XXVII. 1778. Jan. strances with respect and firmness: "The letter from CHAP. the committee of congress and board of war does not mention the regulations adopted for removing the difficulties and failures in the commissary line. I trust they will be vigorous or the army cannot exist. It will never answer to procure supplies of clothing or provision by coercive measures. The small seizures made of the former a few days ago, when that or to dissolve was the alternative, excited the greatest uneasiness even among our warmest friends. Such procedures may give a momentary relief, but, if repeated, will prove of the most pernicious consequence. Besides spreading disaffection, jealousy, and fear among the people, they never fail, even in the most veteran troops under the most rigid and exact discipline, to raise in the soldiery a disposition to plunder, difficult to suppress, and not only ruinous to the inhabitants, but, in many instances, to armies themselves. I regret the occasion that compelled us to the measure the other day, and shall consider it among the greatest of our misfortunes if we should be under the necessity of practising it again." Still congress did no more than on the tenth and twelfth of January appoint Gates and Mifflin, with four or five others, to repair to head-quarters and concert reforms. While those who wished the general out of the way urged him to some rash enterprise, or, to feel the public pulse, sent abroad rumors that he was about to resign, Benjamin Rush in a letter to Patrick Henry represented the army of Washington as having no general at their head, and went on to say: "A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway, would in a few weeks XXVII. Jan. CHAP. render them an irresistible body of men. Some of the contents of this letter ought to be made public, 1778. in order to awaken, enlighten, and alarm our country." This communication, to which Rush dared not sign his name, Patrick Henry in his scorn noticed only by sending it to Washington. An anonymous paper of the like stamp, transmitted to the president of congress, took the same direction. Meantime, the council and assembly of Pennsylvania renewed to congress their wish that Philadelphia might be taken and the British driven away. Congress hailed the letter as proof of a rising spirit, and directed the committee appointed to go to camp to consult on the subject with the government of Pennsylvania and with General Washington. Nor was this all. The board of war was ambitious of the fame of great activity, and also wished to detach Lafayette, the representative of France, from the commander-in-chief. In concert with Conway, but without consulting Washington, they induced congress to sanction a winter expedition against Canada, under Lafayette, who was not yet twenty-one years old, with Conway for his second in command, and with Stark. Assured at Yorktown by Gates that he would have a force of three thousand men, and that Stark would have already destroyed the shipping at Saint Johns, Lafayette repaired to Albany, but not until he obtained from congress Kalb as his second, and Washington as his direct superior. There the three major-generals of the expedition met, and were attended or followed by twenty French officers. Stark wrote for orders. The available force for the conquest, counting a XXVII. regiment which Gates detached from the army of CHAP. Washington, did not exceed a thousand. For these there was no store of provision, nor clothing suited 1778. to the climate of Canada, nor means of transportation. Two years' service in the northern department cannot leave to Gates the plea of ignorance; his plan showed his utter administrative incapacity; it accidentally relieved the country of Conway, who, writing petulantly to congress, found his resignation, which he had meant only as a complaint, irrevocably accepted. Lafayette and Kalb were recalled. Slights and selfish cabals could wound the sensibility but not affect the conduct of Washington. The strokes of ill-fortune in his campaigns he had met with equanimity and fortitude; but he sought the esteem of his fellow-men as his only reward, and now unjust censure gave him the most exquisite pain. More was expected from him than was possible to be performed. Moreover, his detractors took an unfair advantage, for he was obliged to conceal the weakness of his army from public view, and thereby submit to calumny. To William Gordon, who was seeking materials for a history of the war, he wrote freely: "Neither interested nor ambitious views led me into the service. I did not solicit the command, but accepted it after much entreaty, with all that diffidence which a conscious want of ability and experience equal to the discharge of so important a trust must naturally excite in a mind not quite devoid of thought; and after I did engage, pursued the great line of my duty and the object in view, as far as my judgment could direct, as pointedly as the needle to the pole." "No person ever heard CHAP. me drop an expression that had a tendency to resig XXVII. nation. The same principles that led me to embark 1778. in the opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain operate with additional force at this day; nor is it my desire to withdraw my services while they are considered of importance to the present contest. There is not an officer in the service of the United States that would return to the sweets of domestic life with more heartfelt joy than I should, but I mean not to shrink in the cause." In his remonstrances with congress he wrote with plainness, but with moderation. His calm dignity, while it irritated his adversaries, overawed them; and nothing could shake the confidence of the people, or divide the affections of any part of the army, or permanently distract the majority of congress. Those who had been most ready to cavil at him soon wished their rash words benevolently interpreted or forgotten. Gates denied the charge of being in a league to supersede Washington as a wicked, false, diabolical calumny of incendiaries, and would not believe that any such plot existed; Mifflin exonerated himself in more equiv ocal language; and both retired from the committee that was to repair to head-quarters. In the following July, Conway, thinking himself mortally wounded in a duel, wrote to Washington: "My career will soon be over; therefore justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You are in my eyes the great and good man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and esteem of these states, whose liberties you have asserted by your virtues." The committee which towards the end of January was XXVII. finally sent to consult with Washington, was com- CHAP. posed exclusively of members of congress, and the majority of them, especially Charles Carroll of 1778. Maryland, were his friends. But in the procrastination of active measures of relief, the departments of the quartermaster and commissary remained like clocks with so many checks that they cannot go. Even so late as the eleventh of February, Dana, one of the committee, reported that men died for the want of straw or materials to raise them from the cold, wet earth. In numerous and crowded hospitals the sick could not be properly cared for. Inoculation was delayed for want of straw and other necessaries. Almost every species of camptransportation was performed by men, who, without a murmur, yoked themselves to little carriages of their own making, or loaded their fuel and provisions on their backs. Some brigades had been four days without meat. Desertions were frequent. There was danger that the troops would perish from famine or disperse in search of food. All this time the British soldiers in Philadelphia were well provided for, the officers quartered upon the inhabitants. The days were spent in pastime, the nights in entertainments. By a proportionate tax on the pay and allowances of each officer, a house was opened for daily resort and for weekly balls, with a gaming-table which had assiduous votaries, and a room devoted to the game of chess. Thrice a week, plays were enacted by amateur performers. The curtain painted by André was greatly admired. The officers, among whom all ranks of the British aristocracy were represented, lived in |