and Benjamin Franklin were the American Peace Commissioners. The
preliminaries between Great Britain and America were signed on
December 30, 1782, and with France and Spain nearly two months
later. The Dutch held out still longer into 1783. Washington, at his
Headquarters in Newburgh, New York, had been awaiting the news of
peace, not lazily, but planning for a new campaign and meditating upon
the various projects which might be undertaken. To him the news of the
actual signing of the treaty came at the end of March. He replied at
once to Theodorick Bland; a letter which gave his general views
in regard to the needs and rights of the army before it should be
disbanded:

It is now the bounden duty of every one to make the blessings
thereof as diffusive as possible. Nothing would so effectually
bring this to pass as the removal of those local prejudices which
intrude upon and embarrass that great line of policy which alone
can make us a free, happy and powerful People. Unless our Union
can be fixed upon such a basis as to accomplish these, certain
I am we have toiled, bled and spent our treasure to very little
purpose.

We have now a National character to establish, and it is of the
utmost importance to stamp favorable impressions upon it; let
justice be then one of its characteristics, and gratitude another.
Public creditors of every denomination will be comprehended in the
first; the Army in a particular manner will have a claim to the
latter; to say that no distinction can be made between the claims
of public creditors is to declare that there is no difference in
circumstances; or that the services of all men are equally alike.
This Army is of near eight years' standing, six of which they have