future revenues of peace," the "compelling the people to lend the public their commodities, and that it would be a permanent resource by which the war might be supported as long as the earth should yield its increase." It was to be a permanent system of impress-of forced loanswhich, as a temporary and occasional resort, Hamilton had recently condemned, as "violent, unequal, oppressive, and odious."

VOL. II.-8

CHAPTER XXIII.

DURING this period, hostilities had been resumed in South Carolina. A reinforcement, composed of the troops from Maryland and Delaware, with a small body of artillery, under the veteran De Kalb, delayed and divided for want of subsistence, moved on in small detachments, collecting and grinding corn, as they proceeded, for their daily food,* through upper North Carolina. At a ford on the Deep River, not far from Guilford Court House, his troops reunited early in July, pointing their course to the more fertile banks of the Yadkin. The militia of North Carolina, under Caswell, preceding him by a more southern route, were beyond the Pedee on the road to Camden.

In the beginning of June, Hamilton, in the name of Washington, addressed Gates, who had retired to his residence in Virginia, the inquiry, whether his private affairs would permit him to take the field; and if so, when he would be at camp? The object of the inquiry was, in the general disposition of the army for the opening campaign, to indicate his command.

Official advices being received of the fall of Charleston and of the capture of Lincoln, Washington contemplated Greene as his successor. But Congress, by a unanimous

* Marshall, i. 341.

vote on the thirteenth of June, elected Gates to this important station. Full powers were given to him to call on the Southern States for troops and supplies, and to appoint all the staff officers necessary to organize an army.

Great hopes were indulged by those ignorant of this officer, that his military genius would retrieve what had been lost. "Our affairs to the southward look blue," is the language of a member of the Board of War. "So they did when you took the command before the Burgoynade. I can only now say, 'Go and do likewise.'"* General Lee, with a more just measure of his abilities, pressing him by the hand, as they parted, bade him bear in mind, that "the laurels of the North must not be exchanged for the willow of the South."†

This command was conferred by Congress without consulting Washington, an act which confirmed intimations of the revival of the cabal against him. At the close of the previous year, General Sullivan wrote to the commander-in-chief, stating that "the faction raised against him in seventy-seven was not yet destroyed. The members are waiting to collect strength, and seize some favorable moment to appear in force. I speak not from conjecture, but certain knowledge. Their plan is, to take every method of proving the danger from a commander who enjoys the full and unlimited confidence of his army, and alarm the people with imaginary evils; nay, they will endeavor to convert your virtues into arrows, with which they will seek to torment you. The next step is, to persuade Congress that the military power of America should be placed in three or four different hands; each having a different quarter of the continent assigned him, each commander to answer to Congress

* Richard Peters to Gates, June 15, 1780.

+ Lee's Southern War, i. 224-note.

only for his conduct. This, they say, will prevent an aspiring commander from enslaving his country, and put it in the power of Congress, with the assistance of the other commanders, to punish the attempt. This is a refinement in politics, and an improvement on public virtue, which Greece or Rome could never boast." He cautioned Washington to be on his guard. "Appearances may deceive even an angel. Could you have believed, four years since, that those adulators, those persons so tenderly and so friendly used, as were Gates, Mifflin, Reed and Tudor, would become your secret and bitter, though unprovoked, enemies? If we view them now, we cannot help lamenting the want of sincerity in mankind."

"I am very confident," General Greene wrote in camp, "that there is party business going on again, and, as Mifflin is connected with it, I doubt not its being a revival of the old scheme. The measure now taking, is, to be prepared to take advantage of every opening, which the distresses of the army may introduce. I wish I may be mistaken, but measures strongly indicate such a disposition." Soon after,† he writes from Philadelphia: As to "a new army plan, which," he says, would starve and disband the army in a fortnight. "General Schuyler and others consider it a plan of Mifflin's to injure your excellency's operations. I am now fully convinced of the reality of what I suggested to you before I came away." "Mifflin has got the Massachusetts delegates into his house in town, upon very moderate terms, and, it is said, with a view of strengthening himself in that quarter. Depend upon it, he has a scheme in concert with others. Public business is in a wretched train."

The rising influence of this cabal had been seen in the menaced suspension of Greene, looking beyond him to the March 28, 1780.

* Washington's Writings, vi. 492.

commander-in-chief. This was principally shown in the discussions on the recent appointment of the committee of co-operation, both as to the extent of its powers and its numbers. La Luzerne, in a despatch to Vergennes, states: "A committee of three was proposed. Warm debates ensued. It was said, that this would be putting too much power in a few hands, and especially in those of the commander-in-chief; that his influence was already too great; that even his virtues afforded motives for alarm; that the enthusiasm of the army, joined to the kind of dictatorship already confided to him, put Congress and the United States at his mercy; that it was not expedient to expose a man of the highest virtues to such temptations. It was then proposed, that the committee. should consist of one member from each State. This proposition failed, on the ground that the operations of so large a number would be subject to all the delays which had been complained of in Congress. After a long and animated debate, the motion for a committee of three prevailed."* Its powers, it has been seen, were much circumscribed.

Gates hastened to the camp of De Kalb, was received with loud gratulations, and assumed the command on the twenty-fifth of July. Two days after, without time to gather information, and cautioned not to proceed by a direct road, he moved by the nearest route toward the advanced post of the British on Lynch's Creek. "The motives assigned by him were, the necessity of uniting with Caswell, the danger of dispiriting the troops and intimidating the people" by pursuing an indirect route, and assurances of supplies to overtake him.† Colonel Otho H. Williams, of Maryland, speaks in a letter to Hamilton of their "long march in a barren country, with very little * Washington's Writings, vii. 15-note. + Marshall, i. 342.