These feudal lords had serfs on their land. The serfs
were attached to the soil and were sold to a new master with the
soil. They were not, however, property, without human rights. On
the other hand, the slaves of the Virginian master were property
like his horses. They could not even call wife and children their
own, for these might be sold at will. It arouses a strange
emotion now when we find Washington offering to exchange a negro
for hogsheads of molasses and rum and writing that the man would
bring a good price, "if kept clean and trim'd up a little when
offered for sale."
In early life Washington had had very little of formal education.
He knew no language but English. When he became world famous and
his friend La Fayette urged him to visit France he refused
because he would seem uncouth if unable to speak the French
tongue. Like another great soldier, the Duke of Wellington, he
was always careful about his dress. There was in him a silent
pride which would brook nothing derogatory to his dignity. No one
could be more methodical. He kept his accounts rigorously,
entering even the cost of repairing a hairpin for a ward. He was
a keen farmer, and it is amusing to find him recording in his
careful journal that there are 844,800 seeds of "New River Grass"
to the pound Troy and so determining how many should be sown to
the acre.
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