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LEJLJLE.R 
 
 TO 
 
 LORD MAHON, 
 
 BEING AN ANSWER 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR 
 
 OF 
 
 WASHINGTON S WRITINGS. 
 
LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 LORD MAHON, 
 
 BEING AN ANSWER 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR 
 
 OF 
 
 WASHINGTON S WRITINGS. 
 
 BY JARED SPARKS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 1852. 
 
CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 METCALF AND COMPANY, 
 PRINTKRS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
k 
 
 ,7 
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 LORD M A H O N 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 I HAVE had the honor to receive from you a 
 copy of the Letter, which you have addressed to 
 me as a Rejoinder to my Reply to certain stric 
 tures on the manner in which I had edited Wash 
 ington s Writings. In that Reply, it was my 
 main object to explain the plan and principles 
 upon which it was originally designed that the 
 work should be executed, and which, as I thought, 
 you and others had strangely overlooked or mis 
 apprehended ; and also to show, that I had dis 
 charged the duties of an editor in strict conform 
 ity with that plan and those principles. While 
 thus reviewing my past labors and vindicating my 
 integrity of purpose, I had occasion to speak with 
 pointed disapprobation of two or three serious 
 
 M5G5276 
 
charges in a recent volume of your History, which 
 I knew to be founded in error, and which I was 
 wholly unable to reconcile with the courtesy and 
 candor to be expected in a work from your pen. 
 
 It is true, my Lord, as you suggest, I had not 
 then read that volume, and, if I had done so, it 
 could not in any degree have modified my opinion 
 of the passages which I had seen, and to which 
 my remarks were confined. I did not pretend to 
 " answer your book," nor any part of it except 
 the brief extracts here alluded to, which are in 
 no way affected by the general contents of the 
 work. If I had perused the volume, most assur 
 edly I should not have said, "a British historian 
 might, perhaps, find something to commend in the 
 result of my attempts"; referring to the efforts I 
 had made, in the notes and illustrations, to cor 
 rect the erroneous opinions and false impressions, 
 which had prevailed in America concerning the 
 motives and designs of the British Ministry and 
 military commanders during the war. On this 
 point, your recognition of the fact is explicit and 
 full. 
 
 You also say, " Mr. Sparks s own share in 
 these notes and illustrations is written, not only 
 with much ability, but in a spirit, on most points, 
 of candor and fairness, and the whole collection 
 is of great historical interest and importance." I 
 
trust that I am not insensible to your own candor 
 
 and fairness in forming this estimate, nor to the 
 
 liberality of the terms in which your judgment is 
 expressed. 
 
 But the questions at issue between us are of 
 a different character, and require to be discussed 
 by themselves. You expressed the opinion, that 
 I " had printed no part of Washington s corre 
 spondence precisely as he wrote it," which opinion 
 you conceived yourself " bound not to conceal." 
 You also charged me with making additions to 
 the original text, and unwarrantable alterations 
 and omissions for the sake of embellishment ; 
 leaving your readers to draw the conclusion, which, 
 if they rested on your declarations alone, they 
 could not but draw, that the editor was totally 
 incompetent to the task he had undertaken. 
 
 You now withdraw the charge of making ad 
 ditions, unquestionably the most important, but 
 you say, " On other points I must declare myself 
 prepared, though with all possible respect for your 
 observations, to adhere to and maintain the opin 
 ions I advanced." The withdrawal of the first 
 charge might close that part of the discussion at 
 once, if you did not still insist on your right to 
 make it at the time, relying on authority which 
 you then supposed to be entitled to confidence. 
 
Let us briefly consider this claim before we pro 
 ceed farther. 
 
 The case stands thus. You found in one of 
 Washington s letters, as printed by me, the pas 
 sage which here follows in italics; "but is it pos 
 sible that any sensible nation upon earth can be 
 imposed upon by such a cobweb scheme or gauze 
 covering?" This passage did not appear in a copy 
 of the same letter as printed by Mr. Eeed. 
 Whereupon you charged me, in a strain of sar 
 casm, (certainly unusual in your Lordship s com 
 positions, and therefore the more to be regarded,) 
 with having " manufactured " it for the occasion, 
 and by way of embellishment to the original text. 
 Having ascertained that Washington actually wrote 
 these words, absurd as they seemed to you, and 
 that they had been omitted in the other printed 
 copy by some accident, you now withdraw the 
 charge. And you add, " I will even go farther, 
 and express my regret that, believing as I did the 
 charge to be well founded and fully proved, I 
 adopted a tone towards you, in one or two other 
 passages of my History, different from that which 
 I should have used had I thought you wholly 
 free from this imputation." I am very ready to 
 accept this as a fair recantation, though not so 
 fully as I could have done, if its value were not 
 diminished by the remarks with which it is con 
 nected. 
 
You maintain, that, under the circumstances, 
 you were justified in making the charge, and in 
 throwing out insinuations not less erroneous, and 
 scarcely less offensive. You ask, "Having found 
 these passages, I will put it to any candid per 
 son, and will include you, Sir, in the number, 
 whether I was to blame for the conclusion I drew 
 from them] Had I not a right to say, that the 
 * cobweb schemes or gauze coverings seemed to 
 be of your own manufacture 1 Had I not a right 
 to intimate a suspicion, in one or two other parts 
 of my History, whether such improvements had not 
 extended farther ; whether the same manufactory 
 had not been busy elsewhere ] " As you put these 
 questions to me personally, I must answer, that I 
 can neither allow, nor conceive for a moment, that 
 you had any such right. 
 
 What was the real ground upon which you 
 stood I From fifteen words of suspected addition, 
 and the supposed change of one other word, which 
 you have since acknowledged is at least doubtful, 
 you ventured to hazard the opinion, and to pro 
 mulgate it in an authoritative manner, that I had 
 made like additions and changes, or, in your own 
 phrase, " manufactured " them, throughout Wash 
 ington s correspondence ; an editorial license, which 
 you properly designate as "not at all short of a 
 literary forgery." Let me ask you, in all plain- 
 
8 
 
 ness, whether you had a right, upon any princi 
 ples of fair criticism, to draw so broad an infer 
 ence, implicating not more the literary ability 
 and judgment of the editor than his integrity as 
 a man, from such exceedingly narrow premises 1 
 
 Every one knows how frequently errors result 
 from accident, or through the mistakes of tran 
 scribers and printers, in publishing original man 
 uscripts. A moderate degree of forbearance might 
 have inclined you to suspect an error from some 
 of these sources, and cautioned you to wait till 
 your proofs were better established. The event 
 has shown that this course would have been 
 more judicious, certainly more just. I must dis 
 sent, therefore, from your claim of right to charge 
 me with manufacturing " cobweb schemes or gauze 
 
 coverings." 
 
