I really can not tell who is the writer of this letter, which not a little perplexes me. The hand writing is altogether strange to me.
To give you the trouble of this, gives me pain. It would suit my inclination better, to give you some assistance in the great business of the war. But I will not conceal any thing from you, by which you may be affected, for I really think your personal welfare and the happiness of America are intimately connected. I beg you will be assured of that high regard and esteem with which I ever am,
Dear sir,
Your affectionate friend and very humble servant,
P. HENRY.
His excellency General Washington.
(Letter enclosed in the preceding.)
Yorktown, January 12, 1778.
Dear Sir,—The common danger of our country first brought you and me together. I recollect with pleasure the influence of your conversation and eloquence upon the opinions of this country in the beginning of the present controversy. You first taught us to shake off our idolatrous attachment to royalty, and to oppose its encroachments upon our liberties with our very lives. By these means you saved us from ruin. The independence of America is the offspring of that liberal spirit of thinking, and acting, which followed the destruction of the sceptres of kings and the mighty power of Great Britain.
But, sir, we have only passed the Red Sea. A dreary wilderness is still before us, and unless a Moses or a Joshua are raised up in our behalf, we must perish before we reach the promised land. We have nothing to fear from our enemies on the way. General Howe, it is true, has taken Philadelphia; but he has only changed his prison. His dominions are bounded on all sides by his outsentries. America can only be undone by herself. She looks up to her councils and arms for protection; but alas! what are they? her representation in congress dwindled to only twenty-one members—her Adams—her Wilson—her Henry, are no more among them. Her councils weak—and partial remedies applied constantly for universal diseases. Her army—what is it? a major general belonging to it called it a few days ago in my hearing a mob. Discipline unknown or wholly neglected. The quartermaster and commissary's departments filled with idleness, ignorance and peculation—our hospitals crowded with six thousand sick, but half provided with necessaries or accommodations, and more dying in them in one month, than perished in the field during the whole of the last campaign.