and on the best ground it can be had will be obtained for the Remainder of their Ballances.

If the Idea of a Committee to right the Army should not be adopted, and you find it necessary to pass any further Resolutions, you will easily collect from the foregoing Sentiments what will be satisfactory-without my troubling you any further-I pray you to communicate the Contents of this Letter to Colo. Hamilton, from whom I received a request similar to yours. I have &c.'

DEAR SIR,

TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

NEWBURG, 4 April, 1783.

I read your private letter of the 25th with pain, and contemplated the picture it had drawn with astonishment and horror. But I will yet hope for the best. The idea of redress by force is too chimerical to have had a place in the imagination of any serious

'Early in April, and some days before this letter reached Bland, Congress appointed a committee consisting of Madison, Osgood, Wilson, Ellsworth, and Hamilton, the last-named being chairman, to consider what arrangements it would be proper to adopt in the different departments with reference to a peace. On the 9th, Hamilton informed Washington of such a committee, and wished for his "sentiments at large on such institutions of every kind for the interior defence of these States as may be best adapted to their circumstances, and conciliate security with economy and with the principles of our government. In this they will be glad if you will take as great latitude as you may think necessary." Washington asked for the opinion of all the principal officers in camp, and also of Governor Clinton. Several of them presented memoirs of considerable length, entering into comprehensive and detailed views of what was called a peace establishment. From these papers a letter was framed extending to twenty-five folio pages, which was forwarded by the Commanderin-chief to the committee of Congress.

mind in this army; but there is no telling what unhappy disturbances may result from distress, and distrust of justice, and as far as the fears and jealousies of the army are alive, I hope no resolution will be come to for disbanding or separating the lines till the accts. are liquidated. You may rely upon it, Sir, that unhappy consequences would follow the attempt. The suspicions of the officers are afloat, notwithstanding the resolutions which have passed on both sides. Any act, therefore, which can be construed with an attempt to separate them before the accts. are settled will convey the most unfavorable ideas of the rectitude of Congress-whether well or ill founded, the consequences will be the same.

I will now, in strict confidence, mention a matter which may be useful for you to be informed of. It is that some men (and leading ones too) in this army, are beginning to entertain suspicions that Congress, or some members of it, regardless of the past sufferings and present distress, maugre the justice which is due to them, and the returns which a grateful people should make to men who certainly have contributed more than any other class to the establishment of Independency, are to be made use of as mere puppets to establish continental funds, and that rather than not succeed in this measure, or weaken their ground, they would make a sacrifice of the army and all its interests.

I have two reasons for mentioning this matter to you. The one is, that the army (considering the irritable state it is in, its sufferings and composition)

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is a dangerous instrument to play with; the other, that every possible means consistent with their own views (which certainly are moderate) should be essayed, to get it disbanded without delay. I might add a third it is, that the Financier is suspected to be at the bottom of this scheme. If sentiments of this sort should become general, their operation will be opposed to this plan; at the same time that it would increase the present discontents. Upon the whole, disband the army as soon as possible, but consult the wishes of it, which really are moderate in the mode, and perfectly compatible with the honor, dignity and justice which is due from the country to it. I am, &c.

TO THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE.

MY DEAR MARQS.,

HEAD-QRS., NEWBURG, 5 April, 1783.

It is easier for you to conceive, than for me to express, the sensibility of my heart at the communications in your letter of the 5th of Feb. from Cadiz. It is to these communications we are indebted for the only accts. yet recd. of a general Pacification. My mind, upon the receipt of this news, was instantly assailed by a thousand ideas, all of them contending for preeminence; but, believe me, my dear friend, none could supplant, or ever will eradicate that gratitude, which has arisen from a lively sense of the conduct of your nation, and from my obligations to many of the illustrious characters of it, among whom, (I do not mean to flatter, when I place you at the head,) and

from my admiration of the Virtues of your August Sovereign, who, at the same time that he stands confessed the Father of his own people, and defender of American rights, has given the most exalted example of moderation in treating with his Enemies.

We stand, now, an Independent People, and have yet to learn political Tactics. We are placed among the nations of the Earth, and have a character to establish; but how we shall acquit ourselves, time must discover. The probability (at least I fear it), is that local or State politics will interfere too much with the more liberal and extensive plan of government, which wisdom and foresight, freed from the mist of prejudice, would dictate; and that we shall be guilty of many blunders in treading this boundless theatre, before we shall have arrived at any perfection in this art; in a word, that the experience, which is purchased at the price of difficulties and distress, will alone convince us that the honor, power, and true Interest of this Country must be measured by a Continental scale, and that every departure therefrom weakens the Union, and may ultimately break the band which holds us together. To avert these evils, to form a Constitution, that will give consistency, stability, and dignity to the Union, and sufficient powers to the great Council of the nation for general purposes, is a duty which is incumbent upon every man, who wishes well to his Country, and will meet with my aid as far as it can be rendered in the private walks of life: for hence forward my mind shall be unbent and I will endeavor to glide gently down the stream of life till

I come to that abyss from whence no traveller is permitted to return.

The armament, wch. was preparing at Cadiz, and in which you were to have acted a distinguished part, would have carried such conviction with it, that it is not to be wondered at, that Great Britain should have been impressed with the force of such reasoning. To this cause, I am persuaded, the Peace is to be ascribed. Your going to Madrid from thence, instead of coming immediately to this Country, is another instance, my dear Marquis, of your zeal for the American Cause, and lays a fresh claim to the gratitude of her Sons, who will at all times receive you with open arms. As no official despatches are yet received, either at Phila. or New York, of the completion of the treaty, nor any measures taken for the reduction of the army, my detention there-with is quite uncertain. To say then (at this time) where I may be, at the epoch for your intended visit to this continent, is too vague even for conjecture; but nothing can be more true, than that the pleasure, with which I

Although the Spanish government, by the signature of the treaty of general peace at Paris, had assented to the independence of the United States, yet the king was not inclined to receive a person from America in a public diplomatic character at his court. After the declaration of peace, Mr. Carmichael, who had been Secretary of Legation under Mr. Jay, was appointed Chargé d'Affaires from the United States to Spain. He was already in Madrid, having remained there after Mr. Jay's departure. The Spanish court declined receiving him in his public capacity. He wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette, who was then at Cadiz, and requested his aid. The Marquis repaired to Madrid, had an interview with the king, and with the principal minister, Count de Florida Blanca, and succeeded in procuring a recognition of Mr. Carmichael's powers as Chargé d'Affaires from the United States. The conduct of the Marquis de Lafayette on this occasion was highly approved by Congress. See Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. x., pp. 24-39.