None the less Washington was a successful businessman. Though his property rarely produced a net income, and though he served the public with practically no profit (except as regards bounty lands), and thus was compelled frequently to dip into his capital to pay current expenses, yet, from being a surveyor only too glad to earn a doubloon (seven dollars and forty cents) a day, he grew steadily in wealth, and when he died his property, exclusive of his wife’s and the Mount Vernon estate, was valued at five hundred and thirty thousand dollars. This made him one of the wealthiest Americans of his time, and it is to be questioned if a fortune was ever more honestly acquired or more thoroughly deserved. VI MASTER AND EMPLOYER In his “rules of civility” Washington enjoined that “those of high Degree ought to treat” “Artificers & Persons of low Degree” “with affibility & Courtesie, without Arrogancy,” and it was a needed lesson to every young Virginian, for, as Jefferson wrote, “the whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most insulting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.” Augustine Washington’s will left to his son George “Ten negro Slaves,” with an additional share of those “not herein particularly Devised,” but all to remain in the possession of Mary Washington until the boy was twenty-one years of age. With his taking possession of the Mount Vernon estate in his twenty-second year eighteen more came under Washington’s direction. In 1754 he bought a “fellow” for £40.5, another (Jack) for £52.5, and a negro woman (Clio) for £50. In 1756 he purchased of the governor a negro woman and child for £60, and two years later a fellow (Gregory) for £60.9. In the following year (the year of his marriage) he bought largely: a negro (Will) for £50; another for £60; nine for £406, an average of £45; and a woman (Hannah) and child, £80. In 1762 he added to the number by purchasing seven of Lee Massey for £300 (an average of £43), and two of Colonel Fielding Lewis at £115, or £57.10 apiece. From the estate of Francis Hobbs he bought, in 1764, Ben, £72; Lewis, £36.10; and Sarah, £20. Another fellow, bought of Sarah Alexander, cost him £76; and a negro (Judy) and child, sold by Garvin Corbin, £63. In 1768 Mary Lee sold him two mulattoes (Will and Frank) for £61.15 and £50, respectively; and two boys (negroes), Adam and Frank, for £19 apiece. Five more were purchased in 1772, and after that no more were bought. In 1760 Washington paid tithes on forty-nine slaves, five years later on seventy-eight, in 1770 on eighty-seven, and in 1774 on one hundred and thirty-five; besides which must be included the “dower slaves” of his wife. Soon after this there was an overplus, and Washington in 1778 offered to barter for some land “Negroes, of whom I every day long more to get clear of,” and even before this he had learned the economic fact