On May 4th, 1778, Congress ratified the treaties of commerce and alliance with France. On the 6th, Washington, waiting at Valley Forge for the British to start from Philadelphia, caused his army, drawn out on parade, to celebrate the great event with cheers and with salvos of artillery and musketry.

The alliance deserved cheers and celebration, for it marked a long step onward in the Revolution. It showed that Arnerica had demonstrated to Europe that she could win independence, and it had been proved to the traditional enemy of England that the time bad come when it would be profitable to help the revolted colonies. Put the alliance brought troubles as well as blessings in its train. It induced a relaxation in popular energy, and carried with it new and difficult problems for the commander-in-chief.

The successful management of allies, and of allied forces, had been one of the severest tests of the statesmanship of William. III, and had constituted one of the principal glories of Marlborough. A similar problem now confronted the American general.

Washington was free from the diplomatic and political portion of the business, but the military and popular part fell wholly into his hands, and demanded the exercise of talents entirely different from those of either a general or an administrator. It has been not infrequently written more or less plainly, and it is constantly said, that Washington was great in character, but that in brains he was not far above the commonplace. It is even hinted sometimes that the father of his country was a dull man, a notion which we shall have occasion to examine more fully further on.

At this point let the criticism be remembered merely in connection with the fact that to cooperate with allies in military matters demands tact, quick perception, firmness, and patience. In a word, it is a task which calls for the finest and most highly trained intellectual powers, and of which the difficulty is enhanced a thousandfold when the allies were, on the one side, an old, aristocratic, punctilious people, and on the other, colonists utterly devoid of tradition, etiquette, or fixed habits, and very much accustomed to go their own way and speak their own minds with careless freedom.

With this problem Washington was obliged suddenly to deal, both in ill success and good success, as well as in many attempts which came to nothing. Let us see how he solved it at the very outset, when everything went most perversely wrong.

Welcome the French Fleet

On July 14th he heard that D'Estaing's fleet was off the coast, and at once, without a trace of emotion or excitement, he began to consider the possibility of intercepting the British fleet expected to arrive shortly from Cork. As soon as D'Estaing was within reach he sent two of his aides on board the flagship, and at once opened a correspondence with his ally.

These letters of welcome, and those of suggestion which followed, are models, in their way, of what such letters ought always to be. They were perfectly adapted to satisfy the etiquette and the love of good manners of the French, and yet there was not a trace of anything like servility, or of an effusive gratitude which outran the favors granted. They combined stately courtesy with simple dignity, and are phrased with a sober grace which shows the thoroughly strong man, as capable to turn a sentence, if need be, as to rally retreating soldiers in the face of the enemy.

In this first meeting of the allies nothing happened fortunately. D'Estaing had had a long passage, and was too late to cut off Lord Howe at the Delaware. Then he turned to New York, and was too late there, and found further that he could not get his ships over the bar. Hence more delays, so that he was late again in getting to Newport, where he was to unite with Sullivan in driving the British from Rhode Island, as Washington had planned, in case of failure at New York, while the French were still hovering on the coast.

When D'Estaing finally reached Newport, there was still another delay of ten days, and then, just as he and Sullivan were preparing to attack, Lord Howe, with his squadron reinforced, appeared off the harbor.

Promising to return, D'Estaing sailed out to give the enemy battle, and after much maneuvring both fleets were driven off by a severe storm, and D'Estaing came back only to tell Sullivan that he must go to Boston at once to refit. Then came the protest addressed to the Count and signed by all the American officers; then the departure of D'Estaing, and an indiscreet proclamation to the troops by Sullivan, reflecting on the conduct of the allies.

When D'Estaing had actually gone, and the Americans were obliged to retreat, there was much grumbling in all directions, and it looked as if the first result of the alliance was to be a very pretty quarrel. It was a bad and awkward business. Congress had the good sense to suppress the protest of the officers, and Washington, disappointed, but perhaps not wholly surprised, set himself to work to put matters right.

