To George Washington from Robert Lewis, 18 March 1789
From Robert Lewis
Fredericksburg, March 18, 1789.
Dear Uncle:
We received yours of the 15th instant, and are happy to here that all your family are well. I shall ever consider myself under a thousand obligations for the proffered post, and think the confinement you speak off rather a pleasure, and hope from my assiduous attention to merit that station. I wrote my aunt the proposals you had made, and, at the same time, my readiness to accompany her at a minute’s notice.1 My grandmother was very well disposed to lend the carriage, but on condition that it should be returned when of no further use to my aunt.2 All the family join in love to you, and believe me in the interim to be yours Very affectionately,
Robert Lewis
Scribner’sMonthly, 14(1877), 73.
1. Lewis’s letter to Martha Washington has not been found.
2. Mrs. Washington did not take advantage of Mary Ball Washington’s offer. When she left Mount Vernon on her journey to New York, accompanied by Lewis, she traveled in a coach belonging to Gabriel Van Horne, who operated a stage line from Philadelphia to Alexandria and rented horses and carriages for private trips. See Lewis’s diary account of “A Journey from Fredericksburg Virginia to New-York,” 13–20 May 1789, ViMtvL; William Heth to GW, 3 May 1789, n.1, and GW to Van Horne, 31 May 1789.