Show 2 I 1 I 1 I 1 t 01 aoki C HE TORY OF THE BY THE CINT installment 17 the count de grasse with twenty eight ships of the line six frigates and twenty thousand men was in tho the west indies and in august sent word to washington that he was about to bring his whole fleet to the chesapeake as washington had urged either the chesapeake or now new york had been prayer to him making as it if ho were but moving about new york from north to south for some advantage of position washington suddenly took two thousand continentals Continent als and four thousand frenchmen all the long four hundred miles to york river in virginia to find cornwallis Cornwall ls already entrapped ontra pred there as he had planned between grasses Ir asses fleet in the bay and lafayette In trenched across the peninsula with eight thousand men now the french had loaned him three thousand praise from cornwallis Cornwall ls A few weeks siege and the decisive worx work was done to the admiration of Cornwa llla himself the british army was taken the generous englishman could not withhold an expression of his admiration for the extraordinary skill with which washington had struck all the way from new york with six thousand men as easily as aa it if with six hundred but after all he added your ex cellen cys achievements in new jersey were such that nothing could surpass them does not bring peace the victory at yorktown brought neither peace nor ease in affairs the revolution was indeed accomplished that every man could see who had the candor to look facts in the face but its accomplishment brought tasks harder even than the tasks of war hostilities slackened were almost wholly done with before another spring had come no more troops came over sea the ministry in england were discredited and ousted every one knew that tho the proud mother country must yield tor far all her stout defiance of the world but a long year dragged by nevertheless before even preliminary articles of accommodation were signed and still another before definite peace came with independence and the full fruits of victory shadowy powers of congress meanwhile there was an army to be maintained despoto despite desperate incompetence on the ae part odthe of the congress and a hopeless indifference among the people and a government to be kept presentably afoot despite lack of money and lack of men the articles of confederation proposed ht at the heart of the wartime war time november 16 15 1777 had at last been adopted march 1 1781 in season to create at least a government which could sign treaties and conclude wars but neither soon enough nor wisely enough to bring order out of chaos the states glad to think the war over would do nothing tor for the army nothing for the public credit nothing even tor for the maintenance of order and the articles of confederation only gave the congress written warranty tor for offering foring ott of ering ai advice vice I 1 they did not make Us its shadowy power real washington keeps his command it was beyond measure fortunate that at such a critical time as this washington still kept his command comman still held affairs under the steady pressure of his bis will his successes had bad at last given him a place of aut authority bority in the thoughts and affections of his bis countrymen in some borne sort eort commensurate with his bis capacity and hla his vision in affairs lie he had bad risen to a very safe footing of power among all the people as aa the war drew towards its close filling their imaginations and reigning among them as securely as among his cyr troops who tor for so long had felt his bis will wrought upon them day by day ills his very reserve and the large dignity and pride oi of tola his steady bearing made him seem the more like a hero in the peoples eyes they could uti un a man made in this ample ain wi simple kind hind give them but time enough to see him in his bis full it answered to their thought of him to find him too proud to dis emble too masterful master lul to brook unreasonable faults and yet elo to grow impatient though he must wait a whole twelvemonth twelve month to see a plan mature or coax a halt balf score acore states to get a purpose made mada good and they could not deem him cold cola though they found him ahli self belt possessed keeping ills hla own counsel for was not the country full of talk how passionately he be was waa like to act at a moment of crisis and in tho the held field A fearless leader they only feared to lose a leader so reckless of himself when danger was waa sharpest our army love their general very much one of his officers baa said but they have one thing against him which Is the little care he be takes of himself in any action for he had seen how bow washington pressed at trenton and at princeton to tie the points that were most exposed thinking of his hie troops not of him self the spirit of fight had bad run high in washington the whole war through even during those dismal weeks of 1776 when affairs looked darkest and he had bad but a handful of men about hirn him as an he be all but fled bet before howe through new mew jersey lie be ted ha spoken