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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO COLONEL JAMES WOOD. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. II (1758-1775) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Vol. II (1758-1775).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO COLONEL JAMES WOOD.

My Dear Colonel,

If thanks flowing from a heart replete with joy and Gratitude can in any Measure compensate for the fatigue, anxiety and Pain you had at my Election, be assured you have them; ’tis a poor, but I am convinced, welcome tribute to a generous Mind. Such, I believe yours to be.

How I shall thank Mrs. Wood for her favorable Wishes, and how acknowledge my sense of obligations to the People in general for their choice of me, I am at a loss to resolve on. But why? Can I do it more effectually than by making their Interest (as it really is) my own, and doing everything that lyes in my little Power for the Honor and welfare of the Country? I think not; and my best endeavors they may always command. I promise this now, when promises may be regarded, before they might pass as words of course.

I am extreme thankful to you and my other friends for entertaining the Freeholders in my name. I hope no Exception was taken to any that voted against me, but that all were alike treated, and all had enough. It is what I much desired. My only fear is that you spent with too sparing a hand.

I don’t like to touch upon our Public Affairs. The Prospect is overspread by too many ills to give a favourable account. I will, therefore, say little, but yet say this; that backwardness appears in all things but the approach of winter—That joggs on apace.1

[1 ]From a draft in Washington’s MS.