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.

18 WASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. [rET. 22.
I could enumerate a thousand difficulties that we have
met with, and must expect to meet with, more than other
officers who have almost double our pay; but as I know
you reflect on these things, and are sensible of the hardships we must necessarily encounter, it would be needless to enlarge.
Besides, as I have expatiated fully (and, perhaps, too
warmly) in a letter to Colonel Fairfax, who, I suppose,
will accompany you to Winchester, upon the motives
that occasion these my resolves, I shall not trouble you
with them; for the subject leads me too far when I
engage in it.
Another thing resolved by the Committee is, that only
one sergeant and one corporal be allowed to a company;
with whom it is as much impossible to do the necessary
duty, as it is to conquer kingdoms with my handful of
men.
Upon the whole, I find so many clogs upon the expe~ The Governor was at this time in Winchester, having previously made
arrangements for meeting there several Indian chiefs, to brighten the
chain of friendship by a new treaty, or rather to give them presents, and
exchange belts of wampum. He assigned this as a reason, why Virginia did
not send delegates to the Albany Convention, which was recommended by
the Board of Trade, and attended by commissioners from the northern and
middle colonies, and which acquired notoriety from the celebrated Plan of
Union drawn up by Franklin, and adopted by the Convention. The
attempt to treat at Winchester was a failure, as two or three subordinate
Chiefs only appeared, though Washington used his best endeavours to
bring down the Half-King and some of his friends. They made excuses,
that they were planting corn, and efngaged in other affairs at home.
The Albany Plan of Union was disapproved in Virginia, as it was everywhere else, and by the Governor particularly, because he had already
matured a project of his own. He communicated the year before to Lord
Halifax a scheme for colonial government, which he deemed "more reasonable and more constitutional," than the one proposed by the commissioners at Albany. The prominent feature of his scheme was, that the
colonies should be divided into two districts, a northern and southern, in
each of which there should be a congress, or some kind of general council.
for the regulation of their respective interests.