It was no easy task to soothe the French, on the one band, who were naturally aggrieved at the utterances of the American officers and at the popular feeling, and on the other to calm his own people, who were, not without reason, both disappointed and provoked. To Sullivan, fuming with wrath, he wrote: "Should the expedition fail through the abandonment of the French fleet, the officers concerned will be apt to complain loudly. But prudence dictates that we should put the best face upon the matter, and to the world attribute the removal to Boston to necessity. The reasons are, too obvious to need explaining."

And again, a few days later: "First impressions, you know, are generally longest remembered, and will serve to fix in a great degree our national character among the French. In our conduct towards them we should remember that they are a people old in war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to take fire when others scarcely seem warmed. Permit me to recommend, in the most particular manner, the cultivation of harmony and good agreement, and your endeavor to destroy that ill-humor which may have got into officers."

To Lafayette he wrote: "Everybody, sir, who reasons, will acknowledge the advantages which we have derived from the French fleet, and the zeal of the commander of it; but in a free and republican government you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to the causes. The censures which have been levelled at the French fleet would more than probably have fallen in a much higher degree upon a fleet of our own, if we had had one in the same situation. It is the nature of man to be displeased with everything that disappoints a favorite hope or flattering project; and it is the folly of too many of them to condemn without investigating circumstances."

Finally he wrote to D'Estaing, deploring the difference which had arisen, mentioning his own efforts and wishes to restore harmony, and said: "It is in the trying circumstances to which your Excellency has been exposed that the virtues of a great mind are displayed in their brightest lustre, and that a general's character is better known than in the moment of victory. It was yours by every title that can give it; and the adverse elements that robbed you of your prize can never deprive you of the glory due you. Though your success has not been equal to your expectations, yet you have the satisfaction of reflecting that you have rendered essential services to the common cause."

This is not the letter of a dull man. Indeed, there is a nicety about it that partakes of cleverness, a much commoner thing than greatness, but something which all great men by no means possess. Thus by tact and comprehension of human nature, by judicious suppression and judicious letters, Washington, through the prudent exercise of all his commanding influence, quieted his own people and soothed his allies.

In this way a serious disaster was averted, and au abortive expedition was all that was left to be regretted, instead of an ugly quarrel, which might readily have neutralized the vast advantages flowing from the French alliance.

Having refitted, D'Estaing bore away for the West Indies, and so closed the first chapter in the history of the alliance with France. Nothing more was heard of the allies until the spring was well advanced, when M. Gerard, the minister, wrote, intimating that D'Estaing was about to return, and what we would do.

Washington replied at length, professing his willingness to cooperate in any way, and offering, if the French would send ships, to abandon everything, run all risks, and make an attack on New York. Nothing further came of it, and Washington heard that the fleet had gone to the Southern States, which he learned without regret, as he was apprehensive as to the condition of affairs in that region.

Again, in the autumn, it was reported that the fleet was once more upon the northern coast. Washington at once sent officers to be on the lookout at the most likely points, and he wrote elaborately to D'Estaing, setting forth with wonderful perspicuity the incidents of the past, the condition of the present, and the probabilities of the future. He was willing to do anything, or plan anything, provided his allies would join with him. The jealousy so habitual in humanity, which is afraid that some one else may get the glory of a common success, was unknown to Washington, and if he could but drive the British from America, and establish American independence, he was perfectly willing that the glory should take care of itself. But all his wisdom in dealing with the allies was, for the moment, vain.

While he was planning for a great stroke, and calling out the militia of New England, D'Estaing was making ready to relieve Georgia, and a few days after Washington wrote his second letter, the French and Americans assaulted the British works at Savannah, and were repulsed with heavy losses. Then D'Estaing sailed away again, and the second effort of France to aid England's revolted colonies came to an end. Their presence had had a good moral effect, and the dread of D'Estaing's return had caused Clinton to withdraw from Newport and concentrate in New York. This was all that was actually accomplished, and there was nothing for it but to await still another trial and a more convenient season.

With all his courtesy and consideration, with all his readiness to fall in with the wishes and schemes of the French, it must not be supposed that Washington ever went an inch too far in this direction. He valued the French alliance, and proposed to use it to great purpose, but he was not in the least dazzled or blinded by it. Even in the earliest glow of excitement and hope produced by D'Estaing's arrival, Washington took occasion to draw once more the distinction between a valuable alliance and volunteer adventurers, and to remonstrate again with Congress about their reckless profusion in dealing with foreign officers.

To Gouverneur Morris he wrote on July 24, 1778: "The lavish manner in which rank has hitherto been bestowed on these gentlemen will certainly be productive of one or the other of these two evils: either to make it despicable in the eyes of Europe, or become the means of pouring them in upon us like a torrent and adding to our present burden. But it is neither the expense nor the trouble of them that I most dread. There is an evil more extensive in its nature, and fatal in its consequences, to be apprehended, and that is the driving of all our own officers out of the service, and throwing not only our army, but our military councils, entirely into the hands of foreigners. . . . Baron Steuben, I now find, is also wanting to quit his inspectorship for a command in the line. This will be productive of much discontent to the brigadiers. In a word, although I think the baron an excellent officer, I do most devoutly wish that we had not a single foreigner among us except the Marquis de Lafayette, who acts upon very different principles from those which govern the rest."

A few days later he said, on the same theme, to the president of Congress: " I trust you think me so much a citizen of the world as to believe I am not easily warped or led away by attachments merely local and American; yet I confess I am not entirely without them, nor does it appear to me that they are unwarrantable, if confined within proper limits. Fewer promotions in the foreign line would have been productive of more harmony, and made our warfare more agreeable to all parties."

Again, he said of Steuben: "I regret that there should be a necessity that his services should be lost to the army; at the same time I think it my duty explicitly to observe to Congress that his desire of having an actual and permanent command in the line cannot be complied with without wounding the feelings of a number of officers, whose rank and merits give them every claim to attention; and that the doing of it would be productive of much dissatisfaction and extensive ill con sequences."

Washington's resistance to the colonial deferencefor foreigners has already been pointed out, but this second burst of opposition, coining at this especial time, deserves renewed attention. The splendid fleet and well-equipped troops of our ally were actually at our gates, and everybody was in a paroxysm of perfectly natural gratitude. To the colonial mind, steeped in colonial habits of thought, the foreig er at this particular juncture appeared now more than ever to be a splendid and superior being. But he did not in the least confuse or sway the cool judgment that guided the destinies of the Revolution. Let as consider well the pregnant sentences just quoted, and the letters from which they are taken.

They deserve it, for they throw a strong light on a side of Washington's mind and character too little appreciated. One hears it said not infrequently, it has been argued even in print with some solemnity, that Washington was, no doubt, a great man and rightly a national hero, but that he was not an American. It will be necessary to recur to this charge again and consider it at some length. It is sufficient at this point to see how it tallies with his conduct in a single matter, which was a very perfect test of the national and American quality of the man.

Comparisons and Contrasts

We can get at the truth by contrasting him with his own contemporaries, the only fair comparison, for be was a man and an American of his own time and not of the present day, which is a point his critics overlook.

Where he differed from the men of his own time was in the fact that he rose to a breadth and height of Americanism and of national feeling which no other man of that day touched at all. Nothing is more intense than the conservatism of mental habits, and although it requires now an effort to realize it, it should not be forgotten that in every habit of thought the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies were wholly colonial. If this is properly appreciated we can understand the mental breadth and vigor which enabled Washington to shake off at once all past habits and become an independent leader of an independent people. He felt to the very core of his being the need of national self-respect and national dignity.

To him, as the chief of the armies and the head of the Revolution, all men, no matter what tongue they spake or what country they came from, were to be dealt with on a footing of simple equality, and treated according to their merits. There was to him no glamour in the fact that this man was a Frenchman and that an Englishman. His own personal pride extended to his people, and he bowed to no national superiority anywhere. Hamilton was national throughout, but he was born outside the thirteen colonies, and knew his fellow-citizens only as Americans. Franklin was national by the force of his own commanding genius. John Adams grew to the same conception, so far as our relations to other nations were concerned. But beyond these three we may look far and closely before we find another among all the really great men of the time who freed himself wholly from the superstition of the colonist about the nations of Europe.