 We may examine this claim a little farther, as 
 applied to " one or two other places " in your 
 History, to which you allude. In one of these, 
 after remarking in the text, that the Declaration 
 of Independence " excited much less notice than 
 might have been expected," you deem it proper 
 to add in a note, "Washington, however, in 
 his public letter to Congress, (unless Mr. Jared 
 Sparks has improved this passage,) says, that the 
 troops had testified their warmest approbation. " 
 In another place, referring to certain passages in 
 
9 
 
 Washington s letters, you administer the caution 
 to your readers, " How far Mr. Sparks may have 
 either garbled these passages, or suppressed others, 
 I know not." And why should you not know 1 
 You had before you a copy of Washington s " Of 
 ficial Letters to the Honorable American Congress," 
 published in London more than half a century 
 ago, in two volumes. This work you have more 
 than once quoted. It contains the passages you 
 cite in both these cases from letters to the Presi 
 dent of Congress, (Vol. I. p. 185, Vol. II. p. 223,) 
 printed in precisely the same words as in " Wash 
 ington s Writings." And yet, with these previous 
 ly printed letters in your hands, you seem not to 
 have consulted them, but you were willing, with 
 out inquiry, to hazard these injurious imputations. 
 Was this justifiable under any circumstances 1 
 
 As you have retracted the main charge, how 
 ever, I am so far content; and I should have let 
 it rest without comment, if you had not attempt 
 ed to vindicate your right to make it on such 
 grounds as appear to me untenable. 
 
 The two other charges, first, of corrections, and, 
 secondly, of omissions, with an unwarrantable de 
 sign, although you allow them to be " far lesser 
 charges," you undertake to sustain. 
 
 Here it is to be remarked, that your observa- 
 2 
 
10 
 
 tions and strictures are presented under a double 
 aspect. You state cases, and assign motives ; the 
 former you endeavor to explain by the latter. 
 You imagine that you have discovered two prom 
 inent motives, which, if your discovery is genuine, 
 must have operated to pervert my judgment, and 
 blunt my moral perceptions, through the whole 
 course of my editorial labors. These motives are, 
 first, a desire to save the dignity of Washington, 
 which led me sometimes to omit epithets and 
 phrases, and sometimes to substitute others more 
 appropriate to his character than those written by 
 himself; and, secondly, a tenderness for the peo 
 ple of New England, moving me to leave out such 
 parts of Washington s letters as bore hard upon 
 their patriotism, courage, or public virtue. As 
 these imputed motives form the groundwork of 
 your specifications, I propose to analyze your 
 proofs, which, from the manner in which you 
 have stated and arranged them, must be done 
 somewhat in detail. 
 
 As a demonstration of the first motive, you be 
 gin by reproducing the phrases " flea-bite," " lame 
 hand," " two of this kidney," and, last of all, 
 " Old Put." These phrases have become so well 
 known, by the labors of yourself and others, that 
 the false elevation, to which Washington s fame 
 had risen by their omission, may now be consid- 
 
11 
 
 ered as fairly brought to its true level. While 
 I admit the offence in all its magnitude, and de 
 plore its consequences, I must repel the charge of 
 sinister design, or of any felonious intent upon 
 the truth of history. If I could have anticipated 
 the lively concern which the loss of these words 
 was to excite, not only in the minds of respec 
 table writers in the daily journals, but in that of 
 an eminent historian, I cannot doubt that I should 
 have weighed the matter more deliberately, and 
 perhaps have come to a different decision. 
 
 In the case of "Old Put," however, it should 
 be remembered that this form of speech was not 
 a conception of Washington ; he placed it within 
 inverted commas, as copied from Mr. Reed s let 
 ter, to which he was writing an answer ; so that 
 no characteristic trait of the writer was sacrificed 
 by changing "Old Put" into "General Putnam." 
 I mention this as a fact proper to be noticed, 
 but not as an apology for making the change. 
 Had the phrase been retained, a note would nat 
 urally have referred it to Mr. Reed s letter as its 
 source. 
 
 Now, my Lord, let these editorial delinquencies, 
 if such you please to call them, be explained as 
 they may, or go unexplained, I cannot resist the 
 conviction, that, when you build on them the fol 
 lowing formal judgment, you are striving to mag- 
 
nify a small thing into one of most unnatural 
 dimensions. You inquire, "What other motive 
 can by possibility be assigned for such corrections 
 besides the one that I have stated ? Is it not 
 quite clear in these cases, that you were seeking 
 to use language more conformable to Washing 
 ton s dignity of character than Washington could 
 use for himself "? We in England, with the high 
 est respect for the memory of that great man, 
 believe that in his own true form he is sufficient 
 ly exalted. It is only some of his countrymen 
 who desire to set him upon stilts." Is it your set 
 tled belief, that these four phrases were absolutely 
 necessary to bring Washington s dignity down to 
 its just position in forming an estimate of his 
 character] If you have perused the eleven vol 
 umes of his correspondence, and particularly his 
 familiar letters and diaries in the twelfth volume, 
 you have seen hundreds better suited to answer 
 such a purpose. What an absurdity in me, 
 then, to undertake to shield Washington s dignity 
 by suppressing half a dozen, or half a hundred 
 words or phrases, while multitudes of others 
 equally or more objectionable on this score spring 
 up throughout the work. 
 
 As to the "stilts," it becomes those of my coun 
 trymen, who may be obnoxious to your charge, to 
 look to the matter. If there be any, who under- 
 
13 
 
 take the hopeless task of raising Washington 
 higher than he stands by the force of his own 
 character, and the consent of mankind, it is but 
 chanty to remind them of their folly. As an 
 apology for their delusion, however, it should not 
 be forgotten, that the foible of exalting great men 
 by exaggerated praise, or, in your more expressive 
 language, by " setting them upon stilts," is not 
 peculiar to any country. Even in England the 
 pens of respectable authors are sometimes betrayed 
 into extravagances of this sort. English histori 
 ans are not always free from them. 
 
 We come now to another class of omissions, 
 for which you assign the same motive ; passages 
 containing " the vehement language which Wash 
 ing at this period applies in familiar corre 
 spondence to the English." I will take your 
 examples in the order in which you arrange 
 them. 
 
 You complain that a passage is omitted, in 
 which Lord Dunmore is called an " arch-traitor to 
 the rights of humanity." If you had examined a 
 little more closely, you would have seen that 
 about one third of the whole letter was omitted, 
 not because it contained these words, but as being 
 in substance a repetition of what was written 
 nearly at the same time to Richard Henry Lee 
 on the same subject, which is printed in full. 
 
u 
 
 Washington, in his letter to Lee, says of Lord 
 Dunmore, " Motives of resentment actuate his 
 conduct, to a degree equal to the total destruction 
 of the colony." (Writings, Vol. III. p. 216.) 
 Would " arch-traitor " have added to the force of 
 this description, and was it worth while to repeat 
 a paragraph for the sake of inserting it I 
 
 Again, you take it amiss that the world should 
 be deprived of Washington s opinion of " the 
 English people," when he speaks of them as mak 
 ing " instruments of tyranny " of the Scotch, and 
 as a " nation which seems lost to every sense of 
 virtue, and to those feelings which distinguish a 
 civilized people from the most barbarous savages." 
 And you add, " You deemed, no doubt, that such 
 phrases were not perfectly consistent with Wash 
 ington s serene and lofty character. Yet I, as a 
 Briton, can read them without resentment, and 
 should certainly have retained them." And un 
 questionably so should I, if the same sentiments 
 were not advanced on several other occasions in 
 language not less direct and strong. 
 
