longer if benefitted." After writing this, a relapse brought him "very near my last gasp. The indisposition … increased upon me, and I fell into a very low and dangerous state. I once thought the grim king would certainly master my utmost efforts, and that I must sink, in spite of a noble struggle; but thank God, I have now got the better of the disorder, and shall soon be restored, I hope, to perfect health again."

During the Revolution, fortunately, he seems to have been wonderfully exempt from illness, and not till his retirement to Mount Vernon did an old enemy, the ague, reappear. In 1786 he said, in a letter, "I write to you with a very aching head and disordered frame…. Saturday last, by an imprudent act, I brought on an ague and fever on Sunday, which returned with violence Tuesday and Thursday; and, if Dr. Craik's efforts are ineffectual I shall have them again this day." His diary gives the treatment: "Seized with an ague before 6 o'clock this morning after having laboured under a fever all night—Sent for Dr. Craik who arrived just as we were setting down to dinner; who, when he thought my fever sufficiently abated gave me cathartick and directed the Bark to be applied in the Morning. September 2. Kept close to the House to day, being my fit day in course least any exposure might bring it on,—happily missed it September 14. At home all day repeating dozes of Bark of which I took 4 with an interval of 2 hours between."