“Gentleman, you must pardon me,” he said, putting on his new spectacles. “I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.”3 Softened by his sincerity, the soldiers accepted their fate. Some would wait for years after the war to be paid, but others would sign away their future earnings to parasitic lenders, settling wherever they could. The British were resigned to a similar fate. As the redcoats departed the colonies for London and European theaters of war, they staged fire sales, some of which the Washingtons partook in, picking up French wine, beer, olives, nuts, water
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