RE: Disappointing History
February 27, 2019 at 7:03 pm
(This post was last modified: February 27, 2019 at 7:05 pm by BrianSoddingBoru4.)
(February 24, 2019 at 8:31 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:(February 23, 2019 at 9:28 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Actually, Washington did take a salary as President. What he declined was a salary as commanding general during the Revolution. Smart as a whip, too - it's a helluva lot easier to pad an expense account as a soldier than as a statesman.
Boru
Plus the Colonials were desperate to keep GW in command, so they just ignored his bullshit expenses.
Here's a partial list:
Quote:
- Household Expenses Valley Forge Winter of 1777-1778: $2,000
- Telescope from France: $1274
- A light Phaeton (a “chariot”):$1,430 and a riding mare: $1248
- Decorating house in Cambridge with “Bedstead & Curtains, Mattrass, Blankets…”: $546
- Damascus Cloth (probably table linen): $62.00
- 20 lbs. of tea: $468
- Household expenses (Nov. 21,1780-Sept.6,1781 including food like “pidgeons,” veal, eggs, “hurtleberries”, cork cask, 400 limes, Madeira wines: $20,800.
- French cook (recurring): $58.50
- Mrs. Washington’s traveling expenses: $27,665.30
- Interest charges for what Washington laid out: $7,488.
What clearly leaps out is Martha's traveling expenses. $27665 in 1776 was roughly three quarters of a million today. Ok, that's spread out over eight years, but...fuck. Wherever she was travelling, it must have been in a coach drawn by unicorns and attended by the Colonial Boy's Choir.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax