XXXVII but most of the information respecting it has been care- CHAPTER fully suppressed, and its history is involved in some obscurity. Every biographer has been very anxious to 1778. shield his special hero from the charge of participation in this affair, indignantly stigmatized, by most writers, as a base intrigue. Yet doubts, at that time, as to Washington's fitness for the chief command, though they might evince prejudice or lack of sound judgment, do not necessarily imply either selfish ends or a malicious disposition. The Washington of that day was not Washington as we know him, tried and proved by twenty years of the most disinterested and most successful public services. As yet he had been in command but little more than two years, during which he had suffered, with some slight exceptions, a continued series of losses and defeats. He had recovered Boston, to be sure, but had lost New York, Newport, and Philadelphia. He had been completely successful at Trenton, and partially so at Princeton, but had been beaten, with heavy loss, on Long Island and at Fort Washington, and lately in two pitched battles on ground of his own choosing at Brandywine and Germantown. What a contrast to the battles of Behmus's Heights, and the capture of Burgoyne's whole army! Want of success, and sectional and personal prejudices, had created a party in Congress against Schuyler and against Sullivan. Could Washington escape the common fate of those who lose? Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams seem to have been the leaders of a party gradually formed in Congress, and for some time strong enough to exercise a material influence on its action, which ascribed to the commander-in-chief a lack of vigor and energy, and a system of favoritism deleterious to the public service. The Pennsylvanians were much annoyed at the loss of Philadelphia; and sev CHAPTER eral leading persons in that state seem to have co-operXXXVII. ated with this party, especially Mifflin-a plausible, ju1778. dicious, energetic, ambitious man, very popular and very influential, but of whose recent management of the quarter-master's department Washington had loudly complained. Nor were other malcontents wanting in the army. The marked confidence which Washington reposed in Greene gave offense to some; others had purposes of their own to serve. Conway aspired to the of fice of inspector general, the establishment of which he had suggested; and, not finding his pretensions favored by Washington, he indulged in very free criticisms on the state of the troops, and the incapacity of the commander-in-chief. Gates, who might aspire, since his successes at the north, to the most elevated station, should the post of commander-in-chief become vacant, had lately behaved toward Washington with marked coldness and neglect. A correspondence highly derogatory to Washington's military character was carried on between Gates, Mifflin, and Conway. By the indiscretion of the youthful Wilkinson, who talked rather too freely over his cups at Sterling's quarters when on his way to Congress with the news of Burgoyne's surrender, a pointed sentence from one of Conway's letters to Gates leaked out, and was communicated by Sterling to Washington, who inclosed it in a note to Conway. Suspecting that Hamilton, during his visit to Albany, had, as he expressed it, "stealingly copied" Conway's letter, Gates demanded to know, in very high terms, by what breach of confidence Washington had become possessed of the extract. When Wilkinson was given as the authority, he changed his ground, and, in an elaborate letter, alleged that the pretended extract was a forgery, and that Conway had written nothing of the sort. Conway's letter, however, was XXXVII. not produced; and to Washington's sarcastic allusion to CHAPTER that fact, and to the manifest discrepancy between his first and second letters, Gates, anxious to hush up the 1777. matter, made a very tame and submissive answer. In the composition of the new Board of War, the influence of the party opposed to Washington became very apparent. Gates was made president of it, and Mifflin a member. The other members were Pickering, who resigned for that purpose his office of adjutant general, Jo- Nov. seph Trumbull, the late commissary general, and Richard Peters, secretary of the old board. Harrison, Washington's secretary, was elected, but declined. In spite of Washington's earnest remonstrances, Conway, promoted over the heads of all the brigadiers to the rank of major general, was made inspector of the armies of the United Dec. 14. States. An attempt was also made, but without success, to gain over La Fayette, by offering him the command of an expedition against Canada. Besides these open measures, calculated to disgust Washington, and to cause him to resign, secret intrigues were resorted to of a very disreputable character. Anonymous letters, criticising Washington's conduct of the war, were addressed to Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, and to Laurens, president of Congress; but these gentlemen, in the true spirit of honorable candor, at once inclosed these letters to Washington. One of them Washington ascribed to Dr. Rush. When these intrigues became known in the army, 1778. they produced among the officers a great burst of indignation. Nor did the idea of a new commander-in-chief find any support in the state Legislatures or the public mind. In spite of losses, the inevitable result of insufficient means, Washington was firmly rooted in the respect and affection of the soldiers and the people, who had not CHAPTER failed to perceive and to appreciate his incomparable qualXXXVII. ifications for the station which he held. Seeing how 1778. strongly the country and the army were against them, most of the parties concerned in the late project for a new commander-in-chief denied or concealed as much as possible their participation in it; and the result served at once to evince and to strengthen the hold of Washington on the general confidence. March. April. Being presently ordered to the northern department, Conway sent a letter to Congress, in which he complained of ill treatment in being thus banished from the scene of action, and offered to resign. Very contrary to his intention, he was taken at his word. All his attempts to get the vote reconsidered were in vain. He was wounded soon after in a duel with General Cadwallader, who had accused him of cowardice at the battle of Brandywine; and, supposing himself near his end, he sent an humble apology to Washington. On his recovery he returned to France. Gates was sent to the Highlands to superintend the new fortifications to be erected there. Both he and Mifflin ceased to act as members of the Board of War, and their place on it was ultimately supplied by two members of Congress, appointed to serve for short periods. Mifflin obtained leave to join the army again; but the other officers, not liking this intrusion on the part of one who had never held any command in the line, got up a June. charge against him, which was referred to a court of in quiry, of having mismanaged the quarter-master's department. The accounts and business of that department had been left in a good deal of confusion; but there seems to have been no serious ground of charge against Mifflin. Finding himself so unpopular with the officers, he presAugust. ently resigned his commission of major general; but he XXXVII continued to take an active and leading part in affairs, CHAPTER being presently appointed a member of Congress from Pennsylvania. 1778. The more Congress reflected on the terms of Burgoyne's capitulation, the less satisfactory those terms appeared. The troops of that army, transported to England and placed in garrison there, would relieve just as many other men for service in America. Some cavils had begun to be raised about an alleged deficiency of cartouch boxes surrendered, when an impatient letter from Burgoyne furnished a much more plausible pretext. The British general complained that proper accommodations Jan. had not been furnished to his officers, and, in the vexation. of the moment, incautiously alleged that the Americans had broken the convention. Catching eagerly at this hasty expression, which Congress chose to construe into a repudiation of the treaty by the very officer who had made it, it was resolved to suspend the embarkation of the troops "till a distinct and explicit ratification of the convention of Saratoga shall be properly notified by the court of Great Britain." Nor could any remonstrances nor explanations on the part of Burgoyne obtain any change or modification in a policy founded, indeed, more on considerations of interest than of honor, and for which Burgoyne's letter had but served as a pretext. The transports which had arrived at Boston were ordered to depart. Burgoyne only, with one or two attendants, was suffered to go to England on parole. Jan. March. |