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

TO MAJOR-GENERAL GREENE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. X (1782-1785) [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. X (1782-1785).

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 MAJOR-GENERAL GREENE.

The part your Excellency has acted in the cause of America, and the great and benevolent share you have taken in the establishment of her independence, are deeply impressed in my mind, and will not be effaced from my remembrance, or that of the citizens of America. You will accept, Sir, my warmest acknowledgments and congratulations, with assurances that I shall always participate, with the highest pleasure, in every event, which contributes to your happiness and satisfaction.

My dear Sir,

The articles of the general treaty do not appear so favorable to France, in point of territorial acquisitions, as they do to the other powers. But the magnanimous and disinterested scale of action, which that great nation has exhibited to the world during this war, and at the conclusion of peace, will insure to the King and nation that reputation, which will be of more consequence to them than every other consideration.

I have the pleasure to inform you that your Packet for Govr. Greene which came enclosed to me (in your private Letter of the 12th of December) was forwarded in an hour after it came to my hands by a Gentleman returning to Rhode Island (Welcome Arnold, Esq.); there can be no doubt therefore of its having got safe to the Governor.

Mrs. Washington begs your Excellency to accept her sincerest thanks for the joy you have communicated to her, and to receive a return of her congratulations on this most happy of all events.

It is with a pleasure, which friendship only is susceptible of, I congratulate you on the glorious end you have put to hostilities in the Southern States. The honor and advantages of it, I hope and trust you will long live to enjoy. When this hemisphere will be equally free, is yet in the womb of time to discover. A little while, ’t is presumed, will disclose the determinations of the British senate with respect to Peace or War, as it seems to be agreed on all hands, that the present Premier, (especially if he should find the opposition powerful,) intends to submit the decision of these matters to Parliament. The Speech, the addresses, and Debates, for which we are looking in every direction, will give a data, from which the bright rays of the one, or gloomy prospect of the other, may be discovered.

I have the honor to be, &c.1

If historiographers should be hardy enough to fill the page of History with the advantages, that have been gained with unequal numbers, (on the part of America) in the course of this contest, and attempt to relate the distressing circumstances under which they have been obtained, it is more than probable, that Posterity will bestow on their labors the epithet and marks of fiction; for it will not be believed, that such a force as Great Britain has employed for eight years in this country could be baffled in their plan of subjugating it, by numbers infinitely less, composed of men oftentimes half starved, always in Rags, without pay, and experiencing at times every species of distress, which human nature is capable of undergoing.

[1 ]“Your Excellency will permit me, with the most lively sensations of gratitude and pleasure, to return you my warmest thanks for the communication, which you have been pleased to make to me and to the army, of the glorious news of a general peace; an event, which cannot fail to diffuse a general joy throughout the United States, but to none of their citizens more than to the officers and soldiers, who now compose the army. It is impossible for me to express the joy, with which I beg your Excellency to accept a return of my sincerest congratulations on this happiest of events. The commutation of the half-pay, and the measures adopted for the liquidation of their accounts, will give great satisfaction to the army; and will prove an additional tie to strengthen their confidence in the justice and benevolent intentions of Congress towards them.”—Washington to the President of Congress, 30 March, 1783.

[1 ]“Your Excellency will permit me, with the most lively sensations of gratitude and pleasure, to return you my warmest thanks for the communication, which you have been pleased to make to me and to the army, of the glorious news of a general peace; an event, which cannot fail to diffuse a general joy throughout the United States, but to none of their citizens more than to the officers and soldiers, who now compose the army. It is impossible for me to express the joy, with which I beg your Excellency to accept a return of my sincerest congratulations on this happiest of events. The commutation of the half-pay, and the measures adopted for the liquidation of their accounts, will give great satisfaction to the army; and will prove an additional tie to strengthen their confidence in the justice and benevolent intentions of Congress towards them.”—Washington to the President of Congress, 30 March, 1783.