Note 37 — LETTER XXVII.

In the beginning of the year 1796, this traffic was at its highest pitch, and at this time General Washington, so eminently distinguished for his prudence and foresight, perceiving that land had risen beyond its actual value, and persuaded that it could not rise higher for some years to come, advertised for sale every acre of which he was possessed, except the farms of Mount Vernon. The event shewed how accurate his judgment was. In the close of the year, one of the great land-jobbers, disappointed in his calculations, was obliged to abscond; the land trade was shaken to its very foundation; bankruptcies spread like wildfire from one great city to another, and men that had begun to build palaces found themselves likely to have no better habitation for a time than the common gaol.