Page:The Life of George Washington, Volume 1.djvu/19

Rh of America ought to comprise. Yet the history of General Washington, during his military command and civil administration, is so much that of his country, that the work appeared to the author to be most sensibly incomplete and unsatisfactory, while unaccompanied by such a narrative of the principal events preceding our revolutionary war, as would make the reader acquainted with the genius, character, and resources of the people about to engage in that memorable contest. This appeared the more necessary as that period of our history is but little known to ourselves. Several writers have detailed very minutely the affairs of a particular colony, but the desideratum is a composition which shall present in one connected view, the transactions of all those colonies which now form the United States.

The materials for the complete execution of such a work are perhaps not to be found in America; and, if they do exist, their collection would require a length of time, and a labour of research, which neither the impatience of the public, nor the situation of the author would enable him to bestow on the subject. Yet he thought it more eligible to digest into one volume the most material of those facts which are now scattered through several books, than to commence his history abruptly with the war between Great Britain and her colonies.