When Washington drew his sword beneath the Cambridge elm he stood forth as the first American, the best type of man that the New World could produce, with no provincial taint upon him, and no shadow of the colonial past clouding his path. It was this great quality that gave the struggle which he led a character it would never have attained without a leader so constituted. Had he been merely a colonial Englishman, had he not risen at once to the conception of an American nation, the world would have looked at us with very different eyes.

It was the splendid dignity of the man, quite as much as his fighting capacity, which impressed Europe. Kings and ministers, looking on dispassionately, soon realized that here was a really considerable man, no ordinary agitator or revolutionist, but a great man on a great stage with great conceptions. England, indeed, talked about a militia colonel, but this chatter disappeared in the smoke of Trenton, and even England came to look upon him as the all-powerful spirit of the Revolution.

Dull men and colonial squires do not grasp a great idea and carry it into action on the world's stage in a few months. To stand forward at the head of raw armies and of a colonial people as a national leader, calm, dignified, and far-seeing, requires not only character, but intellect of the highest and strongest kind. Now that we have come as a people, after more than a century's struggle, to the national feeling which Washington compassed in a moment, it is well to consider that single achievement and to meditate on its meaning, whether in estimating him, or instigating what he was to the American people when they came into existence.

Let us take another instance of the same quality, shown also in the winter of 1778. Congress had from the beginning a longing to conquer Canada, which was a wholly natural and entirely laudable desire, for conquest is always more interesting than defence. Washington, on the other hand, after the first complete failure, which was so nearly a success in the then undefended and unsuspicious country, gave up pretty thoroughly all ideas of attacking Canada again, and opposed the various plans of Congress in that direction. When he had a life-and-death struggle to get together and subsist enough men to protect their own firesides, he had ample reason to know that invasions of Canada were hopeless. Indeed, not much active opposition from the commander-in-chief was needed to dispose of the Canadian schemes, for facts settled them as fast as they arose. When the cabal got up its Canadian expedition, it consisted of Lafayette, and penetrated no farther than Albany.

So Washington merely kept his eye watchfully on Canada, and argued against expeditions thither, until this winter of 1778, when something quite new in that direction came up.

Lafayette's imagination had been fired by the notion of conquering Canada. His idea was to get succors from France for this especial purpose, and with them and American aid to achieve the conquest. Congress was impressed and pleased by the scheme, and sent a report upon it to Franklin, to communicate to the French court, but Washington, when he heard of the plan, took a very different view. He sent at once a long, despatch to Congress, urging every possible objection to the proposed campaign, on the ground of its utter impracticability, and with this official letter, which was necessarily confined to the military side of the question, went another addressed to President Laurens personally, which contained the deeper reasons of his opposition.

He said that there was an objection not touched upon in his public letter, which was absolutely insurmountable. This was the introduction of French troops into Canada to take possession of the capital, in the midst of a people of their own race and religion, and but recently severed from them.

He pointed out the enormous advantages which would accrue to France from the possession of Canada, such as independent posts, control of the Indians, and the Newfoundland trade. "France, . . . possessed of New Orleans on our right, Canada on our left, and seconded by the numerous tribes of Indians in our rear, . . . would, it is much to be apprehended, have it in her power to give law to these States."

He went on to show that France might easily find an excuse for such conduct, in seeking a surety for her advances of money, and that she had but little to fear from the contingency of our being driven to reunite with England.

He continued: "Men are very apt to run into extremes. Hatred to England may carry some into an excess of confidence in France, especially when motives of gratitude are thrown into the scale. Men of this description would be unwilling to suppose France capable of acting so ungenerous a part. I am heartily disposed to entertain the most favorable sentiments of our new ally, and to cherish them in others to a reasonable degree. But it is a maxim, founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its own interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it. In our circumstances we ought to be particularly cautious; for we have not yet attained sufficient vigor and maturity to recover from the shock of any false steps into which we may unwarily fall."

