Resignation to Congress, 1783 - side 1

Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, MD.

This is the final draft of the speech that Washington delivered to the Continental Congress, 23 December 1783, when he resigned his commission and entered private life.

There are two official copies of General Washington’s speech: one in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and one at the Library of Congress. This one is his personal annotated copy from which he read during the ceremony.

[King] George was unswervingly loyal to people he trusted and ideas he believed to be true; and he behaved in ways that a modern psychologist might interpret as obsessive. As a young man he would, for example, eat virtually the same dinner every day of his adult life (bread, soup, beets or turnips, and mutton — varying only on Sundays, when he allowed himself roast beef). The regularity of his tastes bespoke a deeper hunger for order.

— Fred Anderson

Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754 - 1766 (2000)