become familiar with every American mind, and ought to govern every American heart. Nor will we dwell upon his touching appeal on the subject of the half pay and commutation promised to the army, and which began to be considered in the odious light of a pension. "That provision," said he, "should be viewed as it really was-a reasonable compensation offered by Congress, at a time when they had nothing else to give to the officers of the army for services then to be performed. It was the only means to prevent a total dereliction of the service. It was a part of their hire. I may be allowed to say it was the price of their blood and of your independency; it is therefore more than a common debt, it is a debt of honor."

Although we have touched upon but a part of this admirable letter, we cannot omit its affecting close, addressed as it was to each individual governor.

"I have thus freely declared what I wished to make known, before I surrendered up my public trust, to those who committed it to me. The task is now accomplished. I now bid adieu to your Excellency, as the chief magistrate of your State, at the same time I bid a last farewell to the cares of office and all the employments of public life.

"It remains, then, to be my final and only request, that your Excellency will communicate these sentiments to your Legislature at their next meeting, and that they may be considered the legacy of one who has ardently wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his country, and who, even in the shade of retirement, will not fail to implore the Divine benediction on it.

"I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection; that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to

cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which are the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without whose example in those things we can never hope to be a happy nation."

While the patriot army, encamped under the eye of Washington, bore their hardships and privations without flinching, or returned quietly to their homes with, as yet, no actual reward but the weapons with which they had vindicated their country's cause; about eighty newly recruited soldiers of the Pennsylvania line, stationed at Lancaster, suddenly mutinied and set off in a body for Philadelphia, to demand redress of fancied grievances from the Legislature of the State. Arriving at that city, they were joined by about two hundred comrades from the barracks, and proceeded on the 2d of June with beat of drum and fixed bayonets to the State House, where Congress and the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania were in session.

Placing sentinels at every door to prevent egress, they sent in a written message to the president and council, threatening military violence if their demands were not complied with in the course of twenty minutes.

Though these menaces were directed against the State government, Congress felt itself outraged by being thus surrounded and blockaded for several hours by an armed soldiery. Fearing lest the State of Pennsylvania might not be able to furnish adequate protection, it adjourned to meet

within a few days at Princeton; sending information, in the meantime, to Washington of this mutinous outbreak.

The latter immediately detached General Howe with fifteen hundred men to quell the mutiny and punish the offenders; at the same time, in a letter to the President of Congress, he expressed his indignation and distress at seeing a handful of men, "contemptible in numbers and equally so in point of service, and not worthy to be called soldiers," insulting the sovereign authority of the Union and that of their own State. He vindicated the army at large, however, from the stain the behavior of these men might cast upon it. These were mere recruits, soldiers of a day, who had not borne the heat and burden of the war, and had in reality few hardships to complain of. He contrasted their conduct with that of the soldiers recently furloughed-veterans, who had patiently endured hunger, nakedness, and cold; who had suffered and bled without a murmur, and who had retired, in perfect good order, to their homes, without a settlement of their accounts or a farthing of money in their pockets. While he gave vent to this indignation and scorn, roused by the "arrogance and folly and wickedness of the mutineers," he declared that he could not suffi ciently admire the fidelity, bravery, and patriotism of the rest of the army.

Fortunately, before the troops under General Howe reached Philadelphia, the mutiny had been suppressed without bloodshed. Several of the mutineers were tried by a court-martial, two were condemned to death, but ultimately pardoned, and four received corporal punishment.

Washington now found his situation at headquarters irk. some; there was little to do, and he was liable to be incessantly teased with applications and demands which he had

neither the means nor power to satisfy. He resolved, therefore, to while away part of the time that must intervene before the arrival of the definitive treaty, by making a tour to the northern and western parts of the State, and visiting the places which had been the theater of important military transactions. He had another object in view; he desired to facilitate as far as in his power the operations which would be necessary for occupying, as soon as evacuated by the British troops, the posts ceded by the treaty of peace.

Governor Clinton accompanied him on the expedition. They set out by water from Newburg, ascended the Hudson to Albany, visited Saratoga and the scene of Burgoyne's surrender, embarked on Lake George, where light boats had been provided for them, traversed that beautiful lake so full of historic interest, proceeded to Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and after reconnoitering those eventful posts, returned to Schenectady, whence they proceeded up the valley of the Mohawk River, "to have a view," writes Washington, "of that tract of country which is so much celebrated for the fertility of its soil and the beauty of its situation." Having reached Fort Schuyler, formerly Fort Stanwix, they crossed over to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida Lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. They then traversed the country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, and viewed Lake Otsego and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River.

Washington returned to headquarters at Newburg on the 5th of August, after a tour of at least seven hundred and fifty miles, performed in nineteen days, and for the most part on horseback. In a letter to the Chevalier de Chastellux, written two or three months afterward, and giving a sketch of his tour through what was, as yet, an

unstudied wilderness, he writes: "Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States from maps and the information of others; and could not but be struck with the immense extent and importance of it, and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with so profuse a hand; would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the western country and trav ersed those lines, or a great part of them, which have given bounds to a new empire." The vast advantages of internal communication between the Hudson and the great lakes, which dawned upon Washington's mind in the course of this tour, have since been realized in that grand artery of national wealth, the Erie Canal.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The Army to be discharged-Parting Address of WashingtonEvacuation of New York-Parting Scene of Washington with his Officers at New York-Washington resigns his Commission to Congress-Retires to Mount Vernon

By a proclamation of Congress, dated 18th of October, all officers and soldiers absent on furlough were discharged from further service; and all others who had engaged to serve during the war were to be discharged from and after the 3d of November. A small force only, composed of those who had enlisted for a definite time, were to be retained in service until the peace establishment should be organized.

In general orders of November 2d, Washington, after adverting to this proclamation, adds: "It only remains for