From George Washington to James Ross, 11 June 1796
To James Ross
Philadelphia 11th June 1796.
Dear Sir,
I should not have given you the trouble of receiving a letter from me at this time, but for the purpose of explaining a mistake which in a degree implicates you.
Two or three days ago a person (whose name I did not ask) called upon me to pay me, at the request he said of Colo. Shreve, £100 on account of the Land he had purchased of me.1 I told him I would not receive money from that Gentleman in driblets; that nothing less than the whole Second payment, which was £600 & inter[es]t, would be received; and that, if I was thus trifled with by Colo. Shreve, I would have recourse to other means to obtain a more punctual compliance with our bargain.
This reply produced a further offer, to the amount I think, in the whole of £300; but conceiving as I did, at that moment, that the whole second Instalment was due, I refused this sum also. Nor was it before this morning it occurred to me, that in April last, you paid me Eleven hundred and Sixty dollars in part of this Instalment.2
Having made this discovery too late to rectify it with the person who was charged with a payment, by Colo. Shreve, and having authorised that person to inform him that nothing short of the whole sum due, would content me; I feel it incumbent on me to give you this explanation of the matter; and through you, (if an occasion should present) of making it known to Colo. Shreve.
I think it not improbable that the person I allude to (not knowing his name) with the aid of the 1160 dollars received from you, would have paid the whole sum due on the second instalment with interest agreeable to the Articles; for he is a purchaser from Shreve, of part of the Tract, at a price very considerably advanced.
Not knowing whether Mr Chas Morgan is living or dead, or what has been done relatively to the Rents which was due on the Land, will you permit me, to request the favor of you, to ask him (if in being) or Colo. Shreve, when I am to receive it. I am in the same predicament with respect to the Rents of the Land on Millers run, & shall be equally obliged by your enquiries concerning it whenever it shall fall in your way.3 With very great esteem & regd I am—Dear Sir Your Obedt Servt
Go: Washington
ALS, owned (1985) by Jay I. Kislak, Miami, Fla.; ALS (letterpress copy), NN: Washington Papers; LB, DLC:GW. The letter-book copy has a number of minor variations from the ALS, probably resulting from the poor quality of the letterpress copy. The most substantive differences are reported in notes 3 and 4 below.
1. For Israel Shreve’s purchase of GW’s Washington’s Bottom tract in Fayette County, Pa., see Ross to GW, 3 Aug. 1795, and notes.
2. See Ross to GW, 15 April, and n.3 to that document.
3. The previous seven words do not appear on the letterpress or letter-book copies.
GW continued to pursue payment from Shreve and rents from other tenants (see GW to Ross, 12 Nov., NjP: Armstrong Collection).
4. The preceding two words do not appear on the letter-book copy.
6. GW wrote from Philadelphia on 23 Aug. (see his letter to Jeremiah Wadsworth, that date, found at Wadsworth to GW, 12 June, n.2). For his last late-summer letter addressed from Philadelphia before his departure for Mount Vernon, see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 18 September.