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.

PART I.] PRIVATE LETTERS. 403
nurturing and bringing him up in a proper course is, no
doubt, an object of great concern to you, as well as importance to him; but two things are essentially necessary in the man to whom this charge is committed, a
capacity of judging with propriety of measures proper
to be taken in the government of a youth, and leisure
sufficient to attend to the execution of these measures.
That you are pleased to think favorably of me, in respect to the first, I shall take for granted, from the request you have made; but to show my incapacity of
attending to the latter, with that good faith, which I
think every man ought to use, who undertakes a trust of
this interesting nature, I can solemnly declare to you,
that, for a year or two past, there has been scarce a
moment, that I could properly call my own. What with
my own business, my present ward's, my mother's,
which is wholly in my hands, Colonel Colvill's, Mrs.
Savage's, Colonel Fairfax's, Colonel Mercer's, and the
little assistance I have undertaken to give in the management of my brother Augustine's concerns (for I have
absolutely refused to qualify as an executor), together
with the share I take in public affairs, I have been kept
constantly engaged in writing letters, settling accounts,
and negotiating one piece of business or another; by
which means I have really been deprived of every kind
of enjoyment, and had almost fully resolved to engage
in no fresh matter, till I had entirely wound up the old.
Thus much, Sir, candor, indeed the principle of common honesty, obliged me to relate to you, as it is not my
wish to deceive any person by promising what I do not
think it in my power to perform with that punctuality and
rectitude, which I conceive the nature of the trust would
require. I do not, however, give a flat refusal to your
request. I rather wish you to be fully informed of my
situation, that you may think with me, or as I do, that,