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

TO ARCHIBALD BLAIR. 2 - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIV (1798-1799) [1893]

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. XIV (1798-1799).

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

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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 ARCHIBALD BLAIR.2

Mount Vernon, 24 June, 1799.

Sir,

Your favor of the 19th inst., enclosing the copy of a letter from our deceased friend, Patrick Henry, Esqr.,3 to you, dated the 8th of Jany. last, came duly to hand. For this instance of your polite attention to me, I pray you to accept my thanks, and an assurance that the letter shall find a distinguished place in my Beaureau of Public Papers.4

At any time I should have recd. the account of this Gentleman’s death with sorrow. In the present crisis of our public affairs, I have heard it with deep regret. But the ways of Providence are inscrutable, and not to be scanned by short-sighted man, whose duty is submission without repining at its decrees.

I had often heard of the political sentimts. expressed in Mr. Henry’s letter to you, and as often a wish that they were promulgated through the medium of the gazettes; the propriety or inexpediency of which measure none can decide more correctly than yourself. But, after what you have written to me, I feel an incumbency to inform you, that another copy of that letter has been either surreptitiously obtained, or fabricated, and more than probably is now in the Press; for I was informed on the day preceding my receipt of your letter, that one was in the hands of a Gentleman in this County Fairfax, and that he had been asked to and it was supposed would have it printed.

My breast never harbored a suspicion, that Mr. Henry was unfriendly to me; although I had reason to believe that the same spirit, which was at work to destroy all confidence in the Public functionaries, was not less busy in poisoning private fountains, and sowing the Seeds of distrust amg. men of the same Political sentiments. Mr. Henry had given me the most unequivocal proof, whilst I had the honor to command the troops of the United States in their revolutionary struggle, that he was not to be worked upon by Intriguers; and, not conscious that I had furnished any cause for it, I could not suppose that without a cause he had become my enemy since. This proof, contained in the letter to wch. you allude, is deposited among my files (for want of a proper receptacle for them, which I mean to erect), they are yet in packages. When I shall be able to open them with convenience, I will furnish you with a copy of what passed between Mr. Henry and myself, in consequence of the attempt which was made by a Party in Congress to supplant me in that command, since you think they are not to be found among his papers and wish to be possessed of them.

Your letter to me, Sir, required no apology, but has a just claim to the thanks and gratitude of one, who has the honor to be, your most obedient obliged humble servant.

[2 ]Clerk of the Executive Council.

[3 ]Patrick Henry died on the 6th of June, at the age of sixty-three. His Life, Correspondence, and Speeches have been published by his grandson, William Wirt Henry (1891-92).

[4 ]Henry’s Henry, ii., 591.