The poor man who had witnessed this spectacle hurried home, and on opening the door of his house burst into tears. His wife, amazed, inquired what was the matter with him, He told her what he had seen, and added, "If there is any one on this earth whom the Lord will listen to, it is George Washington, and I feel a presentiment that under such a commander, there can be no doubt of our eventually establishing our independence, and that God in his providence has willed it so."

No wonder peace sat enthroned on that brow when despair clouded all others.

In February his wife joined him, and as the two walked through the wretched camp, even the half-starved and mutinous soldier raised his head to bless them, and from many a pallid lip fell the "long live Washington," as his tall form darkened the door of the hovel. She was worthy of him, and cheerfully shared his discomforts and anxieties. Having at length got a little addition, built of logs, attached to their quarters, as a dining-room, she writes that their straitened quarters were much more tolerable.

But the sick, powerless, and famished army that lay around him did not wholly occupy Washington's attention. He wrote to the various officers to the east and north, took measures to have West Point fortified, and pressed on Congress the necessity of a complete change in the organization and discipline of the army, and the mode of obtaining supplies. This body at length yielded to his solicitations, and a committee of five was appointed to wait on him at Valley Forge, to decide on some feasible plan. Washington laid before them a project, which, after receiving the various opinions of the officers, he had, with great labor and care, drawn up. The committee remained three months in camp, and then returned to Congress with a report, which, with a very few amendments was adopted. On one point he and Congress differed widely. Hitherto, the officers received

pay only while in the service, and no provision was made for them in the future. Washington wished to have the half-pay system for life adopted, and finding Congress averse to it, he wrote a strong and urgent request, in which he declared that he " most religiously believed the salvation of the cause depended upon it, and without it, the officers would moulder to nothing, or be composed of low and illiterate men, void of capacity, and unfit for their business." He said he had no interest in the decision, personally, as he had fully resolved never to receive the smallest benefit from the half-pay establishment; but he added, “As a man who fights under the weight of proscription, and as a citizen who wishes to see the liberty of his country established on a permanent basis, and whose property depends on the success of our arms, I am deeply interested." Still Congress hesitated, doubtful whether this matter did not belong to the separate States. Some saw in it the basis of a standing army; others the elements of a privileged class; indeed, saw every thing but the simple truth, that officers will not sacrifice all their interests, and run the hazards of war for a country which will not even promise after her independence is secured to provide for their support. Deeply impressed with the necessity and importance of this measure, Washington wrote again to a member of Congress, declaring "that if it was not adopted he believed the army would disband, and even if it should not, it would be without discipline, without energy, incapable of acting with vigor, and destitute of those cements necessary to promise success on the one hand, or to withstand the shocks of adversity on the other." He said, "Men may speculate as much as they will; they may talk of patriotism, they may draw a few examples, from ancient story, of great achievements performed by its influence, but whoever builds upon them as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war, will find himself deceived in the end.

I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism.

I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone.” He might have added that officers and men felt that if they owed the State obedience, the State in turn owed them protection; or that if they risked life and fortune in the defense of their country, she, when delivered, owed them some provision against want. It is hard to fight for a country that degrades our efforts to the mere duties of a hireling. Patriotism, like love for a fellow being, must have regard in return or it will soon die out. Urged by Washington's appeals, Congress at length passed the half-pay bill, but shortly after reconsidered it, and finally compromised the matter by allowing the officers half-pay for seven years, and granting a gratuity of eighty dollars to each non-commissioned officer and soldier who should serve to the end of the war. Thus, while struggling with the difficulties that beset him in camp, he was compelled to plead with a suspicious, feeble Congress, and submit to its implied imputations. The course it was taking he saw clearly would lead to mischief. Its openly avowed suspicions of the army, he declared, was just the way to make it dangerous. "The most certain way (said he) to make a man your enemy, is to tell him you esteem him such." Besides, the conduct of the army did not warrant this jealousy. From first to last, it had shown an example of obedience to the civil authorities, worthy of the highest commendation, not of distrust. Washington boldly asserted that history could not furnish another instance of an army "suffering such uncommon hardships, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men (said he) without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes, for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet-and almost as often without provi sions as with them, marching through the frost and snow,

and at Christmas taking up their winter-quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarce be paralleled." No, it could not be paralleled, and yet the greater the devotion and sufferings of the army, the more neglectful, suspicious and hostile Congress became. Its noble conduct demanded gratitude and confidence, but received instead distrust and injury Thus, while exerting all his powers to protect and keep together the army, he had to devise and propose every important military measure, and then, at last, see many of his plans fail through party spirit, and others so altered as to lose half their value. It was under these accumulations of evils the Conway cabal came to a head, and Washington saw his own officers conspiring together to effect his overthrow. This was the darkest hour of his life, for not only misfortunes, but things far more wounding to him than any misfortune, were crowding him to the furthest limit of endurance.

Thus passed the long, severe and gloomy winter, but spring at last with its balmy breath arrived, and was hailed with delight by the suffering troops. Unjust and inconsistent as it may seem, there were many in Congress and out of it who blamed Washington for not carrying on a winter campaign. Of these members of Congress he spoke in bitter sarcasm, declaring that they at first denied the soldiers clothes, and then wanted them to keep the field in winter. "I can assure these gentlemen," said he, "that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room, by a good fire-side, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked, distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity those

miseries which it is neither in my power to relleve nor prevent.' His indignation and scorn are moved at the inhumanity of such complaints, but they both yield to pity as he contemplates the condition of his soldiers. But not-withstanding the conspiracies surrounding him, the disaffection of some of his best officers, and the conduct of Congress, and the state of his troops, he did not waver a moment in his course. And when, in the middle of April, he received a draft of Lord North's conciliatory bills, as they were called, containing a new project for settling the difficulties between the two countries, all his solicitude was aroused at once, lest the favorable terms offered might be accepted, or at least urged by men tired of the war, and despairing of success. He immediately wrote to a member of Congress, saying, Nothing short of Independence, it appears to me, can possibly do. A peace on any other terms would be, if may be allowed the expression, a peace of war." He expressed his views in full, in which, fortunately, Congress coincided, and the three commissioners sent over by the British government, Lord Carlisle, Governor Johnstone and William Eden, after vainly striving for three months to make arrangements with Congress, returned. Previous to their departure, however, they attempted to send circulars to each of the States, showing the terms of reconciliation which had been rejected, and threatening those who continued their rebellious attitudes with the vengeance of the king.

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Another event soon after occurred, which shed sudden sunshine on the gloomy encampment of Valley Forge, and made its rude hovels ring with acclamations of joy. The overthrow of Burgoyne had fixed the wavering attitude of France, and on the 6th of February a treaty of defensive alliance, as well as of amity and commerce, was signed on her part, by Geraud, and on ours by the American commissioners, Franklin, Duane, and Lee. The bearer of these