Nor was Washington open only to beauty and flattery. From the rude frontier in 1756 he wrote, “The supplicating tears of the women,… melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people’s ease.” And in 1776 he said, “When I consider that the city of New York will in all human probability very soon be the scene of a bloody conflict, I cannot but view the great numbers of women, children, and infirm persons remaining in it, with the most melancholy concern. When the men-of-war passed up the river, the shrieks and cries of these poor creatures running every way with their children, were truly distressing…. Can no method be devised for their removal?” Nevertheless, though liked by and liking the fair sex, Washington was human, and after experience concluded that “I never again will have two women in my house when I am there myself.” V FARMER AND PROPRIETOR The earliest known Washington coat of arms had blazoned upon it “3 Cinque foiles,” which was the herald’s way of saying that the bearer was a landholder and cultivator, and when Washington had a book-plate made for himself he added to the conventional design of the arms spears of wheat and other plants, as an indication of his favorite labor. During his career he acted several parts, but in none did he find such pleasure as in farming, and late in life he said, “I think with you, that the life of a husbandman of all others is the most delectable. It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it is profitable. To see plants rise from the earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the laborer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy to be conceived than expressed.” “Agriculture has ever been the most favorite amusement of my life,” he wrote after the Revolution, and he informed another correspondent that “the more I am acquainted with agricultural affairs, the better pleased I am with them; insomuch, that I can no where find so great satisfaction as in those innocent and useful pursuits: In indulging these feelings, I am led to reflect how much more delightful to an undebauched mind is the task of making improvements on the earth, than all the vain glory which can be acquired from ravaging it, by the most uninterrupted career of conquests.” A visitor to Mount Vernon in 1785 states that his host’s “greatest pride is, to be thought the first farmer in America. He is quite a Cincinnatus.”