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.

34 WASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. [AET. 45.
to confer high rank upon those who had none, or of
a very inferior degree, in their own country, it now
happens, that those who have really good pretensions,
who are men of character, abilities, and rank, will not
be contented unless they are introduced into some of
the highest stations of the army, in which, it needs no
arguments to convince you, that it is impossible to
gratify them. Hence their dissatisfaction and the difficulty of employing them are increased. These obstacles reduce us to this dilemma; either we must refuse
to commission them at all, and leave all the expense,
trouble, and risk, that have attended their coming over,
uncompensated; or we must commission them without
being able to incorporate or employ them; by which
means enjoying the public pay and an unmeaning rank,
they must submit to the mortification of being mere
ciphers in the army. This last, to some of them, may
not be disagreeable; but to men of sentiment, and who
are actuated by a principle of honor and a desire to
distinguish themselves, it must be humiliating and irksome in the extreme.
From these considerations it would be both prudent
and just to discourage their coming over, by candidly
opening the difficulties they have to encounter; and if,
after that, they will persist in it, they can only blame
themselves. I am sensible, Sir, that it is a delicate and
perplexing task to refuse applications of persons patronized, as I suppose often happens, by some of the first
characters in the kingdom where you are, and whose
favor it is of importance to conciliate; but I beg leave
to suggest, whether it would not be better to do that,
than by compliance to expose them to those mortifications, which they must unavoidably experience, and
which they are too apt to impute to other causes than
the true ones, and may represent under very disadvan