 I will cite two instances. Turn to a letter to 
 General Gage, written in answer to a discourteous 
 one from that officer, in which Washington says, 
 " Whether our virtuous citizens, whom the hand 
 of tyranny has forced into arms to defend their 
 wives, their children, and their property, or the 
 
15 
 
 mercenary instruments of lawless domination, av 
 arice, and revenge, best deserve the appellation of 
 rebels, and the punishment of that cord, which 
 your affected clemency has forborne to inflict," &c. 
 (Vol. III. p. 65.) Again, in a letter to Mr. Reed, 
 speaking of the measures adopted in England after 
 the battle of Bunker s Hill ; I would tell them, 
 [the Ministers,] that we had long and ardently 
 sought for reconciliation upon honorable terms, 
 that it had been denied us, that all our attempts 
 after peace had proved abortive, and had been 
 grossly misrepresented, that we had done every 
 thing which could be expected from the best of 
 subjects, that the spirit of freedom rises too high 
 in us to submit to slavery, and that, if nothing else 
 would satisfy a tyrant and his diabolical ministry, 
 we are determined to shake off all connection with 
 a state so unjust and unnatural." (p. 286.) 
 
 Are these expressions more "consistent with 
 Washington s serene and lofty character," than 
 those which you have quoted as missing] Do 
 they differ from them in meaning or spirit? Are 
 they not enough for a trial of your equanimity and 
 good-nature as a Briton ? If not, others of a simi 
 lar purport may be found in various parts of the 
 work. And yet you accuse me of having " omitted 
 all the vehement language, which Washington at 
 this period applies to the English." 
 
16 
 
 You go on, under the same head, to cite anoth 
 er passage. In a letter to Mr. Reed, speaking of 
 the evacuation of Boston, Washington describes 
 the miserable condition of the Loyalists, who left 
 their homes and went on ship-board with the 
 British troops. " One or two of them," he writes, 
 " have committed, what it would have been happy 
 for mankind if more of them had done long ago, 
 the act of suicide." A long paragraph including 
 these lines was left out, although your mode of 
 citing them leaves the impression that these alone 
 were selected for omission. 
 
 Your comment follows. "For this harshness I 
 can offer no excuse. I am not astonished at your 
 desire to conceal it." Will you be astonished to 
 learn, that it was not concealed at all! If you 
 had turned back only four pages, and looked into 
 the letter preceding the one from which the above 
 sentence is omitted, you would have found these 
 words ; " One or two have done, what a great 
 number ought to have done long ago, committed 
 suicide. By all accounts, there never was a more 
 miserable set of beings than these wretched crea 
 tures now are." (Vol. III. p. 343.) On a mo 
 ment s comparison you will observe, that the 
 paragraph containing the passage, which you quote 
 from a letter to Mr. Heed, is almost a literal 
 copy of one which was written the day before 
 
17 
 
 to another person, and which is printed in its 
 place. Hence the omission. Would you com 
 mend it as a skilful piece of editorship in a 
 work professedly consisting of selections from a 
 vast correspondence, to print parts of two suc 
 cessive letters, embodying the same thoughts in 
 nearly the same language, because they happened 
 to be addressed to different individuals ? I be 
 lieve not. 
 
 I have thus reviewed all the examples adduced 
 by you as proofs of the first motive, that of ex 
 alting, or protecting, Washington s dignity. I will 
 make no further comment than simply to add, 
 that I neither admit such a motive, nor recog 
 nize in your course of argument any thing, which, 
 rightly considered, can give countenance to your 
 conjecture. 
 
 We will now proceed to the second motive, 
 the alleged desire to conceal or disguise Washing 
 ton s opinions of the New England people, and of 
 the character of certain individuals among them. 
 
 In opening this subject, your words are ; " My 
 main complaint against you, and your principal 
 allegations in defence, turn, however, on the omis 
 sions which you have made as to points in which 
 neither Washington s character, nor yet his style, 
 are in any degree involved." This being your 
 3 
 
18 
 
 "main complaint," it calls for a particular con 
 sideration. The grounds of it are thus stated in 
 your own words. 
 
 "Where Washington speaks of certain shippers 
 from New England as our rascally privateers- 
 men, you leave out the epithet. Where he speaks 
 of certain soldiers from Connecticut as showing 
 c a dirty mercenary spirit, you leave out the for 
 mer epithet. Where he complains of the inad 
 equate supply of money to his camp from the 
 Provincial Assemblies, you suppress his concluding 
 exclamation ; Strange conduct this ! One New 
 England officer is not, it seems, to be mentioned 
 by Washington with a touch of irony as the noble 
 Colonel Enos, and that epithet, likewise, is to 
 be expunged. Of another New England officer, 
 Colonel Hancock, you will not allow Washington 
 to express his suspicion with respect to a letter 
 of his own, that Colonel Hancock read what I 
 never wrote. Of a third New England officer 
 you will not allow Washington to observe, I 
 have no opinion at all of Wooster s enterprising 
 genius. Of a fourth, General Frye, you will 
 not allow us to hear that at present he keeps 
 his room, and talks learnedly of emetics and 
 cathartics. For my own part I see nothing but 
 a declining life that matters him. Nor are we 
 to have the amusing description of a fifth New 
 
19 
 
 England officer, General Ward, who first resigned 
 on account of his ill health, and then retracted 
 his resignation, on account, as he says, of its 
 being disagreeable to some of the officers. Who 
 those officers are, I have not heard. They have 
 been able, no doubt, to convince him of his 
 mistake, and that his health will allow him to 
 be alert and active. You will not suffer Wash 
 ington to say of Massachusetts, as compared with 
 other States, there is no nation under the sun 
 that I ever came across pays greater adoration 
 to money than they do. You will not suffer 
 him to say, when New England had failed to 
 supply him with the gunpowder he needed, we 
 have every thing but the thing ready for an of 
 fensive operation. Here you think fit to omit 
 the three most important words, but the thing, 
 by which Washington, in a becoming soldier-phrase, 
 meant powder, and by this omission you have en 
 tirely altered the representation of his circumstances 
 which he intended to convey." 
 
 After this summary, you ask the following 
 questions. " Can any dispassionate reader be in 
 doubt as to the course you have pursued? Can 
 he be in doubt as to the motive which, uncon 
 sciously, perhaps, has been working in your mind] 
 Is it not quite clear, that in these omissions you 
 have been desirous to strike out, as far as possi- 
 
20 
 
 ble, every word or phrase that could possibly 
 touch the local fame of the gentlemen at Boston, 
 or wound in any manner the feelings of New 
 England 1" 
 
 This array of specifications shall now be exam 
 ined, with particular reference to the motive which 
 you assign for them. 
 
