"If Cyrus continues to give evidence of such qualities as would fit him for a waiting man, encourage him to persevere in them; and if they should appear to be sincere and permanent, I will receive him in that character when I retire from public life if not sooner.--To be sober, attentive to his duty, honest, obliging and cleanly, are the qualifications necessary to fit him for my purposes.--If he possess these, or can acquire them--he might become useful to me, at the same time that he would exalt, and benefit himself." "I would have you again stir up the pride of Cyrus," he wrote the next May, "that he may be the fitter for my purposes against I come home; sometime before which (that is as soon as I shall be able to fix on time) I will direct him to be taken into the house, and clothes to be made for him.--In the meanwhile, get him a strong horn comb and direct him to keep his head well combed, that the hair, or wool may grow long." Once when President word reached his ears that he was being criticized for not furnishing his slaves with sufficient food. He hurriedly directed that the amount should be increased and added: "I will not have my feelings hurt with complaints of this sort, nor lye under the imputation of starving my negros, and thereby driving them to the necessity of thieving to supply the deficiency. To prevent waste or embezzlement is the only inducement to allowancing them at all--for if, instead of a peck they could eat a bushel of meal a week fairly, and required it, I would not withold or begrudge it them." There is good reason to believe that Washington was respected and even beloved by many of his "People." Colonel Humphreys, who was long at Mount Vernon arranging the General's papers, wrote descriptive of the return at the close of the Revolution: "When that foul stain of manhood, slavery, flowed, Through Afric's sons transmitted in the blood; Hereditary slaves his kindness shar'd, For manumission by degrees prepared: Return'd from war, I saw them round him press And all their speechless glee by artless signs express."