as aa if inobe in the very pleasantry of daring of what he would do should things come to the worst with him his thought turned to those western fast nesses he knew so well where the highlands of his own state lay and he spoke calmly of a desperate venture thither reed he be exclaimed to one of his bis aides my neck does not feel eel as though it was made for a halter ajr we mus must t retire to augusta county in virginia and it if overpowered must pass the alleghany allegheny Alleg hany mountains faith tn in his army and when the last movement of the war came it was still with the same feeling that ho he drew his lines about cornwallis Cornwall ls wo may be beaten by the english E he said it Is the chance of war but there la Is the army they will never conquer the privates are all generals but not soldiers the gallant montgomery had bad cried in his hot impatience with the heady militiamen he was bidden command but it was not so in the presence of washington when once these men had taken his measure they were then rivals in praising him the abbe robin declared fearing him even when he be was waa silent and retaining their full confidence in him after defeats and disgrace french officers puzzled the singular majesty and poise of this revolutionary hero struck the french officers as infinitely more remarkable than his bis mastery in the field and his bis in council they had looked to find him great in action but they had not thought to see in him a great gentleman a man after their own kind in grace and courtesy and tact and yet so BO lifted above the manner of courts and draw ing rooms by an incommunicable quality of grave sincerity which they were at a loss how to describe no one could tell whether it were a gift gif t of the mind or of the heart it was certainly only that it constituted the atmosphere and apotheosis of the man the marquis de Chastel lux noted with a sort of reverent awe tor for this hero not yet turned of at fifty how perfect a union reigned between his physical and moral qualities one alone he declared will enable you to judge of all the rest it Is not my intention to exaggerate he said 1 I wish only to express my impression of a perfect whole which cannot be the product of enthusiasm since the effect el of proportion Is rather to td diminish the idea of greatness change in looks strangers who had noted his appearance pe arance in the tha earlier years of the war had bad remarked the spirit and life that sat in eyes but when the war was over and its strain relaxed they found those eyes grown pens pensive ive more attentive than spark ling I 1 steady still and noble in their frankness and good feeling but touched a little with care dimmed with watching the prince de broglie found him still as fresh and active as a young man in 1782 but thought he must have been much handsomer three years ago for the gentlemen gentled en who had bad remained with him during all that time said that he be seemed to have grown much older atwould have been no marvel mar vel had he broken under the burden he had carried athletic soldier and hardened campaigner though he was this Is the seventh year that he has commanded the army and that he has baa obeyed the congress more need not be said the marquis de da Chastel lux declared unconsciously uttering a very bitter gibe against the govern ment when he meant only to drais paraiso its general letters for all such service told the more heavily upon washington because he had fiad rendered it in silence no man among all the revolutionary leaders its it as true had been more at the desk than he letters of 0 command and persuasion r reports ports that carried every detail of this ardys lite life and hopes in their careful phrases orders of ogency and of provident arrangement ran gement writings of any and every sort that might keep ahr bard war afoot he had bad poured forth incessantly and as it incapable of fatigue or discouragement ment no noone one who wa un der orders no man who could lend end the service a hand or take a turn attoun sel bel was likely to escape seeing 0 aln the coin ln in ch caleffi lets handwriting orten enoah enough to keep him in mind of ht his tireless power to foresee and to direct A silent man washington seemed arese prese present nt in ev cv cry transaction of tho the war and yet always and to every one lie ho seemed a silent man what lie he said and what he wrote never touched himself lie ho spoke seldom of 0 motives always of what was waa to be done anil and considered and even ills his secretaries though they handled the multitude of his papers were left oftentimes to wonder and speculate about the man mail himself so rank frank and yet so reserved so BO straightforward forward and simple and yet so proud and ael icle contained revealing powers but somehow not revealing himself it must have seemed at af times to those who followed him and pondered what they saw that he had caught from nature her own he took his bis breeding as a boy and ills his preparation as a man amidst the forests of a wild frontier that his character spoke in what he did sandwith and without self consciousness that he be had no