THE

WRITINGS

OF

GEORGE WASHINGTON;

BEING HIS

CORRESPONDENCE, ADDRESSES, MESSAGES, AND OTHER

PAPERS, OFFICIAL AND PRIVATE,

SELECTED AND PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS;

WITH

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

NOTES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

BY JARED SPARKS.

VOLUME III.

BOSTON:

RUSSELL, ODIORNE, AND METCALF,

AND

HILLIARD, GRAY, AND CO.

1834.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, by JARED SPARKS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDGE:

CHARLES FOLSOM, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY.

PART SECOND;

COMPRISING

CORRESPONDENCE

AND

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS

RELATING TO

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE SECOND PART.

THIS division of the work is intended to embrace the period of the American Revolution, and to include such of the letters and other writings of Washington, as have been selected for publication, from the time he was appointed Commander-in-chief of the army, till he resigned his commission at the end of the war. Whether re

garded as to the variety, extent, and dignity of the topics on which they treat, as authentic materials for history, or as illustrating the character and acts of the great American patriot, these papers possess an extraordinary value and interest. They not only present an entire view of the operations in which Washington was engaged, as the military chieftain of the war of independence, through every stage of the contest, but they incidentally exhibit the internal condition and resources of the country, the spirit of the people, the policy, aims, and doings of the Continental Congress, and the origin and progress of the new forms of civil government, which were set up by the States and by smaller communities, as circumstances required, and to which the people, and even Washington at the head of his armies, rendered implicit obedience.