this for no other purpose than to shew that however willing, I am not able to pay debts unless I could sell land, which I have publicly advertised without finding bidders.”
Artist: Junius Stearns. LOC
To Lund Washington
Mount Vernon, 7 May 1787
Dear Lund,
Company, and several other matters which pressed upon me yesterday, and which has obliged me to postpone my journey a day longer is the reason why I did not acknowledge the receipt of your letter by Ned.*
I need not tell you, because a moment’s recurrence to your own accounts will evince the fact, that there is no source from which I derive more than a sufficiency for the daily calls of my family, except what flows from the collection of old debts, and scanty and precarious enough, God knows this is. My estate for the last 11 years has not been able to make both ends meet. I am encumbered now with the deficiency. I mention this for no other purpose than to shew that however willing, I am not able to pay debts unless I could sell land, which I have publicly advertised without finding bidders.**
The enclosed Bond I have had the most pointed assurances would be paid by the first of June. and for that reason if it will answer your purpose you may collect and apply the money to the use for which you want it. If this will not do, there is some flour and wheat (if there be water to grind it) in the Mill which you may dispose of for the same end. because I would not wish you to be disappointed. I am Yr Sincere Friend.
G:o Washington
* Washington was to travel to Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention; he left Mount Vernon on 9 May and arrived in Philadelphia on the 13th. The convention had been scheduled to begin the 14th but was delayed 11 days because many delegates were late in arriving (a quorum was reached on the 25th).
** Washington served without pay during the Revolutionary War (8.5 years); he only briefly returned to Mount Vernon during that period.
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