My First Wish Is To See

Written on July 25, 1785, in a letter from Mount Vernon to David Humphreys, a soldier and poet who had served as an aide-de-camp during the Revolution. Washington wrote in the context of observing that European politics seemed to be tending toward peace, and expressed his deepest personal wish: that war itself — which he called "this plague to Mankind" — might be abolished from the earth. The full passage also invites the poor and oppressed of the world to settle the American West and "dwell in peace."