BY AARON BANCROFT, A. A. S. LONDON PRINTED FOR JOHN STOCKDALE, PICCADILLY, ་ PREFACE. THE following publication originated in the author's wish to place within reach of the great body of his countrymen an authentic biography of General Washington. Judge Marshall, in his valuable life of this illustrious patriot, has embraced not only the settlement and general history of the North American Colonies, but also the political history of the United States. His work is therefore necessarily too expensive to be obtained by all classes of American people. The writer of these memoirs apprehended, that by publishing the Life of Washington in one volume, reasonable in its price, he should enable those of his fellow citizens, who are not in possession of Marshall, to leave to their posterity the memorial of a man who was pre-eminently distinguished as a soldier and statesman. General Washington was from his youth devoted to his country; his character therefore cannot be pourtrayed, without bringing into view many important public transactions. The plan of the writer has been to notice no individual or event further than was necessary to display the principal character. He has made Judge Marshall his leading authority for facts, and has in some measure followed him in the order of events. The histories of the war by Doctors Ramsay and Gordon, and several original writings, have been consulted; but he trusts that greater liberty has not been taken with any of them than is fair and honourable. The few facts which have not before been |