official disrespect, almost amounting to insubordination.

It

is doubtful whether Gates, in his state of mental effervescence, felt the noble severity of the rebuke.

The officer whom Gates had employed as bearer of his dispatch to Congress was Wilkinson, his adjutant-general and devoted sycophant: a man at once pompous and servile. He was so long on the road that the articles of the treaty, according to his own account, reached the grand army before he did the Congress. Even after his arrival at Yorktown he required three days to arrange his papers, preparing to deliver them in style. At length, eighteen days after the surrender of Burgoyne had taken place, he formally laid the documents concerning it before Congress, preluding them with a message in the name of Gates, but prepared the day before by himself, and following them up by comments, explanatory and eulogistic of his own.

He evidently expected to produce a great effect by this rhetorical display, and to be signally rewarded for his good tidings; but Congress were as slow in expressing their sense of his services as he had been in rendering them. He swelled and chafed under this neglect, but affected to despise it. In a letter to his patron, Gates, he observes: "I have not been honored with any mark of distinction from Congress. Indeed, should I receive no testimony of their approbation of my conduct, I shall not be mortified. My hearty contempt of the world will shield me from such pitiful sensations."*

A proposal was at length made in Congress that a sword should be voted to him as the bearer of such auspicious tidings: upon which Dr. Witherspoon, a shrewd Scot, exclaimed, "I think ye'll better gie the lad a pair of spurs."

*Gates's Papers, N. Y. Hist. Library.

A few days put an end to Wilkinson's suspense, and probably reconciled him to the world; he was breveted a brigadier-general.

A fortuitous circumstance, which we shall explain hereafter, apprised Washington about this time that a correspondence, derogatory to his military character and conduct, was going on between General Conway and General Gates. It was a parallel case with Lee's correspondence of the preceding year; and Washington conducted himself in it with the same dignified forbearance, contenting himself with letting Conway know, by the following brief note, dated November 9th, that his correspondence was detected.

"SIR-A letter which I received last night contained the following paragraph-'In a letter from General Conway to General Gates, he says, "Heaven has determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counselors would have ruined it.""

“I am, sir, your humble servant,

"GEORGE WASHINGTON.”

The brevity of this note rendered it the more astounding. It was a hand-grenade thrown into the midst of the cabal. The effect upon other members we shall show hereafter. It seems, at first, to have prostrated Conway. An epistle of his friend Mifflin to Gates intimates that Conway endeavored to palliate to Washington the censorious expressions in his letter, by pleading the careless freedom of language indulged in familiar letter-writing; no other record of such explanation remains, and that probably was not received as satisfactory. Certain it is, he immediately sent in his resignation. To some he alleged, as an excuse for resigning, the disparaging way in which he had been spoken of by some

members of Congress; to others he observed that the campaign was at an end, and there was a prospect of a French war. The real reason he kept to himself, and Washington suffered it to remain a secret. His resignation, however, was not accepted by Congress; on the contrary, he was supported by the cabal, and was advanced to further honors, which we shall specify hereafter.

In the meantime, the cabal went on to make invidious comparisons between the achievements of the two armies, deeply derogatory to that under Washington. Publicly, he took no notice of them; but they drew from him the following apology for his army in a noble and characteristic letter to his friend, the celebrated Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia. "The design of this," writes he, "is only to inform you, and with great truth I can do it, strange as it may seem, that the army which I have had under my immediate command has not at any one time, since General Howe's landing at the Head of Elk, been equal in point of numbers to his. In ascertaining this, I do not confine myself to Continental troops, but comprehend militia. The disaffected and lukewarm in this State, in whom unhappily it too much abounds, taking advantage of the distraction in the government, prevented those vigorous exertions which an invaded State ought to have yielded. . . . I was left to fight two battles, in order, if possible, to save Philadelphia, with less numbers than composed the army of my antagonist, while the world has given us at least double. This impression, though mortifying in some points of view, I have been obliged to encourage; because, next to being strong, it is best to be thought so by the enemy; and to this cause, principally, I think is to be attributed the slow movements of General Howe.

"How different the case in the Northern department! There the States of New York and New England, resolving to crush Burgoyne, continued pouring in their troops till the surrender of that army, at which time not less than fourteen thousand militia, as I have been informed, were actually in General Gates's camp, and those composed, for the most part, of the best yeomanry of the country, well armed, and in many instances supplied with provisions of their own carrying. Had the same spirit pervaded the people of this and the neighboring States, we might before this time have had General Howe nearly in the situation of General Burgoyne.

"My own difficulties, in the course of the campaign, have been not a little increased by the extra aid of Continental troops, which the gloomy prospect of our affairs in the North immediately after the reduction of Ticonderoga induced me to spare from this army. But it is to be hoped that all will yet end well. IF THE CAUSE IS ADVANCED, INDIFFERENT IS IT TO ME WHERE OR IN WHAT QUARTER IT HAPPENS.

We have put the last sentence in capitals, for it speaks the whole soul of Washington. Glory with him is a secondary consideration. Let those who win wear the laurelsufficient for him is the advancement of the cause.

NOTE

We subjoin an earnest appeal of Washington to Thomas Wharton, President of Pennsylvania, on the 17th of October, urging him to keep up the quota of troops demanded of the State by Congress, and to furnish additional aid. "I assure you, sir," writes he, "it is a matter of astonishment to every part of the continent to hear that Pennsylvania, the most

opulent and populous of all the States, has but twelve hundred militia in the field, at a time when the enemy are endeavoring to make themselves completely masters of, and to fix their quarters in, her capital." And Major-general Armstrong, commanding the Pennsylvania militia, writes at the same time to the Council of his State: "Be not deceived with wrong notions of General Washington's numbers; be assured he wants your aid. Let the brave step forth, their example will animate the many. You all speak well of our commander-in-chief at a distance; don't you want to see him and pay him one generous, one martial visit, when kindly invited to his camp near the end of a long campaign? There you will see for yourselves the unremitting zeal and toils of all the day and half the night, multiplied into years, without seeing house or home of his own, without murmur or complaint; but believes and calls this arduous task the service of his country and of his God.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Further Hostilities on the Delaware-Fort Mifflin attacked-Bravely defended-Reduced-Mission of Hamilton to Gates-Visits the Camps of Governor Clinton and Putnam on the Hudson-Putnam on his Hobby-Horse—Difficulties in procuring Re-enforcements-Intrigues of the Cabal-Letters of Lovell and Mifflin to Gates-The Works at Red Bank destroyed-The Enemy in Possession of the Delaware

THE non-arrival of re-enforcements from the Northern army continued to embarrass Washington's operations. The enemy were making preparations for further attempts upon Forts Mercer and Mifflin. General Howe was constructing redoubts and batteries on Province Island, on the west side of the Delaware, within five hundred yards of Fort Mifflin, and mounting them with heavy cannon. Washington con