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.

PART I.] PRIVATE LETTERS. 341
hundred or two hundred and fifty militia, and will doubtless achieve some signal advantage, of which the public
will soon be informed.
I think I have now communicated the only news,
which these parts afford. It is of a melancholy nature, indeed, and we cannot tell how or when the affair will end. I hope you may have got matters settled
to your liking before this time. I should rejoice to hear
it, as I should at every thing that gives you pleasure or
profit.
Mrs. Washington makes a tender of her compliments,
and you may be assured that I am, with great sincerity,
dear Sir, your most obedient and affectionate servant.
TO ROBERT CARY.
Mount Vernon, 13 February, 1764.
SIR,
The enclosed is a copy of my last. We have been
curiously entertained, of late, with the description of an
engine lately constructed, I believe, in Switzerland, and
which has undergone some improvements in England,
for taking up trees by the roots. It is related, that trees
of a considerable diameter are forced up by this engine;
that six hands, in working one of them, will raise two or
three hundred trees in the space of a day; and that an
acre of ground may be eased of the trees, and laid fit
for ploughing, in the same time. How far these assertions have been realized by repeated experiment, it is
impossible for me at this distance to determine; but, if
the accounts are not greatly exaggerated, such powerful
assistance must be of vast utility in many parts of this
woody country, where it is impossible for our force (and
laborers are not to be hired here), between the finishing
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