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.

226 WASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. [AIT. 49.
concentred their whole force in Charleston. Wilmington is also evacuated, and North Carolina is frieed from
its enemies. The disaffected part of the State are suing
for mercy, and executing, it is said, some of their own
leaders for having misguided them.*
TO MESHECH WEARE, PRESIDENT OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Circular to the States.
Philadelphia, 22 January, 1782.
SIR,
Although it may be somewhat out of my province to
address your Excellency on a subject not immediately
of a military nature, yet I consider it so nearly connected with, and so essential to, the operations under
* The following letter from M. de S~gur, minister of war, was written
to Lafayette in behalf of the King, after receiving the news of the capitulation at Yorktown.
" SIR,
" The King being informed of the military talents, which you have repeatedly displayed in commanding the different corps of the army entrusted to you in America, and of the wisdom and prudence, by which you
have been guided in the various parts you have acted in relation to the
interests of the United States, and of the confidence placed in you by
General Washington; his Majesty has charged me to inform you, that
the praises so justly merited have attracted his attention, and that your
conduct and success have caused him to form an opinion of you the most
favorable that you can desire, and which may authorize you to depend
on his goodness. To give you a most flattering and decided proof of it,
his Majesty assures to you the rank of field-marshal [marechal de camp],
when you shall have quitted the service of the United States, and returned to that of his Majesty. By this decision you will, therefore, be
considered a field-marshal, dating from the capitulation at Yorktown by
General Cornwallis, on the 19th of October of the present year, in consideration of your having then fulfilled the duties of that rank in the army
of the United States of America."- JMS. Letter from S&gur to Lafayette,
December 5th, 1781.