We shall have occasion to recall these utterances at a later day, but at this time they serve to show yet again bow broadly and clearly Washington judged nations and policies. Uppermost in his mind was the destiny of his own nation, just coming into being, and from that firm point he watched and reasoned. His words had no effect on Congress, but as it turned out, the plan failed through adverse influences in the quarter where Washington least expected them. He believed that this Canadian plan had been put into Lafayette's mind by the cabinet of Louis XVI, and he could not imagine that a policy of such obvious wisdom could be overlooked by French statesmen.

In this he was completely mistaken, for France failed to see what seemed so simple to the American general, that the opportunity had come to revive her old American policy and re-establish her colonies under the most favorable conditions. The ministers of Louis XVI, moreover, did not wish the colonies to conquer Canada, and the plan of Lafayette and the Congress received no aid in Paris and came to nothing. But the fruitless incident exgibits in the strongest light the attitude of Washington as a purely American statesman, and the comprehensiveness of his mind in dealing with large affairs.

Pleased

The French alliance and the coming of the French fleet were of incalculable advantage to the colonies, but they had one evil effect, as has already been suggested. To a people weary with unequal conflict, it was a debilitating influence, and America needed at that moment more than ever energy and vigor, both in the council and the field. Yet the general outlook was distinctly better and more encouraging

Soon after Washington had defeated Clinton at Monmouth, and had taken a position whence he could watch and check him, he wrote to his friend General Nelson in Virginia: "It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that, after two years' maneuvring and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and that the offending party at the beginning is now reduced to the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. But it will be time enough for me to turn preacher when my present appointment ceases."

He had reason to congratulate himself on the result of his two years' campaigning, but as the summer wore away and winter came on he found causes for fresh and deep alarum despite the good outlook in the field. The demoralizin- effects of civil war were beginning to show themselves in various directions.

The character of Congress, in point of ability, had declined alarmingly, for the able men of the first Congress, with few exceptions, had departed. Some had gone to the army, some to the diplomatic service, and many had remained at home, preferring the honors and offices of the States to those of the Confederation. Their successors, patriotic and well-meaning though they were, lacked the energy and force of those who had started the Revolution, and, as a consequence, Congress had become feeble and ineffective, easily swayed by influential schemers, and unable to cope with the difficulties which surrounded them.

Outside the government the popular tone bad deteriorated sadly. The lavish issues of irredeemable paper by the Confederation and the States had brought their finances to the verge of absolute ruin. The continental currency had fallen to something like forty to one in gold, and the decline was hastened by the forged notes put out by the enemy. The fluctuations of this paper soon bred a spirit of gambling, and hence came a class of men, both inside and outside of politics, who sought, more or less corruptly, to make fortunes by army contracts, and by forestalling the markets.

These developments filled Washington with anxiety, for in the financial troubles lie saw ruin to the army. The unpaid troops bore the injustice done them with wonderful patience, but it was something that could not last, and Washington knew the danger. In vain did he remonstrate. It seemed to be impossible to get anything done, and at last, in the following, spring, the outbreak began. Two New Jersey regiments refused to march until the assembly made provision for their pay. Washington took high ground with them, but they stood respectfully firm, and finally had their way.

Not long after came another outbreak in the Connecticut line, with similar results. These object lessons had some result, and by foreign loans and the ability of Robert Morris the country was enabled to stumble along; but it was a frightful and wearing anxiety to the commander-in-chief.

Washington saw at once that the root of the evil lay in the feebleness of Congress, and although be could not deal with the finances, lie was able to strive for an improvement in the governing body. Not content with letters, he left the army and went to Philadelphia, in the winter of 1779, and there appealed to Congress in person, setting forth the perils which beset them, and urging action. He wrote also to his friends everywhere, pointing out the deficiencies of Congress, and begging them to send better and stronger men. To Benjamin Harrison he wrote: "It appears to me as clear as ever the sun did in its meridian brightness, that America never stood in more eminent need of the wise, patriotic, and spirited exertions of her sons than at this period; . . . the States separately are too much engaged in their local concerns, and have too many of their ablest men withdrawn from the general council, for the good of the common weal."

