All these disorders, so pernicious to the republic, took their origin in the causes we have related, and partly also in the military organisation itself. The chiefs appeared to acknowledge no system, and the subalterns no restraint of obedience. Horses were allowed to perish in the highways, or to escape into the fields, without search. The roads were incumbered with carts belonging to the army, and unfit for service. Hence it happened, that when the incredible exertions of the government and of good citizens had succeeded in collecting provisions for the army, they could not be conveyed to the camp, and, by long delays, they were again dispersed, or wasted. This defect of carriages was equally prejudicial to the transportation of arms and military stores, which were, in consequence, abandoned to the discretion of those who either plundered them, or suffered them to be plundered. An incalculable quantity of public effects was thus dissipated or destroyed. In the camp of Valley Forge,

were constrained to perform, as they really did, with inconceivable patience, the service of beasts of draught, as well in procuring firewood as in drawing the artillery. And certainly, nothing could be imagined to equal the sufferings which the American army had to undergo in the course of this winter, except the almost superhuman firmness with which they bore them. Not but that a certain number, seduced by the royalists, deserted their colors, and slunk off to the British army in Philadelphia; but these were mostly Europeans, who had entered the continental service. The trueborn Americans, supported by their patriotism, as by their love and veneration for the commander-in-chief, manifested an unshaken perseverance; they chose rather to suffer all the extremes of famine and of frost, than to violate, in this perilous hour, the faith they had pledged to their country. They were encouraged, it it true, by the example of their generals, who, with an air of serenity, took part in all their fatigues, and shared in all their privations. But can it be dissembled, that if general Howe had seen fit to seize the opportunity, and had suddenly attacked the camp at Valley Forge, he would inevitably have gained a complete victory? Without military stores and without provisions, how could the Americans have defended their intrenchments? Besides, to enter the field anew, in the midst of so rigorous a season, was become for them an absolute impossibility. On the first of February, four thousand of their men were incapable of any kind of service, for want of clothing. The condition of the rest was very little better. In a word, out of the seventeen thousand men that were in camp, it would have been difficult to muster five thousand fit for service.

We pretend not to decide what were the motives of the British general for not taking advantage of a conjuncture so favorable. It appears to us, at least, that the extreme regard he had to the preservation of his troops, did but lead him on this occasion to reserve

them for greater perils; and his circumspection rather deserves the appellation of timidity than of prudence.

Washington was filled with anguish at the calamities of his army. But nothing gave him more pain than to see his soldiers exposed to the most pernicious example; the officers openly declared the design of resigning their commissions; many of them had already left the army, and returned to their families. This determination was principally owing to the depreciation of paper money; it was become so considerable, and the price of all articles of consumption, as well for this reason as from the difficulties of commerce, was so prodigiously advanced that the officers, far from being able to live as it become their rank, had not even the means of providing for their subsistence. Some had already exhausted their private resources to maintain a decent appearance, and others, destitute of patrimonial fortune, had been forced to contract debts, or restrict themselves to a parsimony little worthy of the rank with which they were invested. Hence a disinclination for the service became almost universal. Nor should it be supposed that only the less deserving or worthless desired to resign; for the regiments being incomplete, and the number of officers too great, their retreat would not have been an evil; but it was especially the bravest, the most distinguished, the most spirited, who, disdaining more than others the state of degradation to which they were reduced, were fully resolved to quit the army, in order to escape from it. Alarmed at the progress of the evil, Washington endeavored to resist it by the use of those remedies which he believed the most suitable; he spared neither promises nor encouragements; he wrote the most pressing letters to the Congress that they might seriously consider the subject, and take the proper measures thereon. He exhorted them especially, to secure half pay to the officers after the war, either for life or for a definite term. observed that it was easy to talk of patriotism, and to cite a few examples from ancient history of great enterprises carried by this alone to a successful conclusion; but that those who relied solely upon individual sacrifices for the support of a long and sanguinary war, must not expect to enjoy their illusion long; that it was necessary to take the passions of men as they are, and not as it might be wished to find them; that the love of country had indeed operated great things in the commencement of the present revolution; but that to continue and complete it, required also the incentive of interest and the hope of reward. The Congress manifested at first very little inclination to adopt the propositions of the commander-in-chief, either because they deemed them too extraordinary, or from reluctance to load the state with so heavy a burden; or, finally, because they thought the grants of lands to the officers and soldiers, of which we have made mention in its place, ought to satisfy the wishes of men possessed of any moderation. But at length, submitting to

He

necessity, they decreed an allowance of half pay for life to the officers of the army, with the reservation, however, to the government of the power to commute it, if deemed expedient, for the sum of six years' half pay. A short time after they passed another resolution, which restricted the allowance of half pay to seven years, dating from the end of the war. These measures, though salutary, were not taken till too late, and, moreover, were not sufficiently spontaneous on the part of the government. Already more than two hundred officers of real merit had given up their commissions; and it was again exemplified on this occasion, that a benefit long delayed loses much of its value. Nor should the Congress have forgotten, that the founders of a new state control not, but are controlled by, soldiers; and that since their support is so indispensable, and it is impossible to resist them, the wiser course is to content them.

