to be found fit for duty, and most part of these were "naked even for a summer's campaign"; all shrank from a winter incursion into so cold a country. As to General Stark and his legion of Green Mountain Boys, who, according to the gasconade of Gates, might have burned the fleet before Lafayette's arrival, the marquis received at Albany a letter from the veteran, "who wishes to know," says he, “what number of men, for what time, and for what rendezvous, I desire him to raise."

Another officer, who was to have enlisted men, would have done so, had he received money. "One asks what encouragement his people will have; the other has no clothes; not one of them has received a dollar of what was due to them. I have applied to everybody, I have begged at every door I could these two days, and I see that I could do something were the expedition to be begun in five weeks. But you know we have not an hour to lose; and, indeed, it is now rather too late had we everything in readiness."

The poor marquis was in despair-but what most distressed him was the dread of ridicule. He had written to his friends that he had the command of the expedition; it would be known throughout Europe. "I am afraid," says he, "that it will reflect on my reputation, and I shall be laughed at. My fears upon that subject are so strong that I would choose to become again only a volunteer, unless Congress offers the means of mending this ugly business by some glorious operation."

A subsequent letter is in the same vein. The poor marquis, in his perplexity, lays his whole heart open to Washington with childlike simplicity. "I have written lately to you my distressing, ridiculous, foolish, and indeed nameless situation. I am sent, with a great noise, at the head of an

army for doing great things; the whole continent, France and Europe herself, and, what is worse, the British army, are in great expectations. How far they will be deceived, how far we shall be ridiculed, you may judge by the candid account you have got of the state of our affairs. I confess, my dear general, that I find myself of very quick feelings whenever my reputation and glory are concerned in anything. It is very hard that such a part of my happiness, without which I cannot live, should depend upon schemes which I never knew of but when there was no time to put them into execution. I assure you, my most dear and respected friend, that I am more unhappy than I ever was.

I should be very happy if you were here, to give me some advice; but I have nobody to consult with.

Washington, with his considerate, paternal counsels, hastened to calm the perturbation of his youthful friend and dispel those fears respecting his reputation, excited only, as he observed, "by an uncommon degree of sensibility. "It will be no disadvantage to you to have it known in Europe,' writes he, "that you have received so manifest a proof of the good opinion and confidence of Congress as an important detached command. However sensibly your ardor for glory may make you feel this disappointment, you may be assured that your character stands as fair as ever it did, and that no new enterprise is necessary to wipe off this imaginary stain."

The project of an irruption into Canada was at length formally suspended by a resolve of Congress; and Washington was directed to recall the marquis and the Baron de Kalb, the presence of the latter being deemed absolutely necessary to the army at Valley Forge. Lafayette at the same time received assurance of the high sense entertained by VOL. XIV.-*** 6

Congress of his prudence, activity and zeal, and that noth ing was wanting on his part to give the expedition the utmost possible effect.

Gladly the young marquis hastened back to Valley Forge, to enjoy the companionship and find himself once more under the paternal eye of Washington; leaving Conway for the time in command at Albany, "where there would be nothing, perhaps, to be attended to but some disputes of Indians and tories."

Washington, in a letter to General Armstrong, writes: "I shall say no more of the Canada expedition than that it is at an end. I never was made acquainted with a single circumstance relating to it."*

CHAPTER THIRTY

More Trouble about the Conway Letter-Correspondence between Lord Stirling and Wilkinson-Wilkinson's Honor wounded— His Passage at Arms with General Gates-His Seat at the Board of War uncomfortable-Determines that Lord Stirling shall bleed-His Wounded Honor healed-His Interviews with Washington-Sees the Correspondence of Gates-Denounces Gates and gives up the Secretaryship-Is thrown out of Employ-Closing Remarks on the Conway Cabal

THE Conway letter was destined to be a further source of trouble to the cabal. Lord Stirling, in whose presence, at Reading, Wilkinson had cited the letter, and who had sent information of it to Washington, was now told that Wilkinson, on being questioned by General Conway, had declared that no such words as those reported, nor any to the same effect, were in the letter.

* Sparks' Writings of Washington, vol. v., p. 300.

His lordship immediately wrote to Wilkinson, reminding him of the conversation at Reading, and telling him of what he had recently heard.

"I well know," writes his lordship, "that it is impossible you could have made any such declaration; but it will give great satisfaction to many of your friends to know whether Conway made such inquiry, and what was your answer; they would also be glad to know what were the words of the letter, and I should be very much obliged to you for a copy of it."

Wilkinson found that his tongue had again brought him into difficulty; but he trusted to his rhetoric, rather than his logic, to get him out of it. He wrote in reply that he perfectly remembered spending a social day with his lordship at Reading, in which the conversation became general, unreserved and copious; though the tenor of his lordship's dis course, and the nature of their situation, made it confidential. "I cannot, therefore," adds he logically, "recapitulate particulars, or charge my memory with the circumstances you mention; but, my lord, I disdain low craft, subtlety and evasion, and will acknowledge it is possible, in the warmth of social intercourse, when the mind is relaxed and the heart is unguarded, that observations may have elapsed which have not since occurred to me. On my late arrival in camp, Brigadier-general Conway informed me that he had been charged, by General Washington, with writing a letter to Major-general Gates which reflected on the general and the army. The particulars of this charge, which Brigadier-general Conway then repeated, I cannot now recollect. I had read the letter alluded to; I did not consider the information conveyed in his Excellency's letter, as expressed by Brigadier-general Conway, to be literal, and well remember reply

ing to that effect in dubious terms. I had no inducement to stain my veracity, were I so prone to that infamous vice, as Brigadier Conway informed me he had justified the charge.

"I can scarce credit my senses, when I read the paragraph in which you request an extract from a private letter which had fallen under my observation. I have been indis· creet, my lord, but be assured I will not be dishonorable."

This communication of Lord Stirling, Wilkinson gives as the first intimation he had received of his being implicated in the disclosure of Conway's letter. When he was subsequently on his way to Yorktown, to enter upon his duties as secretary of the Board of War, he learned at Lancaster that General Gates had denounced him as the betrayer of that letter, and had spoken of him in the grossest language.

"I was shocked by this information," writes he; "I had sacrificed my lineal rank at General Gates's request; I had served him with zeal and fidelity, of which he possessed the strongest evidence, yet he had condemned me unheard for an act of which I was perfectly innocent, and against which every feeling of my soul revolted with horror. . . . I worshiped honor as the jewel of my soul, and did not pause for the course to be pursued; but I owed it to disparity of years and rank, to former connection and the affections of my own breast, to drain the cup of conciliation and seek an explanation.”

The result of these and other considerations, expressed with that grandiloquence on which Wilkinson evidently prided himself, was a letter to Gates, reminding him of the zeal and devotion with which he had uniformly asserted and maintained his cause; "but, sir," adds he, "in spite of every consideration, you have wounded my honor, and must make acknowledgment or satisfaction for the injury."