"To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones."

Letter to James Welch | Sunday, April 07, 1799


Editorial Notes

George Washington leased part of his Great Kanawha lands to James Welch in 1797; by 1799 Welch had not yet made any payments.  Washington chastised Welch for his "repeated declarations of your having purchased my Lands on the Great Kanawa, & endeavouring by that means, and such like impositions, & misrepresentations, to obtain extensive credit where you were not known."  Welch never paid Washington, and upon Washington's death the land reverted back to his estate.

Letter to James Welch | Sunday, April 07, 1799


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