moods but those of action A man without reproach nor did men know him for what he really was until und the war was over ills own olli cers then found they had something more to learn of the man they had fought under for or six years and those six all of them euan as lay bare the characters of men what remained to be done during the two trying anxious years 1782 1 and 1783 seemed as it if intended for a supreme and final test tast of the qualities of the man whose genius and character had made the revolution possible at the eod end of a long civil I 1 6 orn J IT WAI 4 surrender of cornwallis at yorktown war said the marquis do de with a noble pride for his friend he had nothing with which he could reproach himself but it was these last years which were to crown this perfect praise with its full meaning in the absence of any real government washington proved almost the only prop of authority and law what the crisis was no one knew quite so BO thoroughly or so BO particularly as he it consisted in the ominous fact that the army was waa the only organized and central power in the country and that it had deep reason for discontent and insubordination when once it had served its ita pur post greatly at yorktown and the war seemed ended at a stroke tho the country turned from it in indifference left it without money talked of disbanding it without further ceremony and with no provision made for arrears of pay seemed almost to chali challenge blige it to indignation dig nation and mutiny the army on a war footing it was necessary for every reason ot at prudence and good statesmanship to keep the army still estill upon a war footing there are sure signs of at peace no doubt but no man could foretell what might be the course of politics ere england should have compounded her quarrel with fran france e and spain and ended the wars with which the revolution had become inextricably involved folly to leave tho the english army at new york unchecked premature confidence that peace had come might bring some sudden disaster of arma should the enemy take the field atila cilli af the army must he be ready to fight it if only to make fighting unnecessary no power to raise money washington would have assumed the offensive again would have bavo crush ed clinton where he lay in new york and the tha cong congress con grecs reps was not slack as slackness was counted there in sustaining his counsels but the congress had no power to raise money had no power to command the states alone could make it pos poa sible bible to tax the country to pay the army their thirteen governments were tho the only civil authority and they took the needs and the discontents dis contents of the army very lightly deemed peace secure and war expenses unnecessary and let matters drift as they would they camo came very near drilling drifting to another revolution a revolution such as politicians had left out of at their reckoning and only washington could avert washington helps congress atter after yorktown washington spent four months in philadelphia helping ho he congress forward with tho the mist nesa of tho the winter but as march of thu the new liew year 1782 drew towards its close lie ho rejoined the army at now burgh to resume ills his watch upon now york lie ho had been scarcely two months at ills his post when a letter was placed in ills hla lands hands which rove revealed aled moro more fully than any observations of ills his own could have revealed it the pass to which affairs had come an unwelcome letter tho the letter was from colonel lewis nicola an old and respected officer who stood nearer than did most moat of ahls fellow officers to the commander ln in chief in intimacy arid and affection and who felt it hla his privilege to speak plainly tho the letter was calm calin ta in temper gravo grave and moderate mod erata in tone with something of tho the gravity and method of a disquisition written upon abstract questions of government did not broach its ita meaning like a revolutionary document hut but what it proposed was nothing less when read between the lines than that washington should suffer himself to bo be made king and that so BO an end should be put to the i incompetency and ingratitude of a band of weak and futile republics an overwhelming rebuke washington met the suggestion with a rebuke so BO direct and overwhelming that colonel nicola must himself havo have wondered how bow he had bad ever dared make such a venture be assured sir said eald the indignant commander no occurrence in the course of at the war hits has given me more painful sensations than your information of their being such buch ideas existing in the army I 1 am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mis chiefs that can befall my country it if I 1 am not do cleved in the knowledge of myself you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable gree able let me conjure you it if you have any regard for your country concern for yourself or posterity or respect for me to banish these thoughts from your mind and never communicate as from yourself or any one else a sentiment of the like nature TO DB BE CONTINUED |