orld, ought to be. Of these, I will write to
you more fully from home.

"I can communicate but little concerning Gen. Wayne, which you
do not know already. His son, who lives somewhere in your
state, I should take to be a proper person to whom to apply. I
wish it were in my power to answer more fully than I can, your
inquiries concerning General Reed. My personal acquaintance
with him was limited. I shared in the deep dislike with which
he was regarded, and his negotiations with the British
commissioners, in the spring of 1778, made him obnoxious to
the whole army, from the commander-in-chief to the lowest
subaltern. You and I talked this matter over nearly fifty
years since, and I have found nothing to change, but much to
confirm, my opinions. It is a little too bad that this man
should be reverenced by posterity as one of the purest of the
men of the revolution, when you and I, and all who were really
active in those times, know that nothing but accident
prevented his taking the start of Benedict Arnold. Though not
communicative, General Washington was always candid, and upon
the subject of Reed's premeditated betrayal of the country to
England, he has frequently conversed with me very freely. None
of the correspondence between Reed and the British
commissioners, fell into his hands except the letter from
Governor Johnston, and an enclosed note in cypher from Lord
Carlisle, but these contained sufficient to assure Washington
that a long correspondence had passed--that proposals had been
made and debated, and that Reed had finally submitted a
proposition which the commissioners were endeavouring to
reduce. With the explanation Reed gave you are familiar. No
one believed it, but it passed muster, for the only proofs
which _at the time_ could be had, were the intercepted papers.
But ever after, Washington regarded Reed with great dislike,
and treated him with a manner strictly marked by the display
of his feelings. I was present when General Washington took
his final leave of his officers at New York, after the close
of the revolution, in the winter of 1783. The general's eyes
streamed with tears, he grasped each officer by the hand, but
when Reed approached him with extended hand, he started as if
bitten by a serpent, made a cold bow, and passed on.
Afterwards, at