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.

406 WTASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. [AT. 43.
TO GEORGE WILLIAM FAIRFAX, ENGLAND.
Philadelphia, 31 May, 1775.'
DEAR SIR,
Before this letter will come to hand, you must undoubtedly have received an account of the engagement
in the Massachusetts Bay, between the ministerial
troops (for we do not, nor can we yet prevail upon ourselves to call them the King's troops), and the provincials of that government. But as you may not have
heard how that affair began, I enclose you the several
affidavits, which were taken after the action.
General Gage acknowledges, that the detachment
under, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith was sent out to destroy
private property; or,- in other words, to destroy a
magazine, which self-preservation obliged the inhabitants to establish. And lhe also confesses, in effect at
least, that his men made a very precipitate retreat from
Concord, notwithstanding the reinforcement under Lord
Percy; the last of which may serve to convince Lord
Sandwich, and others of the same sentiment, that the
Americans will fight for their liberties and property,
however pusillanimous in his Lordship's eye they may
appear in other respects.
From the best accounts I have been able to collect
of that affair, indeed from every one, I believe the fact,
stripped of all coloring, to be plainly this, that, if the
retreat had not been as precipitate as it was, and God
knows it could not well have been more so, the ministerial troops must have surrendered, or been totally cut
off. For they had not arrived in Charlestown (under
the above letter to his brother; and the uniform tenor of his conduct. See
APPENDIx, No. XII.
* VWashington was now attending the second Continental Congress,
which assembled in Philadelphia on the 10th of May.