of your loyalty." Such requests are not soothing to any man struggling his best with great anxieties, and

with a host of petty cares. Washington, neverthe less, kept his temper, and replied only by setting down a few hard facts which answered the demands of Congress in a final manner, and with all the sting of truth. Thus a little irritation had been generated in Congress against the general, and there were some members who developed a good deal of pronounced hostility. Sam Adams, a born agitator and a trained politician, unequalled almost in our history as an organizer and manager of men, able, narrow, coldly fierce, the man of the town meeting and the caucus, had no possibility of intellectual sympathy with the silent, patient, hard-gripping soldier, hemmed with difficulties, but ever moving straight forward to his object, with occasional wild gusts of reckless fighting passion. John Adams, too, brilliant of speech and pen, ardent, patriotic, and high-minded, was, in his way, out of touch with Washington. Although he moved Washington's appointment, he began almost immediately to find fault with him, an exercise to which he was extremely prone. Inasmuch as he could see how things ought to be done, he could not understand why they were not done in that way at once, for he had a fine forgetfulness of other people's difficulties, as is the case with most of us. The New England representatives generally took their cue from these two, especially James Lovell, who carried his ideas into action, and obtained a

little niche in the temple of fame by making himself disagreeably conspicuous in the intrigue against the commander-in-chief, when it finally developed.

There were others, too, outside New England who were discontented, and among them Richard Henry Lee, from the General's own State. He was evidently critical and somewhat unfriendly at this time, although the reasons for his being so are not now very distinct. Then there was Mr. Clark of New Jersey, an excellent man, who thought the General was invading popular rights; and to him others might be added who vaguely felt that things ought to be better than they were. This party, adverse to Washington, obtained the appointment of Gates to the northern department, under whom the army won a great victory, and they were correspondingly happy. John Adams wrote his wife that one cause of thanksgiving was that the tide had not been turned by the commander-in-chief and southern troops, for the adulation would have been intolerable; and that a man may be wise and virtuous and not a deity.

Here, so far as the leading and influential men were concerned, the matter would have dropped, probably; but there were lesser men like Lovell who were much encouraged by the surrender of Burgoyne, and who thought that they now might supplant Washington with Gates. Before long, too, they found in the army itself some active and not over-scrupulous allies. The most conspicuous figure among the military malcontents was Gates

himself, who, although sluggish in all things, still had a keen eye for his own advancement. He showed plainly how much his head had been turned by the victory at Saratoga when he failed to in- . form Washington of the fact, and when he afterward delayed sending back troops until he was driven to it by the determined energy of Hamilton, who was sent to bring him to reason. Next in importance to Gates was Thomas Mifflin, an ardent patriot, but a rather light-headed person, who espoused the opposition to Washington for causes now somewhat misty, but among which personal vanity played no inconsiderable part. About these two leaders gathered a certain number of inferior officers of no great moment then or since.

The active and moving spirit in the party, however, was one Conway, an Irish adventurer, who made himself so prominent that the whole affair passed into history bearing his name, and the "Conway cabal" has obtained an enduring notoriety which its hero never acquired by any public services. Conway was one of the foreign officers who had gained the favor of Congress and held the rank of brigadier-general, but this by no means filled the measure of his pretensions, and when De Kalb was made a major-general Conway immediately started forward with claims to the same rank. He received strong support from the factious opposition, and there was so much stir that Washington sharply interfered, for to his general objection to these lavish gifts of excessive rank

was added an especial distrust in this particular case. In his calm way he had evidently observed Conway, and with his unerring judgment of men had found him wanting. "I may add," he wrote to Lee, "and I think with truth, that it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the army. Upon so interesting a subject I must speak plainly. General Conway's merit then as an officer, and his importance in this army, exist more in his own imagination than in reality." This plain talk soon reached Conway, drove him at once into furious opposition, and caused him to impart to the faction a cohesion and vigor which they had before lacked. Circumstances favored them. The victory at Saratoga gave them something tangible to go upon, and the first move was made when Gates failed to inform Washington of the surrender, and then held back the troops sent for so urgently by the commanderin-chief, who had sacrificed so much from his own army to secure that of the north.

At this very moment, indeed, when Washington was calling for troops, he was struggling with the utmost tenacity to hold control of the Delaware. He made every arrangement possible to maintain the forts, and the first assaults upon them were repulsed with great slaughter, the British in the attack on Fort Mercer losing Count Donop, the leader, and four hundred men. Then came a breathing space, and then the attacks were renewed, supported by vessels, and both forts were abandoned after the works had been levelled to

the ground by the enemy's fire.

Meanwhile Ham

ilton, sent to the north, had done his work; Gates had been stirred, and Putnam, well-meaning but stubborn, had been sharply brought to his bearings. Reinforcements had come, and Washington meditated an attack on Philadelphia. There was a good deal of clamor for something brilliant and decisive, for both the army and the public were a little dizzy from the effects of Saratoga, and with sublime blindness to different conditions, could not see why the same performance should not be repeated to order everywhere else. To oppose this wish was trying, doubly trying to a man eager to fight, and with his full share of the very human desire to be as successful as his neighbor. It required great nerve to say No; but Washington did not lack that quality, and as general and statesman he reconnoitred the enemy's works, weighed the chances, said No decisively, and took up an almost impregnable position at White Marsh. Thereupon Howe announced that he would drive Washington beyond the mountains, and on December 4th he approached the American lines with this highly proper purpose. There was some skirmishing along the foot of the hills of an unimportant character, and on the third day Washington, in high spirits, thought an attack would be made, and rode among the soldiers directing and encouraging them. Nothing came of it, however, but more skirmishing, and the next day Howe marched back to Philadelphia. He had offered battle in all ways, he had invited action; but