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

TO ROBERT CARTER NICHOLAS. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. IX (1780-1782) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. IX (1780-1782).

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 ROBERT CARTER NICHOLAS.

Dear Sir,

I am perswaded that the letters, of which the inclosed are copies, never reached your hands. I take the liberty of forwarding a duplicate of the last and triplicate of the first—with the inclosures it refers to.

Since mine of March to you, I have been favored with a third letter from our good friend Colonel Fairfax, copy of which I also send, and should be happy in knowing that you had accepted the appointment he mentions, in order that I might direct all his Papers to be carefully packed up and sent to you.

I hope, I trust, that no act of Legislation in the State of Virginia has affected, or can affect, the property of this gentleman, otherwise than in common with that of every good and well disposed citizen of America. It is a well known fact that his departure for England was not only antecedent to the present rupture with Great Britain, but before there was the most distant prospect of a serious dispute with that country, and if it is necessary to adduce proof of his attachment to the interests of America since his residence there, and of the aid he has given to many of our distressed countrymen in that kingdom, abundant instances may be produced, not only by the Gentlemen alluded to in his letter of December 5, 1779, but by others that are known to me, and on whom justice to Col. Fairfax will make it necessary to call, if occasion should require the facts to be ascertained.

About the time of my writing to you in March last, I communicated the contents of Col. Fairfax’s letter of the 3d of August, 1778, to Col. Lewis, and received for an answer, that the bad state of his health would render it impossible for him to discharge the trust Col. Fairfax wished to repose in you, or him, in a manner agreeable to himself, and therefore could not think of engaging in it if you (to whom I informed him I had written) should decline it; but he recommended in case of your refusal, Mr. Francis Whiting (the former manager of Cols. Henry and William Fitzhugh’s Estate) as a person most likely, in his opinion, to discharge the trust with punctuality.

My best respects attend your lady & family, &c.