The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 | Page 3

detail of which interests, enraptures, and astonishes the reader.
Had he not often checked his natural disposition, had he not tempered
his ardour with caution, the war he conducted would probably have
been of short duration, and the United States would still have been
colonies. At the head of troops most of whom were perpetually raw
because they were perpetually changing; who were neither well fed,
paid, clothed, nor armed; and who were generally inferior, even in
numbers, to the enemy; he derives no small title to glory from the
consideration, that he never despaired of the public safety; that he was
able at all times to preserve the appearance of an army, and that, in the
most desperate situation of American affairs, he did not, for an instant,
cease to be formidable. To estimate rightly his worth we must
contemplate his difficulties. We must examine the means placed in his
hands, and the use he made of those means. To preserve an army when
conquest was impossible, to avoid defeat and ruin when victory was
unattainable, to keep his forces embodied and suppress the discontents
of his soldiers, exasperated by a long course of the most cruel
privations, to seize with unerring discrimination the critical moment
when vigorous offensive operations might be advantageously carried
on, are actions not less valuable in themselves, nor do they require less
capacity in the chief who performs them, than a continued succession

of battles. But they spread less splendour over the page which recounts
them, and excite weaker emotions in the bosom of the reader.
There is also another source from which some degree of
disappointment has been anticipated. It is the impossibility of giving to
the public in the first part of this work many facts not already in their
possession.
The American war was a subject of too much importance to have
remained thus long unnoticed by the literary world. Almost every event
worthy of attention, which occurred during its progress, has been
gleaned up and detailed. Not only the public, but much of the private
correspondence of the commander in chief has been inspected, and
permission given to extract from it whatever might properly be
communicated. In the military part of this history, therefore, the author
can promise not much that is new. He can only engage for the
correctness with which facts are stated, and for the diligence with
which his researches have been made.
The letters to and from the commander in chief during the war, were
very numerous and have been carefully preserved. The whole of this
immensely voluminous correspondence has, with infinite labour, been
examined; and the work now offered to the public is, principally,
compiled from it. The facts which occurred on the continent are,
generally, supported by these letters, and it has therefore been deemed
unnecessary to multiply references to them. But there are many facts so
connected with those events, in which the general performed a principal
part, that they ought not to be omitted, and respecting which his
correspondence cannot be expected to furnish satisfactory information.
Such facts have been taken from the histories of the day, and the
authority relied on for the establishment of their verity has been cited.
Doddesly's Annual Register, Belsham, Gordon, Ramsay, and Stedman
have, for this purpose, been occasionally resorted to, and are quoted for
all those facts which are detailed in part on their authority. Their very
language has sometimes been employed without distinguishing the
passages, especially when intermingled with others, by marks of
quotation, and the author persuades himself that this public declaration

will rescue him from the imputation of receiving aids he is unwilling to
acknowledge, or of wishing, by a concealed plagiarism, to usher to the
world, as his own, the labours of others.
In selecting the materials for the succeeding volumes, it was deemed
proper to present to the public as much as possible of general
Washington himself. Prominent as he must be in any history of the
American war, there appeared to be a peculiar fitness in rendering him
still more so in one which professes to give a particular account of his
own life. His private opinions therefore; his various plans, even those
which were never carried into execution; his individual exertions to
prevent and correct the multiplied errors committed by inexperience,
are given in more minute detail; and more copious extracts from his
letters are taken, than would comport with the plan of a more general
work.
Many events too are unnoticed, which in such a composition would be
worthy of being introduced, and much useful information has not been
sought for, which a professed history of America ought to comprise.
Yet the history of general Washington, during his military command
and civil administration, is so much that of his