In the midst of his anxieties, created by the causes we have mentioned, Washington had the additional chagrin of finding that certain intrigues were in agitation against himself. The impatient, who would have events to succeed each other with the same rapidity as their own desires, and the ambitious, who, to raise themselves, are always ready to impute to others the strokes of fortune, or the effects of recessity, gave out on all occasions, and even published in the gazettes, that the reverses of the two preceding years, in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania, were more owing to the incapacity of the commander-in-chief than to any other cause. They enlarged upon the victories of Gates, whom they placed far above Washington, and were continually extolling the heroic valor of the Americans, which rendered them capable of the most splendid achievements, when they were led to battle by an able commander. Nor was it merely among private persons that these slanders were circulated; discontent caused them to be repeated by men in office, gave them admittance into several of the state legislatures, into the midst of the army, and finally, even into the Congress itself. It appeared, that the object of these machinations was to give Washington so many disgusts that he should of himself retire from the head of the army, and thus make room for the immediate promotion of Gates to that exalted station. Whether this general himself had any hand in the intrigue, is a matter of uncertainty. If the rectitude and acknowledged generosity of his character be considered, it will appear more probable that he had not. But ambition is a passion of inconceivable subtilty,, which insinuates itself under the appearances of virtue, and too often corrupts and sullies the most ingenuous minds. It is certain that Gates was not ignorant of the object of the combination, and that he threw no difficulties in the way. Perhaps he entertained the opinion, and the authors of these machinations with him, that Washington was not able to sustain so great weight, and intended, by giving him a successor, to save the country. As for us,

that respect for truth which ought to be our only guide, compels us to declare that the leaders of this combination, very little concerned for the public good, were immoderately so for their own, and that the aim of all their efforts was, to advance themselves and their friends at the expense of others. Among them, and of the first rank, was general Conway, one of the most wily and restless intriguers, that passed in those times from Europe into America. Declaiming and vociferating, incessantly besieging all the members of Congress with his complaints, he pretended that there existed no sort of discipline in the American army, that there was no two regiments which manœuvred alike, and not two officers in any regiment who could execute or command the military exercises; in a word, he had said and done so much, that the Congress appointed him inspector and major-general. This appointment excited loud murmurs in the camp, and the brigadier-generals remonstrated. But this man, bent on attaining his purposes, and whose audacity knew no bounds, openly spake of the commander-in-chief in the most derogatory terms; and, as it always happens in times of adversity, he readily found those who believed him.

The assembly of Pennsylvania was the first to break the ice; on the report that Washington was moving into winter quarters, they addressed a remonstrance to Congress, severely censuring this measure of the commander-in-chief, and expressing in very plain words, their dissatisfaction at the mode in which he had conducted the war. The Pennsylvanians were excessively chagrined at the loss of their capital, forgetful of their own backwardness in strengthening the army which had twice fought superior numbers in their defence. It was, moreover, believed, at the time, that the members of Congress from Massachusetts, and particularly Samuel Adams, had never been able to brook that the supreme command of all the armies should have been conferred upon a Virginian, to the exclusion of the generals of their province, who then enjoyed a reputation not inferior, and perhaps superior to that of Washington. It appeared also that these delegates, being the most zealous partisans of the revolution, were far from approving the moderation of the commander-in-chief. They would have preferred placing at the head of affairs a more ardent and decided republican; and it is asserted that they were on the point of demanding an inquiry into the causes of the unsuccessful issue of the campaigns of the years 1776 and 1777.

This had not effect. But a board of war was created, under the direction of generals Gates and Mifflin, both of whom, if they were not, were thought to be, among the authors of these machinations against Washington. Anonymous letters were circulated, in which he was cruelly lacerated; they made him responsible as well for the disastrous campaigns of Jersey and Pennsylvania, as for the deplorable condition to which the troops were reduced in their winter quar

ters. One of these letters was addressed to Laurens, the president of Congress; it was filled with heavy accusations against the commander-in-chief. Another, similar, was sent to Henry, the governor of Virginia; both transmitted them to Washington. Supported by that elevated spirit, and by that firmness which no reverses of fortune could abate, the serenity he enjoyed was not even for a moment interrupted. He received with the same temper another determination of Congress, matured in concert with the new board of war, perhaps to let it be seen that they knew how to act by themselves, or because they had really withdrawn from the commander-in-chief a great part of the confidence they had placed in him in times past. They had projected a new expedition against Canada. It was proposed to place at the head of this enterprise the marquis de la Fayette, whose qualifications, as a Frenchman of illustrious rank, promised peculiar advantages for the conquest of a province recently French. But, perhaps also, the authors of this scheme had it principally in view, in separating La Fayette from Washington, to deprive the commanderin-chief of the defence he found in so faithful a friend. He was to have been accompanied by the same Conway mentioned above, and by general Starke. Washington, without having been at all consulted upon this expedition, and even without its being communicated to him, received orders to put Hazen's regiment of Canadians on the march for Albany. He obeyed without delay. The marquis, on his arrival at Albany, found nothing prepared for the expedition; neither men, nor arms, nor munitions. He complained of it to Congress; the enterprise was relinquished. Washington was authorised to recall the young Frenchman to his camp; as to Conway, he was not invited thither. Soon after, having made himself the object of general animadversion by the arrogance of his manners, and his intrigues against Washington, he requested and obtained leave to resign. He was succeeded in the office of inspector-general by the baron Steuben, a Prussian officer of distinguished reputation, who, perfectly versed in the tactics of Frederick II. undertook to teach them to the soldiers of Congress. By his exertions the Americans learned to manœuvre with uniformity, and their discipline was essentially improved.

It would be impossible to express with what indignation the whole army and the best citizens were filled, on hearing of the machinations that were in agitation against the illustrious chief, who possessed their entire affection. An universal outcry arose against the intriguers. Conway no longer durst show himself among the soldiers, who threatened to wreak their vengeance upon him. He repaired to York, in Pennsylvania, where at that time the Congress resided. As to Samuel Adams, hurried away by the enthusiasm of his patriotic sentiments, he had probably acted from no other motive but the good of the state; even he thought it prudent, however, to keep aloof from the officers and soldiers, under the apprehension of injury from the effects