He took the same high tone in all his letters, and there can be seen through it all the desperate endeavor to make the States and the people understand the dangers which he realized, but which they either could not or would not appreciate.

On the other hand, while his anxiety was sharpened to the highest point by the character of Congress, his sternest wrath was kindled by the gambling and money-making which had become rampant. To Reed he wrote in December, 1778: "It gives me sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition of the Whigs in your State, a few only excepted, and that the assembly is so well disposed to second your endeavors in bringing those murderers of our cause, the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers, to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that some one of the most atrocious in each State was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin." He would have hanged them too had he had the power, for he was always as good as his word.

It is refreshing to read these righteously angry words, still ringing as sharply as when they were written. They clear away all the myths -- the priggish, the cold, the statuesque, the dull myths -- is the strong gusts of the northwest wind in autumn sweep off the heavy mists of lingering August. They are the hot words of a warm-blooded man, a good hater, who loathed meanness and treachery, and who would have hanged those who battened upon the country's distress.

When he went to Philadelphia, a few weeks later, and saw the state of things with nearer view, he felt the wretchedness and outrage of such doings more than ever.

He wrote to Harrison: "If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men, from what I have seen, beard, and in part know, I should in one word say, that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and almost of every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit, which, in its consequences, is the want of everything, are but secondary considerations, and postponed from day to day, from week to week, as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect."

Other men talked about empire, but he alone grasped the great conception, and felt it in his soul. To see not only immediate success imperilled, but the future paltered with by small, mean, and dishonest men, cut him to the quick. He set himself doggedly to fight it, as he always fought every enemy, using both speech and pen in all quarters. Much, no doubt, he ultimately effected, but he was contending with the usual results of civil war, which are demoralizing always, and especially so among a young people in a new country.

At first, therefore, all seemed vain. The selfishness, speculation, and speculation seemed to get worse, and the tone of Congress and the people lower, as he struggled against them.

In March, 1779, he wrote to James Warren of Massachusetts: "Nothing, I am convinced, but the depreciation of our currency, aided by stock-jobbing and party dissensions, has fed the hopes of the enemy, and kept the British arms in America to this day. They do not scruple to declare this themselves, and add that we shall be our own conquerors. Can not our common country, America, possess virtue enough to disappoint them? Is the paltry consideration of a little perk to individuals to be placed in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present generation, and of millions yet unborn? Shall a few designing men, for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the expense of so much time, blood, and treasure? And shall we at last become the victims of our own lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, all and every State in the Union, by enacting and enforcing efficacious laws for checking the growth of these monstrous evils, and restoring matters, in some degree, to the state they were in at the commencement of the war."

"Our cause is noble. It is the cause of mankind, and the danger to it is to be apprehended from ourselves. Shall we slumber and sleep, then, while we should be punishing those miscreants who have brought these troubles upon us, and who are aiming to continue us in them; while we should be striving to fill our battalions, and devising ways and means to raise the value of the currency, Oil the credit of which everything depends?"

Again we see the prevailing idea of the future, which haunted him continually. Evidently, he had some imagination, and also a power of terse and eloquent expression which we have heard of before, and shall note again.

Still the appeals seemed to sound in deaf ears. He wrote to George Mason "I have seen, without despondency, even for a moment, the hours which America has styled her gloomy ones; but I have beheld no day since the commencement of hostilities that I have thought her liberties in such imminent danger as at present. . . . Indeed, we are verging so fast to destruction that I am filled with sensations to which I have been a stranger till within these three months."

To Gouverneur Morris he said: "If the enemy have it in their power to press us hard this campaign, I know not what may be the consequence."

He had faced the enemy, the bleak winters, raw soldiers, and all the difficulties of impecunious government, with a cheerful courage that never failed. But the spectacle of widespread popular demoralization, of selfish scrambles for plunder, and of feeble administration at the centre of government weighed upon him heavily. It was not the general's business to build up Congress and grapple with finance, but Washington addressed himself to the new task with his usual persistent courage. It was slow and painful work. He seemed to make no progress, and then it was that his spirits sank at the prospect of ruin and defeat, not coming on the field of battle, but from our own vices and our own lack of energy and wisdom. Yet his work told in the end, as it always did. His vast and steadily growing influence made itself felt even through the dense troubles of the uneasy times.