 You are concerned, in the first place, that the 
 privateers-men should not hold their appropriate 
 place in the history of the time, after being de 
 prived of an epithet. Surely your anxiety would 
 have been at an end, if you had cast your eye 
 over a letter from Washington to Congress, writ 
 ten two weeks afterwards, in which he says, " The 
 plague, trouble, and vexation I have had with the 
 crews of all the armed vessels, are inexpressible. 
 I do believe there is not on earth a more disor 
 derly set. Every time they come into port, we hear 
 of nothing but mutinous complaints." (Vol. III. 
 p. 187.) Is not this as graphic a sketch as you 
 could desire 1 Would calling them " rascally " 
 throw any darker shade over the picture 1 ? Where, 
 then, is the attempt to conceal the misdeeds of 
 the New England privateers-men 1 ? 
 
 Of the next epithet, little needs be said. The 
 difference between a " dirty mercenary spirit," and 
 a " mercenary spirit," historically or morally con 
 sidered, may be decided by the acuteness of those 
 
21 
 
 who delight in nice distinctions. The less dis 
 cerning might venture to say that the epithet is 
 redundant. In some sense, at least, every thing 
 mercenary is " dirty." I am willing to consign 
 it to the fair interpretation of the critics, without 
 the remotest wish to gloss over the shameful con 
 duct of the Connecticut troops. 
 
 I cannot but be impressed, however, with the 
 degree of consequence you attach to this word, 
 even with its expletory modification. You have 
 brought it twice into your History, and on one 
 occasion with a note in the margin, informing 
 your readers that it is among the " epithets care 
 fully excluded from Mr. Sparks s compilation." I 
 am bound to confess that I can see no harm in 
 the epithet, and I shall not defend the omission. 
 Whether it was omitted by accident or intention 
 ally is more than my recollection will now enable 
 me to declare. I would only be strenuous in 
 contending, that the guilty Connecticut troops have 
 gained nothing by its absence. 
 
 The " strange conduct " you mention, as an 
 improper omission dictated by local predilections, 
 has drawn you into an error scarcely less strange. 
 You say Washington " complains of the inade 
 quate supply of money from the Provincial As 
 semblies," and then infer that the exclamation 
 was omitted because these Assemblies belonged to 
 
22 
 
 New England. If you had attended to the whole 
 sentence, you would have discovered that Wash 
 ington was not speaking of the Assemblies, but 
 complaining of the Continental Congress for not 
 signing their paper currency with more prompt 
 ness, while he was so much embarrassed for the 
 want of money in the army. Your charge of a 
 motive should therefore be withdrawn in this in 
 stance, however you may account for the disap 
 pearance of the exclamation. 
 
 That there may be no suspicion of a fraud 
 upon history here, I will direct your attention to 
 a letter touching the same subject written to a 
 member of Congress a few days before the date 
 of your quotation, and printed in its place. In 
 that letter Washington says, " For God s sake 
 hurry the signers of money, that our wants may 
 be supplied. It is a very singular case, that their 
 signing cannot keep pace with our demands." (Vol. 
 III. p. 173.) Whether this "very singular case" 
 amounts to more or less than " strange conduct," 
 may be submitted to the calm judgment of any 
 one, who has leisure to analyze the merits of the 
 question. 
 
 In regard to "the noble Colonel Enos," I can 
 see no good reason why the ironical epithet should 
 have crept out. I should hesitate to deny that it 
 was by my consent, yet I must affirm, that, hap- 
 
23 
 
 pen as it might, it was by no deep design to 
 shelter a New England officer from his just de 
 serts, since I have stated the particulars of his 
 case in a long note to one of Washington s let 
 ters. (Vol. III. p. 164.) He left Arnold on his 
 perilous march through the wilderness to Quebec, 
 and brought back his men. He was tried by a 
 court-martial, and acquitted on the proof of a 
 want of provisions. But public opinion was less 
 indulgent, and hinted a suspicion of his firmness, 
 if not of his valor. All this is fully explained 
 to the reader, and the loss of the epithet, how 
 ever much to be lamented, has certainly not con 
 tributed to screen the Colonel s character. 
 
 You have unaccountably mistaken the purport 
 and drift of the next extract. You call Hancock 
 " another New England officer." It is true, he 
 had been a colonel of militia before the war, a 
 station from which he was somewhat unceremo 
 niously dismissed by General Gage. It will aston 
 ish most readers to be told, that he was at this 
 time an officer in the New England army, since 
 he had been for more than seven months Presi 
 dent of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 
 
 Your abridgment of the passage also leads to 
 an erroneous conclusion. Mr. Eeed was in Phil 
 adelphia, and, in an answer to one of his letters, 
 Washington wrote, " I do not very well under- 
 
stand a paragraph in your letter, which seems to 
 be taken from one of mine to Colonel Hancock, 
 expressive of the unwillingness of the Connecticut 
 troops to be deemed Continental. If you did not 
 misconceive what Colonel Hancock read, he read 
 what I never wrote, as there is no expression in 
 any of my letters, that I can either recollect or 
 find, that has a tendency that way." From this 
 passage you infer that Washington intended to 
 " express his suspicion," that President Hancock 
 did actually pretend to read what he had never 
 written, thereby inventing and promulgating a false 
 hood. 
 
 This would indeed be a formidable charge, but 
 nothing is more clear, taking the whole passage in 
 connection, than that Washington meant to express 
 an opinion, in strong language, that Mr. Reed had 
 misconceived what had been read. Whatever rea 
 son may be assigned for the omission, therefore, it 
 could not have been a desire to protect the Pres 
 ident of Congress from so injurious a suspicion, 
 which certainly did not exist in the mind of 
 Washington. 
 
 Next comes the unfortunate General Wooster ; 
 unfortunate in having been an old man, with 
 a patriot s heart, when he would gladly have re 
 called the energy and youthful vigor, which he had 
 bravely expended in former wars ; but not un- 
 
fortunate in having fallen in battle, a few months 
 after the date to which you refer, while fighting 
 for his country s freedom. Washington had "no 
 opinion of his enterprising genius," alluding to 
 the chief command which he then held in Can 
 ada. Surely he had not, as qualifying him for 
 such a post. He expressed the same sentiments in 
 other letters, which are printed in the work. 
 
 For instance ; " General Wooster, I am informed, 
 is not of such activity as to press through difficul 
 ties, with which that service is environed." (Vol. 
 III. p. 119.) And again, after Wooster had gen 
 erously consented to serve under General Mont 
 gomery during the campaign, Washington writes 
 to General Schuyler ; " My fears are at an end, 
 as he acts in a subordinate capacity." (p. 143.) 
 In what respect does the sense of these expressions 
 differ from that of the sentence you cite, and where 
 in does the omission contribute to disguise Wash 
 ington s opinion " of a third New England officer " 1 
 Besides, more than half the letter containing this 
 sentence is omitted, as in other cases, to avoid repe 
 tition; and it is obvious upon the slightest inspec 
 tion, that the reason for the omission was in no 
 degree connected with what is said of General 
 Wooster, or of any other individual. 
 
