6. Sold all the Flour I have left to Robt. Adam & Co. at the following Rates—fine flour at 12/6 Midlings at 10/. & Shipstuff at 8/4 pr. Ct. £300 of the Money, to be paid in Octr.—the residue in April with Int[eres]t from Octr.
In May the company had bought about 13,500 pounds of GW’s flour for £60 7s. 10d., and during June it bought about 128,000 pounds more for £765 3s. 7d. (, folio 326, 341). Over three-fourths of this flour was of fine quality, that is, finely ground and relatively free of bran and impurities. The rest consisted of middlings, a coarse medium-grade flour containing some bran, and ship stuff, the lowest quality of flour, containing much bran. Adam & Co. may have used some of GW’s flour for local sale or for making bread at the company’s bakery, but much of it, especially the fine flour, must have been exported as it was. The brig Adventure sailed from the Potomac for Jamaica with 200 barrels of flour on 8 July, and the ship Nancy of Philadelphia, which left for Lisbon on the same day, carried 2,269 barrels of flour (P.R.O., C.O.5/1349, f. 208).
During the spring GW also sold flour to two Norfolk merchants. Philip Carberry, a baker, bought 1,432 pounds of ship stuff for £5 19s. 4d., and William Chisholm, who traded with the West Indies, purchased 36,997 pounds of fine flour for £236 19s. 8d. (, folio 336, 338; Lund Washington to GW, 12 May 1771, ViMtvL).