A rather peculiar situation arose in 1791 with regard to some of his "People," His attorney general, Randolph, had taken some slaves to Philadelphia, and the blacks took advantage of the fact that under Pennsylvania law they could not be forced to leave the state against their will. Fearing that some of his own servants might do likewise, Washington directed Lear to get the slaves back to Mount Vernon and to accomplish it "under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public," which goes to show that even George Washington had some of the guile of the serpent.
During this period he was loath to bring the fact that he was a slaveholder too prominently before the public, for he realized the prejudice already existing against the institution in the North. When one of his men absconded in 1795 he gave instructions not to let his name appear in any advertisement of the runaway, at least not north of Virginia.
His final judgment on slavery is expressed in his will. "Upon the decease of my wife it is my will and desire," he wrote, "that all the slaves which I hold _in my own right_ shall receive their freedom--To emancipate them during her life, would tho earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their intermixture by marriages with the Dower negroes as to excite the most painful sensations,--if not disagreeable consequences from the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power under the tenure by which the dower Negroes are held to manumit them."
The number of his own slaves at the time of his death was one hundred twenty-four. Of dower negroes there were one hundred fifty-three, and besides he had forty leased from a Mrs. French.
He expressly forbade the sale of any slave or his transportation out of Virginia, and made provision for the care of the aged, the young and the infirm. He gave immediate freedom to his mulatto man, calling himself William Lee, or if he should prefer it, being physically incapacitated, he might remain in slavery. In either case he was to have an annuity of thirty dollars and the "victuals and cloaths he has been accustomed to receive." "This I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me and for his faithful services during the revolutionary War."