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

TO MAJOR-GENERAL PUTNAM. - 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 PUTNAM.

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.

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.

Your favor of the 20th of May I received with much pleasure; for I can assure you, that, among the many worthy and meritorious officers, with whom I have had the happiness to be connected in service through the course of this war, and from whose cheerful assistance and advice I have received much support and confidence, in the various and trying vicissitudes of a complicated contest, the name of a Putnam is not forgotten; nor will it be but with that stroke of time, which shall obliterate from my mind the remembrance of all those toils and fatigues, through which we have struggled for the preservation and establishment of the rights, liberties, and independence of our country.

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.

Your congratulations on the happy prospects of peace and independent security, with their attendant blessings to the United States, I receive with great satisfaction; and beg that you will accept a return of my gratulations to you on this auspicious event; an event, in which, great as it is in itself, and glorious as it will probably be in its consequences, you have a right to participate largely, from the distinguished part you have contributed towards its attainment.

I have the honor to be, &c.1

But while I contemplate the greatness of the object for which we have contended, and felicitate you on the happy issue of our toils and labors, which have terminated with such general satisfaction, I lament that you should feel the ungrateful returns of a country, in whose service you have exhausted your bodily health, and expended the vigor of a youthful constitution. I wish, however, that your expectations of returning sentiments of liberality may be verified. I have a hope, they may; but, should they not, your case will not be a singular one. Ingratitude has been experienced in all ages, and republics in particular have ever been famed for the exercise of that unnatural and sordid vice.