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.

PART II.] THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 233
from your State, in order that measures may be taken
for completing the regiments to the full establishment,
agreeably to the resolution of Congress on the 10th of
December. I cannot omit so favorable an occasion
of expressing to your Excellency my sentiments on
that subject, and of entreating, in the most earnest
manner, that there may be a speedy, pointed, and
effectual compliance with those requisitions.
It will, I flatter myself, be unnecessary to recapitulate
all the arguments I made use of in the circular letter
I had the honor to address to the governors of the
several States, at the close of the campaign of 1780;
in which, it must be remembered, I took the liberty to
urge, from the knowledge I had of'our affairs and a
series of experience, the policy, the expediency, the
necessity of recruiting the army, as the only probable
means of bringing the war to a speedy and happy
conclusion. If those arguments had any influence at
that time, if the consequent exertions were crowned
with any success, if the present crisis exhibits new
and more forcible inducements for still greater efforts,
let me point your Excellency and the legislature to
those considerations; and especially let me recommend,
in the warmest terms, that all the fruits of the successes, which have been obtained the last campaign,
may not be thrown away by an inglorious winter of
languor and inactivity.
However, at this advanced stage of the war, it might
seem to be an insult to the understanding to suppose
a long train of reasoning necessary to prove, that a respectable force in the field is essential to the establishment of our liberties and independence; yet, as I
am apprehensive the prosperous issue of the combined
operation' in Virginia may have (as is too common in
such cases) the pernicious tendency of lulling the coun
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