 Your reference to General Frye may be allowed 
 to stand on its own merits. But your readers would 
 4 
 
26 
 
 have been convinced that the charge of having 
 sought in this instance to protect the reputation of 
 a New England officer was groundless, if you had 
 extended the quotation to the words printed in near 
 connection with it. Washington there says, " I 
 have heard of no other valiant son of New England 
 waiting promotion, since the advancement of Erye, 
 who has not, and I doubt will not, do much service 
 to the cause." (Vol. III. p. 310.) Would the point 
 of these caustic expressions be made sharper by 
 the omitted sentence] 
 
 As the name of this gentleman has been thus 
 dragged into notice, it is but justice to say a word 
 more in relation to him. He had been a good offi 
 cer in two wars, was at the capture of Louisburg in 
 1745, always commanded the respect of his country 
 men, and was raised to the rank of Major-General 
 of the Massachusetts forces five days before the bat 
 tle of Bunker s Hill. He accepted his Continental 
 commission with apparent reluctance, and held it 
 but three months. That he " kept his room, and 
 talked learnedly of emetics and cathartics," is highly 
 probable ; that the maladies of age were upon him 
 is certain ; but that history required these personal 
 traits, common to infirm old men, and totally uncon 
 nected with his public character, to be commemo 
 rated in a formal manner, is at least questionable. 
 As it is a matter of opinion, however, you may be 
 
27 
 
 disposed to look upon it in a different light, to 
 which I shall not object, saving the motive by 
 which you have imagined me to be influenced. 
 
 Similar remarks may be made in regard to Gen 
 eral Ward. I would again observe, that you fre 
 quently quote a single sentence, as if it constituted 
 the whole of an omission, and then infer a motive 
 or conjecture a reason as appertaining to that sen 
 tence only, whereas the fragment quoted by you is 
 forced out of its place as an integral part of a par 
 agraph, or several paragraphs taken collectively, 
 which have been omitted for general reasons very 
 remote from the one you assign. You must per 
 ceive that this is not a fair way of presenting the 
 case, because the reader is deceived by it into a be 
 lief, that the passage was excluded with some special 
 aim, when in reality it was not in the mind of the 
 editor, except in connection with the whole. Your 
 extract respecting General Ward is of this descrip 
 tion. It occurs in the body of a long paragraph, 
 which, with several others in the same letter, was 
 omitted as containing unimportant matter, or a rep 
 etition of what is printed in other places. It is the 
 letter in which the suicidal Loyalists are mentioned. 
 I cannot charge myself, therefore, with having had 
 any design in excluding this sentence, although, 
 upon a revision, I think the part of the letter em 
 bracing it was properly omitted. 
 
I shall forbear to examine the grounds of the 
 " amusing description of a fifth New England offi 
 cer," or to inquire into the causes of his resignation, 
 the state of his health, or the arguments used to re 
 tain him in the service. We should not lose sight 
 of justice, however, in attempting to conjecture his 
 motives. General Ward had served with credit in 
 the preceding war ; and that he stood very high in 
 public confidence is proved by the fact, that, after 
 the affair at Lexington, he became Commander-in- 
 chief of the New England troops, and, when the 
 army was adopted by Congress as a Continental 
 army, he was appointed second in command to 
 Washington. No one has ventured to insinuate, 
 that he did not perform the duties of these high 
 stations with honor, fidelity, and a steady devotion 
 to the cause of his country. 
 
 What local or personal incidents had taken place 
 while Washington and these two officers were to 
 gether in the camp at Cambridge, which induced the 
 former, in his private and confidential correspond 
 ence afterwards, to indulge a sarcastic humor in 
 speaking of them, it would be in vain now to in 
 quire. But you charge me with a design to conceal 
 the facts themselves from the public eye. You are 
 doubtless acquainted with a work, entitled " Me 
 moirs of Charles Lee," published sixty years ago in 
 London, and several times reprinted in the United 
 
29 
 
 States. In that volume you will find a private letter 
 from Washington, expressing the same ideas con 
 cerning these officers, in the same tone, and almost 
 the same language, as in the letters from which 
 you quote (Lond. edition, p. 254). How, then, 
 could I have been so far blinded as to hope to sup 
 press facts, which had been before the world more 
 than half a century, embodied in a popular work, 
 widely circulated, and accessible to every reader ? 
 
 In what is said of " adoration to money," you 
 again mistake in applying the censure to Massa 
 chusetts. Washington is speaking generally of the 
 men of New England, and complaining of their 
 tardiness in coming forward to enlist into the ser 
 vice. For this tardiness he gives a good reason in 
 the same sentence, which you have overlooked. 
 " The Congress expect, I believe, that I should do 
 more than others; for, whilst they compel me to 
 enlist without a bounty, they give forty dollars to 
 others, which will, I expect, put an end to our 
 enlistments." This exorbitant love of money, then, 
 charged upon them in the vexation of the moment, 
 was manifested by their backwardness to serve for 
 smaller pay, than they understood to be allowed 
 for the same service in other parts of the country. 
 
 But if you are really concerned lest history 
 should suffer by any forbearance of mine towards 
 the New England people in this omission, I beg 
 
30 
 
 you will turn to a letter in "Washington s Writ 
 ings," in which he says, " Such a dearth of public 
 spirit, and such want of virtue, such stock-jobbing, 
 and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advan 
 tages of one kind or another in this great change 
 of military arrangement, I never saw before, and 
 pray God s mercy that I may never be witness to 
 again." (Vol. III. p. 178.) You are not ignorant 
 of this passage, since you have inserted it in your 
 History, with the same error of applying it to 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 We have at length arrived at the last specifica 
 tion in your list. Washington wrote, " We have 
 every thing but the thing ready for an offensive 
 operation." How the three little words, "but the 
 thing," escaped from their place, I cannot explain. 
 I presume it was by an accident. I can see no 
 possible objection to them. The collocation of 
 the words is such, that they might easily be over 
 looked by a transcriber or printer. The impor 
 tance you attach to them, however, as conveying 
 a "representation of Washington s circumstances," 
 is much overrated. If there is one thing more 
 than another insisted upon in his letters during 
 this period, it is his want of powder. Expressions 
 like the following are of perpetual recurrence. 
 " No quantity, however small, is beneath notice " 
 (Vol. III. p. 47) ; " not sufficient to give twenty- 
 
31 
 
 five musket cartridges to a man " (p. 70) ; " our 
 want of powder is inconceivable " (p. 215). It is 
 evident, therefore, that the three words are not of 
 the least importance as indicating the condition of 
 the army in regard to powder. 
 
 Moreover, you mistake in supposing Washing 
 ton to complain of New England for having 
 "failed to supply him with the gunpowder he 
 needed." His complaint is not directed against 
 New England alone. It was the business of Con 
 gress to furnish the Continental army with pow 
 der. There was little powder in the country, and 
 of course little could be had. The manufacture 
 of the article was not yet established. The New 
 England Colonies, as well as the others, supplied 
 all they could obtain. Ships were sent for it to 
 Erance and the West Indies, but it took time for 
 ships to sail across the ocean and return. 
 
