When Washington died he was reputed one of the richest men in America and yet his estate was hardly equal to that of Coke's tenant.
Washington was a good farmer, inventive and enterprising, but he had difficulties which ruined many of his neighbors.

Today much of his infertile estate of Mount Vernon would hardly grow enough to pay the taxes.

When Washington desired a gardener, or a bricklayer, or a carpenter, he usually had to buy him in the form of a convict, or of a negro slave, or of a white man indentured for a term of years.

Such labor required eternal vigilance.

The negro, himself property, had no respect for it in others.