Congress turned with energy to Europe for fresh loans. Lafayette worked away to get an army sent over. The two Morrises, stimulated by Washington, flung themselves into the financial difficulties, and feeble but distinct efforts toward a more concentrated and better organized administration of public affairs were made both in the States and the confederation.

But, although Washington's spirits fell, and his anxieties became well nigh intolerable in this period of reaction which followed the French alliance, he made no public show of it, but carried on his own work with the army and in the field as usual, contending with all the difficulties, new and old, as calmly and efficiently as ever. After Clinton slipped away from Monmouth and sought refuge in New York, Washington took post at convenient points and watched the movements of the enemy.

In this way the summer passed. As always, Washington's first object was to guard the Hudson, and while he held this vital point firmly, he waited, ready to strike elsewhere if necessary. It looked for a time as if the British intended to attack Boston, seize the town, and destroy the French fleet, which had gone there to refit. Such was the opinion of Gates, then commanding in that department, and as Washington inclined to the same belief, the fear of this event gave him many anxious moments. He even moved his troops so as to be in readiness to march eastward at short notice but he gradually became convinced that the enemy had no such plan. Much of his thought, now and always, was given to efforts to divine the intentions of the British generals. They had so few settled ideas, and were so tardy and lingering when they had plans, that it is small wonder that their opponents were sorely puzzled in trying to find out what their purposes were, when they really bad none.

The fact was that Washington saw their military opportunities with the eye of a great soldier, and so much better than they, that he suffered a good deal of needless anxiety in devising methods to meet attacks which they had not the wit to undertake. He had a profound contempt for their policy of holding towns, and believing that they must see the utter futility of it, after several years of trial, he constantly expected from them a well-planned and extensive campaign, which in reality they were incapable of devising.

The main army, therefore, remained quiet, and when the autumn had passed went into winterquarters in well-posted detachments about New York. In December Clinton made an ineffectual raid, and then all was peaceful again, and Washington was able to go to Philadelphia and struggle with Congress, leaving his army more comfortable and secure than they had been in any previous winter.

Next Campaign

In January he informed Congress as to the next campaign. He showed them the impossibility of undertaking anything on a large scale, and announced his intention of remaining on the defensive. It was a trying policy to a man of his temper, but he could do no better, and he knew, now as always, what others could not yet see, that by simply holding on and keeping his army in the field he was slowly but surely winning independence.

He tried to got Congress to do something with the navy, and he planned an expedition, ullder the command of Sullivan, to overrun the Indian country and check the barbarous raids of the Tories and savages on the frontier; and with this he was fain to be content. In fact, he perceived very clearly the direction in which the war was tending. He kept up his struggle with Congress for a permanent army, and with the old persistency pleaded that something should be done for the officers, and at the same time he tried to keep the States in good humor when they were grumbling about the amount of protection afforded them.

But all this wear and tear of heart and brain and temper, while chiefly to hold the army together, was not endured with any notion that he and Clinton were eventually to fight it out in the neighborhood of New York. Washington felt that that part of the conflict was over. He now hoped and believed that the moment would come, when, by uniting his army with the French, he should be able to strike the decisive blow. Until that time came, however, he knew that he could do nothing on a great scale, and he felt that meanwhile the British, abandoning practically the eastern and middle States, would make one last desperate struggle for victory, and would make it in the south.

Long before any one else, he appreciated this fact, and saw a peril looming large in that region, where everybody was considering the British invasion as little more than an exaggerated raid. He foresaw, too, that we should suffer more there than we had in the extreme north, because the south was full of Tories and less well organized.

