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.

PARTII.] THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 383
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Valley Forge, 29 May, 1778.
DEAR SIR,
Your polite favor of the 5th instant, I duly received,
and thank you much for the information contained in
it. At the same time, I earnestly request that you
will indulge me with an excuse for not answering it
before. A constant crowd of business, and the intervention of a variety of circumstances, have been the
cause, and not an inattention to the rules of civility or
to those of friendship.
Your letter gave me the first intimation of the disagreement between our commissioners. The event is
disagreeable and painful; and, unless they can bring
themselves to harmonize, their proceedings will not
probably consult the public interest, so well as they
otherwise might. It is certain, they will not have that
degree of respect, either at home or abroad. Their
embassy is a most interesting one, and may involve
consequences which will lead, in no small degree, to
the happiness or misery of their country. I hope reflection and a due consideration will set them right.*
The act of the 22d of April will certainly require the
commissioners, t if they come at all, to be vested with
much more ample powers than Lord North's bills professed, or their mission will be ridiculously mortifying.
Indeed men, who would come out under the powers
expressed in the bills, after all that has passed, deserve
to be mortified in the extreme. I am happy the report
and consequent resolution were previous to the treaty: The history of the doings of the American commissioners in Paris,
and of their disagreements, may be found in the first volume of the
Diplomatic Correspondence of the /lmerican Revolution.
t The British commissioners expected from England.