 In another place you censure the omission of 
 " a curious story told by Washington relative to 
 his want of powder." And w r hat mystery does 
 this curious story reveal] Nothing more nor less 
 than a blunder of a Committee of Supplies in 
 making a return of the quantity of powder on 
 hand. " I was particular in my inquiries," says 
 Washington, " and found that the Committee of 
 Supplies, not being sufficiently acquainted with 
 the nature of a return, or misapprehending my 
 
32 
 
 request, had sent in an account of all the ammu 
 nition which had been collected by the Province, 
 so that the report included not only what was 
 on hand, but what had been spent." The blunder 
 was of course accidental, and was necessarily de 
 tected at once, so that no possible consequence 
 could follow from it. 
 
 You deem this story so important, that you 
 have inserted it in the text of your History, and 
 carefully reminded your readers in a note, that it 
 " is omitted in Mr. Sparks s edition." And you 
 can discover no other motive for the omission, 
 than an anxiety to conceal from the world the 
 ignorance or misapprehension of a Massachusetts 
 committee, although the whole passage is con 
 tained in the " Official Letters to Congress," (Vol. 
 I. p. 21,) long before published, and in your hands. 
 Nor do you intimate that the story stands in the 
 midst of more than two pages, which were omit 
 ted obviously because they treat of local and tem 
 porary details of little moment. 
 
 All the cases in your list have now been ex 
 amined ; but there are others adduced by you, 
 which, in your opinion, show " a desire to deal 
 as tenderly as possible with any thing or any body 
 that has the honor to be connected with New 
 England." These will receive due consideration. 
 
Washington had spoken of the "scandalous 
 conduct of a great number of the Connecticut 
 troops." The word "scandalous" has disappeared. 
 How it happened I know not, and assuredly I 
 am not disposed to defend the omission; nor is 
 it one which I should intentionally have made. I 
 observe that it is also wanting in the "Official 
 Letters." (Vol. I. p. 56.) In both cases it may per 
 haps be fairly ascribed to accident. Yet I cannot 
 agree that the Connecticut troops would have any 
 reason to rejoice in its absence. Considering the 
 manner in which the conduct of some of them is 
 described on different occasions, in other letters 
 printed in the work, no one can doubt that it 
 was scandalous, even without the aid of this ap 
 propriate epithet. 
 
 Again, you remark, "Nor are we to be told of 
 the Boston troops, that they were once extremely 
 uneasy, and almost mutinous, for the want of pay " ; 
 and you ask the question, " Is it, or is it not, impor 
 tant to show how far Washington, at that period, 
 could rely upon all his soldiers I " To which I 
 reply, first, the sentence quoted by you makes part 
 of a paragraph, the whole of which was omitted, 
 with several others in the same letter, as contain 
 ing unimportant details. Washington writes, " Hav 
 ing heard that the troops at Boston are extremely 
 uneasy and almost mutinous for the want of pay, 
 5 
 
34 
 
 (several months being now due,) I must take the 
 liberty to repeat the question contained in my letter 
 of the 5th ultimo"; and then he asks, "Whether 
 the money is to be sent from hence by the Pay 
 master-General, or some person subordinate to him 
 to be appointed for that purpose 1 " It is obvious 
 that he speaks of the uneasiness and " almost " 
 mutinous spirit of the troops, not as an alarming 
 circumstance, but with a view of hastening forward 
 the money for their payment. I may also remark, 
 that the omission could not have been out of any 
 delicacy towards the New England troops, as is 
 obvious from what is printed in another place, as 
 follows ; " The greater part of the troops are in a 
 state not far from mutiny, upon the deduction from 
 their stated allowance," (Vol. III. p. 104,) and from 
 the fact, that the paragraph containing the omitted 
 sentence is to be found in the " Official Letters." 
 (Vol. I. p. 153.) 
 
 Secondly, as Washington was at that time in 
 New York with the main army, it could have 
 had very little influence upon his movements, or 
 the military affairs of the country, if the detach 
 ment left in Boston had all mutinied and gone 
 home. It was the military chest upon which he 
 had first and mainly to rely; when that was full, 
 his reliance on the soldiers was sufficiently safe ; 
 and in this respect I suppose these troops resem- 
 
35 
 
 bled those of all countries. It is not probable that 
 any commander could long rely on troops under 
 voluntary enlistment, who were not paid. 
 
 You next bring up the case of two unworthy 
 captains, Parker and Gardiner, who had been 
 broken by a court-martial, the one for frauds upon 
 his men, and the other for running away from his 
 guard on an alarm. The paragraph conveying this 
 intelligence to the President of Congress was omit 
 ted, and you regard the omission as indicative of 
 New England partiality, and censurable because it 
 was "important to show how far "Washington at 
 that period could rely upon all his officers." Do 
 you really look upon the ill conduct of two mili 
 tia officers as so momentous an affair ? Or would 
 you infer from it, that the other officers were to 
 be suspected of cowardice and fraud, and that it 
 indicated the general state of the army? 
 
 Again, you lay great stress on an omission of a 
 similar kind in relation to Captain Callender, not 
 in a " confidential letter," as you call it, for all 
 Washington s official letters to the President of 
 Congress were intended for that body, were read 
 in open session, and usually referred to a commit 
 tee. Washington wrote from the camp at Cam 
 bridge ; " Upon my arrival, and since, some com 
 plaints have been preferred against officers for cow 
 ardice in the late action on Bunker s Hill. Though 
 
there were several strong circumstances, and a very 
 general opinion against them, none have been con 
 demned except a Captain Callender of the artillery, 
 who was immediately cashiered. I have been sor 
 ry to find it an uncontradicted fact, that the prin 
 cipal failure of duty that day was in the officers, 
 though many of them distinguished themselves by 
 their gallant behavior." This paragraph, in imme 
 diate connection with others narrating local inci 
 dents, was probably omitted because it contained 
 no fact or circumstance, which was not perfectly 
 well known, and which had not been repeatedly 
 canvassed and discussed by American writers. 
 
 You ask, " Is not this a passage, which every 
 future historian of Bunker s Hill has a right to 
 be apprised of, and ought to bear in mind I " 
 True, and he must be an historian of marvellous 
 ly little reading on this subject, who has not been 
 apprised of all it contains from various sources. 
 The facts of Captain Callender s unhappy case, and 
 indeed of nearly every other occurrence in that 
 battle, are as familiar to the readers of American 
 history, as that Prescott commanded in the re 
 doubt, and Warren fell on the field. 
 
