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 to understand the affair in hand, or to comprehend any better what is desired to be conveyed.

Philadelphia.

To Colonel George Washington.

had the opportunity of making your acquaintance, and I ought not to conceal from you the pleasure I have had in learning of late that your conduct in the humiliating defeat of General Braddock was such as to be a matter of just pride to the colonies.
 * I am the richer for having

Affairs with us, and indeed with all the colonies, are in a condition greatly to be deplored. We are, as it appears to me, much in the same state as a man I knew who, having married four times, had as a consequence four mothers-in-law, all of whom were of opinion that they had the right to meddle in his family affairs. These are, for us, the King, the Parliament, the Lords of Trade, and the Governors. For all of them we are a family of bad little boys. We, on the other hand, entertain the belief that we are grown-up Englishmen, who believe that we inherit certain rights. Soon or late mischief will come of it. The eggs of trouble are slow to hatch, but they do surely hatch soon or late and are never addled.

It would be worse than folly to conceal from