Excerpt from An Oration, Delivered Before the Washington Benevolent Society, in the City of New-York, at Zion Church, on the Twenty-Second of February, 1809 The history of Washington, for more than forty years, was the history of our country. It was the peculiar felicity of this man, to have laid in early youth, the foundation of our national greatness; to have conducted through life the great work of our independence; and when he died, to have left a young empire, wide-extended, united, respected abroad, and happy at home, as the fruit of his labours. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.