 Moreover, all the particulars relating to the 
 points in question were published more than thir 
 ty years before " Washington s Writings " came 
 from the press. Have you ever read Hubley s 
 
37 
 
 " History of the American Revolution " I Probably 
 not, but, if you had taken that trouble, you would 
 have seen an account of the proceedings of the 
 courts-martial on the trials of these three delin 
 quent captains, (Vol. I. pp. 352, 483,) published 
 in detail from Washington s " Orderly-Books." Let 
 me add, also, that, if you had extended your re 
 searches to the Appendixl to the third volume 
 of "Washington s Writings," (p. 489,) you might 
 there have read a letter from the eminent patriot, 
 Joseph Hawley, speaking with the utmost freedom 
 of some of the officers at that time, as being " very 
 equivocal in regard to courage." You would like 
 wise have found a statement of Captain Calender s 
 case (p. 490), with the additional facts, that he 
 immediately afterwards joined the army as a vol 
 unteer, and, by signal acts of courage on several 
 occasions, nobly redeemed the character he had 
 lost at Bunker s Hill. 
 
 It should be observed, also, that examples of 
 misbehaving officers were not peculiar to the New 
 England troops. The "Orderly-Books" prove, that 
 they happened throughout the war in the lines of 
 the army from the different States, as they doubt 
 less happen in all armies consisting of undisci 
 plined troops recently drawn from the mass of the 
 people. They are comparatively obscure and trivial 
 incidents, having no influence upon the train of 
 
38 
 
 events, and I could not deem it a duty to encum 
 ber the work with them to the exclusion of val 
 uable materials. Whatever distinction may be 
 made between the three cases you have noticed 
 and others of the same class, I am constrained 
 to believe that the importance you attach to these 
 omissions is exaggerated, since not a single histor 
 ical fact has been suppressed or disguised, and 
 that your imagination has taken an extraordinary 
 flight after a motive, when you ascribe it to a 
 " desire to deal as tenderly as possible with any 
 thing and any body that has the honor to be con 
 nected with New England." 
 
 You repeat the charge, before preferred in your 
 History, that I had somewhere and somehow sup 
 pressed a passage containing a remonstrance from 
 Washington to Congress for not fulfilling the Con 
 vention of Saratoga. You quote Mr. Adolphus as 
 saying, in his " History of England," that " Wash 
 ington remonstrated with force and firmness 
 against this national act of dishonor " ; and you 
 add, " I found no such remonstrance as Mr. Adol 
 phus mentions. Am I, then, to be blamed if I 
 feel, or, if feeling, I express my suspicion that 
 these words of remonstrance also may have been 
 among the passages which you suppress I " Blame, 
 my Lord, is of various gradations, and how far it 
 may be applied to you in this instance I shall 
 
39 
 
 forbear to decide. I cannot but express surprise, 
 however, that you should be willing to venture 
 such a charge, or utter such a suspicion, till you 
 had verified the authority upon which Mr. Adolphus 
 spoke, especially after your attention had been 
 called to this point by an able writer in the North 
 American Keview. Mr. Adolphus cites the Lon 
 don edition of Washington s Official Letters (Vol. 
 II. p. 266). Have you examined that reference I 
 If so, you have found nothing which bears in the 
 remotest degree upon this subject; and, moreover, 
 if you search the two volumes through, you will 
 be equally unsuccessful. I have seen no evidence 
 that Washington ever made such a remonstrance, 
 and must deny that he ever did so, till something 
 in the shape of positive proof shall be produced. 
 
 I respect the memory of Mr. Adolphus; I have 
 a grateful recollection of his personal civilities ; I 
 have been a witness of his arduous labors at an 
 advanced age in procuring materials for the last 
 and improved edition of his History; and I have 
 entire confidence in his veracity ; but I cannot 
 yield assent to his unsupported declaration in a 
 case like this, of which he could know nothing 
 except from the testimony of others. Notwith 
 standing his assiduity in collecting facts, the parts 
 of his History touching the American war abound 
 in important errors. Some of these, relating to 
 
40 
 
 events in America, were perhaps unavoidable; but 
 it is difficult to account for his saying of the pas 
 sage of the Stamp Act, that " no warning voice 
 raised itself in the House of Commons, but the 
 measure was suffered to pass through in silence," 
 when it is unquestionable that there were two or 
 three debates on the subject. Such men as Barre, 
 Sir William Meredith, Conway, and Beckford, 
 raised their voices loudly against the Act, and 
 about fifty members voted in the negative. 
 
 As you have selected this case as one of the 
 " particular omissions," which, in your mind, " tend 
 to cast a shade of distrust over the entire work," 
 I hope you will allow the shade to pass away, till 
 you can make it appear, by at least a shadow of 
 proof, that there is an omission. 
 
 I have now gone through with the process, 
 which I fear your Lordship will have found some 
 what tedious, of examining in detail every case 
 you have produced in vindication of your various 
 charges and suspicions. I have shown, first, that 
 in every instance in which you have supposed facts 
 to be suppressed or concealed, these facts are to be 
 found in other parts of the work, or in other 
 works long well known to the public ; secondly, 
 that you have frequently selected short sentences, 
 or fragments of sentences, and conjectured some 
 
41 
 
 special design for their omission, when in reality 
 they were included in a paragraph, or larger por 
 tion of a letter, omitted for reasons in no manner 
 relating to the purport of these sentences ; thirdly, 
 that your main charge of a personal motive, prompt 
 ing me to protect Washington s dignity, and the 
 good name of the people of New England, at the 
 expense of historical justice, is not sustained by 
 facts, reasonable inferences, or probability. 
 
 On this last topic something more may be said. 
 You seem apprehensive that your own motives 
 may be misunderstood, and hence you endeavor to 
 guard them by the following remarks. 
 
 " I should be sorry if it were thought that I de 
 sired, by the production of such omitted phrases, 
 to deny the unquestionable merits of the New 
 England States in their Revolutionary War. But 
 I consider it requisite to prove and the more so 
 since, as I venture to think, the fact. is too often 
 overlooked on your side of the Atlantic that 
 their cause, like every other cause, had its dark 
 as well as its bright side. And if you, as the 
 editor of Washington s Correspondence, are shown 
 to leave out systematically those facts or those 
 opinions by which the dark side is to be proved, 
 then I, for my part, must continue to maintain 
 that you, Sir, have, according to my former words, 
 tampered with the truth of history. " 
 6 
 
42 
 
 How far my countrymen, as well out of New Eng 
 land as in it, may think themselves obliged by this 
 endeavor to show them " the dark as well as bright 
 side" of their local history, I am not prepared to 
 say. I should not be surprised, however, if, from 
 the self-esteem in which they are sometimes thought 
 not to be deficient, they should imagine themselves 
 as well informed on a subject of this kind, as they 
 could hope to be by any light imparted to them 
 from the other side of the Atlantic. In short, I 
 think you mistake in supposing, that any intelli 
 gent man in America is not as well acquainted with 
 the dark as with the bright side of the Revolu 
 tionary measures in all parts of the country. It 
 would be a waste of labor, in my opinion, to at 
 tempt to teach them any new lessons on these char 
 acteristics of their history. 
 
