Voilett doth promise as well for his own sake as his employers to avoid them as he ought." Probably most readers have heard of the famous contract with the gardener Philip Bater, who had a weakness for the output of stills such as those mentioned above.

It was executed in 1787 and, in consideration of Bater's agreement "not to be disguised with liquor except on times hereinafter mentioned," provided that he should be given "four dollars at Christmas, with which he may be drunk four days and four nights; two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner at noon." Washington's most famous white servant was Thomas Bishop, who figures in some books as a negro.

He had been the personal servant of General Braddock, and tradition says that the dying General commended him to Washington.

At all events Washington took him into his service at ten pounds per year and, except for a short interval about 1760, Bishop remained one of his retainers until death.

It was Bishop and John Alton who accompanied Washington on his trip to New York and Boston in 1756--that trip in the course of which, according to imaginative historians, the young officer became enamored of the heiress Mary Phillipse.