From George Washington to William Price, 2 December 1799
To William Price
Mount Vernon 2d Decr 1799
Sir,
I have been duly favoured with your letter of the 25th Ulto, enclosing a copy of the Survey made for William Shepherd, for four & three quarter acres, and the form of a Caveate against the issuing a Patent therefor.1
I cannot from the survey, discover with precision where this land lays, and therefore shall give no further opposition to the Grant of it. If it be, where I suspect, it is within the bounds of a Patent under which I hold, of more than sixty years standing—of course, cannot effect it.2
I am sorry that I have given you so much trouble in this business, at the sametime that I feel obliged by the prompt and ready advice you have been so kind as to give me for the prosecution of it. From what I had heard of Shepherd’s Survey, I conceived differently of its object. I am Sir—Your Obedt Hble Servt
Go: Washington
ALS, Vi; ALS (letterpress copy), NN: Washington Papers. The ALS is docketed, “No Answer.”
1. Letter not found.
2. For GW’s dispute with William Shepherd over nonexistent vacant land at Difficult Run, see GW to Price, 7 Nov., n.1. On 8 Sept. 1800 Shepherd secured a grant for a tract of 4¾ acres (no. 514) across Difficult Run from GW’s property, “Adjacent [John] Lewis and [Bryan] Fairfax, beginning corner Lewis’s 337 acre tract and Fairfax[’s] 5568 acres” ( 245).