Address of the Selectmen of Boston to General Washington

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MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: The Selectmen of Boston, in behalf of themselves and fellow-citizens, with all grateful respect, congratulate your Excellency on the success of your military operations in the recovery of this town from an enemy, collected from the once respected Britons, who, in this instance, are characterized by malice and fraud, rapine and plunder, in every trace left behind them.

Happy are we, that this acquisition has been made with so little effusion of human blood, which, next to the Divine favour, permit us to ascribe to your Excellency' s wisdom, evidenced in every part of the long besiegement.

If it be possible to enhance the noble feelings of that person who, from the most affluent enjoyments, could throw himself into the hardships of a camp to save his country, uncertain of success, it is then possible this victory will heighten your Excellency' s happiness, when you consider you have not only saved a large, elegant, and once populous city, from total destruction, but relieved the few wretched inhabitants from all the horrors of a besieged town, from the insults and abuses of a disgraced and chagrined army, and restored many inhabitants to their quiet habitations, who had fled for safety to the bosom of their country.

May your Excellency live to see the just rights of America settled on a firm basis, which felicity we sincerely wish you; and, at a later period, may that felicity be changed into happiness eternal.

JOHN SCOLLAY,
TIMOTHY NEWELL,
THOMAS MARSHALL,
SAMUEL AUSTIN,
OLIVER WENDELL,
JOHN PITTS,
Selectmen of Boston.

To His Excellency George Washington, Esq˙, General of the United Forces in America.