The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

ET. 45.] LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 265
direction. Here the army remained till the following
June. A detachment was also stationed at Wilmington,
to protect the State of Delaware fromn the incursions
of the enemy's foraging parties.
The command of the American armies, and the responsibilities attending that high office, were not the
only causes of vexation, which at this time harassed
the mind of Washington. Attempts were made by his
public adversaries, and by secret foes wearing the mask
of friendship, to destroy his influence and ruin his
character.
A pamphlet was published in London, containing a
series of letters, purporting to have been written by him
in the summer of 1776, and with his signature attached
to them. It was stated in the preface, that, when Fort
Lee was evacuated, General Washington's servant was
left behind indisposed; that in his possession was a
small portmanteau belonging to the General, in which,
among other things of trifling value, were the drafts of
several private letters to Mrs. Washington, Mr. Lund
Washington, and Mr. Custis; and that these had been
transmitted to England by an officer into whose hands
they had fallen. This fiction was contrived to deceive
the public into a belief of the genuineness of the letters,
although in reality not one of General Washington's
servants, nor a single article of his baggage, was taken
by the enemy in the whole course of the war. But
the tenor of the letters was the most insidious part of
the fabrication. Washington is represented as expressing sentiments totally at variance with his conduct, and
as deprecating the misguided zeal and rashness of Congress in declaring independence, and pushing the opposition to Great Britain to so perilous an extremity.
The letters were reprinted in New York, and industriously circulated in various forms through the agency
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