The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

ArrPENDIx.] WASHINGTON'S WILL. 571
of which are to be drawn for and applied, by the said trustees for
the time being, for the uses above mentioned; the stock to remain
entire and untouched, unless indications of failure of the said bank
should be so apparent, or a discontinuance thereof, should render a
removal of this fund necessary. In either of these cases, the amount
of the stock here devised is to be vested in some other bank, or
public institution, whereby the interest may with regularity and
certainty be drawn and applied as above. And to prevent misconception, my meaning is, and is hereby declared to be, that these
twenty shares are in lieu of, and not in addition to, the thousand
pounds given by a missive letter some years ago, in consequence
whereof an annuity of fifty pounds has since been paid towards the
support of this institution.
Item.- Whereas by a law of the Commonwealth of Virginia,
enacted in the year 1785, the Legislature thereof was pleased, as an
evidence of its approbation of the services I had rendered the public
during the Revolution, and partly, I believe, in consideration of my
having suggested the vast advantages which the community would
derive from the extension of its inland navigation under legislative
patronage, to present me with one hundred shares, of one hundred
dollars each, in the incorporated Company, established for the purpose of extending the navigation of James River from the tide water
to the mountains; and also with fifty shares, of ~100 sterling each,
in the corporation of another Company, likewise established for the
similar purpose of opening the navigation of the River Potomac from
the tide water to Fort Cumberland; the acceptance of which, although
the offer was highly honorable and grateful to my feelings, was
refused, as inconsistent with a principle which I had adopted, and
had never departed from, viz. not to receive pecuniary compensation for any services I could render my country in its arduous
struggle with Great Britain for its rights, and because I had evaded
similar propositions from other States in the Union; adding to this
refusal, however, an intimation, that, if it should be the pleasure of
the legislature to permit me to appropriate the said shares to public
uses, I would receive them on those terms with due sensibility; and
this it having consented to, in flattering terms, as will appear by a
subsequent law, and sundry resolutions, in the most ample and
honorable manner; - I proceed after this recital, for the more correct
understanding of the case, to declare; that, as it has always been
a source of serious regret with me, to see the youth of these United
States sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education, often
before their minds were formed, or they had imbibed any adequate
ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting too frequently, not