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.

310 LIFE OF WASHINGTON. [1778.
and that they would instruct them to go into a thorough
investigation of the causes that have produced so many
disagreeable effects in the army and country; in a
word, that public abuses should be corrected. Without
this, it does not in my judgment require the spirit of
divination to foretell the consequences of the present
administration; nor to how little purpose the States
individually are framing constitutions, providing laws,
and filling offices with the abilities of their ablest men.
These, if the great whole is mismanaged, must sink in
the general wreck, which will carry with it the remorse
of thinking that we are lost by our own folly and
negligence, or by the desire perhaps of living in ease
and tranquillity during the expected accomplishment
of so great a revolution, in the effecting of which the
greatest abilities, and the most honest men, our American
world affords, ought to be employed.
"It is much to be. feared, my dear Sir, that the
States, in their separate capacities, have very inadequate
ideas of the present danger. Many -persons, removed
far distant from the scene of action, and seeing and
hearing such publications only, as flatter their wishes,
conceive that the contest is at an end, and that to regulate the government and police of their own State is all
that remains to be done; but it is devoutly to be wished, that a sad reverse of this may not fall upon them
like a thunder-clap, that is little expected. I do not
mean to designate particular States. I wish to cast no
reflections upon any one. The public believe (and, if
they do believe it, the fact might almost as well be so),
that the States at this time are badly represented, and
that the great and important concerns of the nation are
horribly conducted, for want either of abilities or application in the members, or through the discord and
party views of some individuals. That they should be