GENTLEMEN:— In confiding to your house the publication of this brief paper on some points in the character of Washington, I beg leave to say, that for any deficiency in the cost of publishing, after all your charges in having it fitly done are defrayed, I will be responsible. And in the very remote probability of the sale of a production so limited as this, in the face of a thousand better things on Washington's character already before the world, ever yielding anything in the way of profit afte

The manuscript or paper here published was prepared from a collection of original letters from General Washington on matters, for the most part, purely domestic and personal, addressed to Colonel Tobias Lear, his private Secretary for a part of the time he was President; and then, and during periods much longer, his confidential friend. They came into my hands through the voluntary kindness of Mrs. Lear, of the city of Washington, the estimable relict of Colonel Lear, and niece of Mrs. Washingto

When first I opened and cursorily read the original letters from General Washington, mentioned in the foregoing introductory explanation, and noticed the domestic topics which ran so largely through them, they struck me as possessing peculiar interest. They were of value as coming from that venerated source, and doubly so, considering how little is known, through his own correspondence, of his domestic life; scarcely, in fact, any of its details. Reading the letters again, I found the matter to