All this, however, did not engage his own plans one jot. He believed that the south must work out its own salvation, as New York and New England had done with Burgoyne, and he felt sure that in the end it would be successful. But he would not go south, nor take his army there. The instinct of a great commander for the vital point in a war or a battle, is as keen as that of the tiger is said to be for the jugular vein of its victim. The British might overrun the north or invade the south, but he would stay where he was, with his grip upon New York and the Hudson River. The tide of invasion might ebb and flow in this region or that, but the British were doomed if they could not divide the eastern colonies from the others.

When the appointed hour came, he was ready to abandon everything and strike the final and fatal blow; but until then he waited and stood fast with his army, holding the great river in his grasp. He felt much more anxiety about the south than he had felt about the north, and expected Congress to consult him as to a commander, having made up his mind that Greene was the man to send.

But Congress still believed in Gates, who had been making trouble for Washington all winter; and so Gates was sent, and Congress in due time got their lesson, and found once more that Washington understood men comparatively better than they did.

In the north the winter was uneventful. The spring passed, and in June Clinton came out and took possession of Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, and began to fortify them. It looked a little as if Clinton might intend to get control of the Hudson by slow approaches, fortifying, and then advancing until he reached West Point. With this in mind, Washington at once determined to check the British by striking sharply at one of their new posts. Having made up his mind, he sent for Wayne and asked him if he would storm Stony Point.

Tradition says that Wayne replied, "I will storm hell, if you will plan it." A true tradition, probably, in keeping with Wayne's character, and pleasant to us today as showing with a vivid gleam of rough human speech the utter confidence of the army in their leader, that confidence which only a great soldier can inspire.

So Washington planned, and Wayne stormed, and Stony Point fell. It was a gallant and brilliant feat of arms, one of the most brilliant of the war. Over five hundred prisoners were taken, the guns were carried off, and the works destroyed, leaving the British to begin afresh with a good deal of increased caution and respect. Not long after, Harry Lee stormed Paulus Hook with equal success, and the British were checked and arrested, if they intended any extensive movement.

On the frontier, Sullivan, after some delays, did his work effectively, ravaging the Indian towns and reducing them to quiet, thus taking away another annoyance and danger.

In these various ways Clinton's circle of activity was steadily narrowed, but it may be doubted whether he had any coherent, plan. The principal occupation of the British was to send out marauding expeditions and cut off outlying parties. Tryon burned and pillaged in Connecticut, Matthews in Virginia, and others on a smaller scale elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. The blundering stupidity of this system of warfare was only equalled by its utter brutality. Houses were burned, peaceful villages went up in smoke, women and children were outraged, and soldiers were bayoneted after they had surrendered.

These details of the Revolution are well-nigh forgotten now, but when the ear is wearied with talk about English generosity and love of fair play, it is well to turn back and study the exploits of Tryon, and it is not amiss in the same connection to recall that English budgets contained a special appropriation for scaling- knives, a delicate attention to the Tories and Indians who were burning and butchering on the frontier.

Such methods of warfare Washington despised intellectually, and hated morally. He saw that every raid only hardened the people against England, and made her cause more hopeless. The misery caused by these raids angered him, but he would not retaliate in kind, and Wayne bayoneted no English soldiers after they laid down their arms at Stony Point. It was enough for Washington to hold fast to the great objects he had in view, to check Clinton and circumscribe his movements.

Steadfastly he did this through the summer and winter of 1779, which proved one of the worst that he had yet endured. Supplies did not come, the army dwindled, and the miseries of Valley Forge were renewed. Again was repeated the old and pitiful story of appeals to Congress and the States, and again the undaunted spirit and strenuous exertions of Washington saved the army and the Revolution from the internal ruin which was his worst enemy.

When the new year began, he saw that he was again condemned to a defensive campaign, but this made little difference now, for what he had foreseen in the spring of 1779 became certainty in the autumn. The active war was transferred to the south, where the chapter of disasters was beginning, and Clinton had practically given up everything except New York. The war had taken on the new phase expected by Washington. Weak as he was, he began to detach troops, and prepared to deal with the last desperate effort of England to conquer her revolted colonies from the south.

Chapter IX: Arnold's Treason and the War in the South