 In the above extract you insinuate, nay, you al 
 most declare, that I have " systematically " left out 
 facts and opinions, with the express design of per 
 verting the testimony of history. Has this been 
 proved by the examples you have produced 1 ? On 
 the contrary, has it not been shown in every in 
 stance, that the facts and opinions left out are re 
 corded in other places, and well known ] Are 
 you sure, my Lord, that you are perfectly candid 
 in speaking thus? Why use this equivocal lan 
 guage 1 ? Why say that, "if" I have " systemati- 
 
cally" done so, then I have "tampered with the 
 truth of history"? It may be that you and I do 
 not attach the same meaning to this sentence. 
 To tamper with truth of any kind is, in my appre 
 hension, a highly criminal act. It implies a de 
 fect, not of judgment, but of principle. It cannot 
 appear strange, therefore, that, viewing it in this 
 light, I should consider such a charge as an as 
 sumption little consistent with your Lordship s 
 character. 
 
 You have published an edition of " Chesterfield s 
 Letters," in which, doubtless for good reasons, you 
 have left out letters comprised in other editions. 
 Suppose some critic should examine these omitted 
 letters, select from them sentences, or parts of sen 
 tences, containing pointed expressions or facts 
 which he may deem important, and then charge 
 you with personal motives in such omissions, and 
 tampering with truth. "Would you regard this as 
 a fair or liberal construction of your motives ] I 
 presume not. Yet a case like this would be par 
 allel to those of several of the examples you have 
 brought forward as proofs of such a charge. 
 
 You speak of " embellishments," and seem stren 
 uous to maintain, that I have sought to embellish 
 Washington s letters by omissions. The sense in 
 which you would have this word understood is not 
 very clear. To embellish means to adorn. Your 
 
44 
 
 first charge of additions might give countenance 
 to the idea of embellishments, but you have with 
 drawn that charge, and how omissions are to be 
 made ornamental you have not explained. As 
 this is merely an opinion, however, a peculiar fan 
 cy of your own not touching facts, I am willing 
 you should continue to entertain the opinion upon 
 such grounds as are satisfactory to yourself. 
 
 It must seem strange to most readers, that your 
 Lordship, in a distant country, should be the first 
 to discover the partiality, which you allege to have 
 been shown to the people of New England in the 
 preparation for the press of a selection from Wash 
 ington s papers. Fifteen years have elapsed since 
 the publication of that work, and yet no American 
 writer in any part of the Union, however much his 
 perceptions may have been quickened by local at 
 tachments and predilections, however sensitive to 
 the merits of his own State or district in the war 
 of the Revolution, has made known such a discov 
 ery, or intimated such a suspicion. How do you 
 account for what you assume to be a fact, that you 
 are so much better informed on this subject, than 
 writers in America, who have every inducement, 
 from personal feeling, and from political as well as 
 social sympathies, to examine it in all its relations ] 
 The simple truth is, that the discovery itself is a 
 dream of fancy, and the more thoroughly it is in- 
 
45 
 
 vestigated, the more completely it will be proved 
 to be such. 
 
 You appear to have been beguiled into miscon 
 ceptions by not attending with sufficient care to 
 local causes and circumstances, and to the actual 
 state of things throughout the country. It hap 
 pened that the war of the Eevolution began in New 
 England, unexpectedly at the time and without 
 preparation on the part of the inhabitants. Soon 
 after the affair at Lexington, an army was drawn 
 together at Cambridge, which, at the time Washing 
 ton took the command, amounted to about sixteen 
 thousand men, two thirds of whom were from Massa 
 chusetts. How was this army constituted I Mostly 
 of men who had suddenly left their ploughs at 
 the call of their country, and in the expectation 
 of a brief term of service. Among the native in 
 habitants there was scarcely a soldier by profession 
 in all the Colonies. With very few exceptions, the 
 men destined to fill the ranks of the army were 
 practical farmers or mechanics. The officers were 
 nearly all from the same classes. 
 
 With these materials an army was to be formed 
 and organized, consisting of independent yeomanry, 
 volunteers, mostly without military experience or 
 discipline; and, when their short term of service 
 had expired, a new army was to be raised from 
 similar materials, and placed under new officers and 
 
46 
 
 new arrangements. All this was to be done, while 
 the whole force of the enemy was stationed within 
 three miles of Washington s head-quarters, and sup 
 ported by a strong naval armament in the harbor 
 of Boston. 
 
 The embarrassments and difficulties of such an 
 undertaking may easily be conceived, especially as 
 the civil authority, not yet consolidated, was very 
 feeble, and the military power was not recognized 
 beyond the camp. No wonder that the Commander- 
 in-chief, pressed on all sides by the most harassing 
 vexations, should occasionally show impatience, and 
 utter loud complaints. The wonder is, that he 
 bore himself under them with so much fortitude 
 and self-command. You are inclined to attribute 
 these vexations to the peculiar character of the 
 people, their want of patriotism, and their absorb 
 ing self-interest. But the truth is, they existed in 
 the very nature of things, in the state of society 
 and the structure of the human mind, precisely 
 as they would exist in any country placed under 
 the like circumstances. 
 
 If the war had begun in any other part of the 
 Union, similar results must have followed. This 
 is so obvious to those, who have had opportunities 
 of forming a correct judgment from a knowledge 
 of all the facts, that no one in America has ever 
 drawn comparisons unfavorable to the exertions of 
 
47 
 
 New England during that period; nor has it been 
 intimated that the New England States did not 
 contribute, with alacrity and promptness, their full 
 proportion of men and means in support of the 
 contest throughout the war. 
 
 But it is not my purpose to vindicate a people, 
 who need no vindication. Nor should I have 
 touched upon the subject, if you had not made 
 their supposed want of public virtue and high 
 character in some measure the groundwork of your 
 charges against my editorial fidelity. I am con 
 vinced, that your premises and conclusions are 
 alike erroneous and unjust. I am convinced, that 
 no incidents in the history of the period in ques 
 tion have been recorded, which any intelligent man 
 in New England would desire to have concealed; 
 and I can affirm, that the idea of such conceal 
 ment never entered my thoughts, till it was sug 
 gested by your suspicions and charges. 
 
 I have thus examined all the parts of your letter 
 which relate to my edition of " Washington s Writ 
 ings." The plan upon which the work was execut 
 ed, and the principles adopted in carrying out the 
 plan, are so fully explained in my Reply to your 
 former strictures, and in the work itself, that no 
 further remarks on those topics are required. 
 
 In making a selection from the large mass of 
 
48 
 
 papers left by "Washington, extending over a long 
 period, and extremely various in their character, an 
 editor could not expect to escape from occasional 
 errors of judgment and opinion. Such errors are 
 fair subjects of criticism ; but when you assail mo 
 tives, and thus call in question the editor s fidelity 
 and rectitude, you give a wide range to a critic s 
 privilege. I trust my sensibility to what I esteem 
 your unfounded animadversions has not betrayed 
 me beyond the proper line of courtesy, nor dimin- 
 \ished the respect which I have been accustomed to 
 entertain for you as an author and a man ; and 
 
 which 
 
 I have the honor to be, my Lord, 
 
 Your Lordship s most obedient servant, 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 25th, 1852. 
 
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