the refugees. In New York, on the eighth of April, the directors of the associated loyalists ordered Lieutenant Joshua Huddy, a prisoner of war in New York, to be delivered to Captain Lippincot, and, under the pretext of an exchange, taken into New Jersey, where he was hanged by a party of loyalists on the heights of Middleton, in revenge for the death of a loyalist prisoner who had been shot as he was attempting to escape. Congress and Washington demanded the delivery of Lippincot as a murderer. Clinton refused the requisition, but subjected him to a court-martial, which condemned the deed but found in the orders under which he acted a loop-hole for his acquittal. Congress threatened retaliation on a British officer, never intending to execute the threat.

The spirit of humanity governed the conduct of the British as soon as Shelburne became minister. Those who had been imprisoned in England for treason were from that time treated as prisoners of war. Some of the ministers took part in relieving their distresses; and in the course of the summer six hundred of them or more were sent to America for exchange. Sir Guy Carleton, who, on the fifth of May 1782, superseded Sir Henry Clinton as commander-in-chief, desired an end to hostilities of every kind, treated all captives with gentleness; and set some of them free. When Washington asked that the Carolinians who had been exiled in violation of the capitulation of Charleston might have leave to return to their native state under a flag of truce, Carleton answered that they should be sent back at the cost of the king of England; and that everything should be done to make them forget the hardships which they had endured. Two hundred Iroquois, two hundred Ottawas, and seventy Chippewas came in the summer to St. John's on the Chambly, ready to make a raid into the state of New York. They were told from Carleton to bury their hatchets and their tomahawks.

In Georgia, Wayne drove the British from post after post and redoubt after redoubt, until they were completely shut up in Savannah. In the rest of the state, its own civil government was restored. On the eleventh of July, Savannah was evacuated, the loyalists retreating into Florida, the regulars to Charleston; and Wayne, with his small but trustworthy corps,

joined Greene in South Carolina. His successes had been gained by troops who had neither regular food nor clothing nor pay.

In conformity to writs issued by Rutledge as governor, the assembly of South Carolina met in January at Jacksonborough on the Edisto. The assassinations and ravages committed under the authority of Lord George Germain never once led Greene, or Wayne, or Marion, or any other in high command, to injure the property or take the life of a loyalist, except in battle. Against the advice of Gadsden, who insisted that it was sound policy to forget and forgive, laws were enacted banishing the active friends of the British government and confiscating their estates.

The summer of 1782 went by with no military events beyond skirmishes. In repelling with an inferior force a party of the British sent to Combahee ferry to collect provisions, Laurens, then but twenty-seven years old, received a mortal wound. "He had not a fault that I could discover," said Washington, "unless it were intrepidity bordering upon rashness." Near the end of the year, Wilmot, a worthy officer of the Maryland line, was killed in an enterprise against James Island. He was the last who fell in the war.

A vehement impulse toward "the consolidation of the federal union" was given by Robert Morris, the finance minister of the confederation; but he connected the reform of the confederation with boldly speculative financial theories. A native of England, he never gained the sympathy or approbation of the American people. In May 1781, by highly colored promises of a better administration of the national finances and by appeals to patriotism, he succeeded in overcoming the scruples of congress, and obtained from it a charter for a national bank, of which the notes, payable on demand, should be receivable as specie for duties and taxes, and in payment of dues from the respective states. The charter was granted by the votes of New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia with Madison dissenting, North and South Carolina, and Georgia-seven states; from Rhode Island and Connecticut single delegates answered "ay." Pennsylvania was equally divided; Massachusetts alone voted against the measure.

Before the end of the year the opinion prevailed that the articles of confederation contained no power to incorporate a bank; but congress had pledged its word. As a compromise, the corporation was forbidden to exercise any powers in any of the United States repugnant to the laws or constitution of such state; and it was recommended to the several states to give to the incorporating ordinance its full operation. These requisitions Madison regarded as an admission of the defect of power, and an antidote against the poisonous tendency of precedents of usurpation. The capital of the bank was four hundred thousand dollars, of which Morris took one half as an investment of the United States, paying for it in full with money, which was due to the army. On the seventh of January 1782 the bank commenced its very lucrative business. Its notes, though payable at Philadelphia in specie, did not command public confidence at a distance, and the corporation was able to buy up its own promises at from ten to fifteen per cent discount.

His first measure having been carried, he threw his rough energy into the design of initiating a strong central government. He engaged the services of Thomas Paine to recommend to the people a new confederation with competent powers. To the president of congress he wrote: "I disclaim a delicacy which influences some minds to treat the states with tenderness and even adulation, while they are in the habitual inattention to the calls of national interest and honor; nor will I be deterred from waking those who slumber on the brink of ruin. Supported by the voice of the United States in congress, I may perhaps do something; without that support, I must be a useless incumbrance.”

To fund the public debt and provide for the regular payment of the interest on it, he proposed a very moderate landtax, a poll-tax, and an excise on distilled liquors. Each of these taxes was estimated to produce half a million; a duty of five per cent on imports would produce a million more. The back lands were to be reserved as security for new loans in Europe.

The expenditures of the United States for the war had been at the rate of twenty millions of dollars in specie an

nually. The estimates for the year 1782 were for eight millions of dollars. Yet, in the first five months of the year, the sums received amounted to less than twenty thousand dollars, which were but the estimated expenses for a single day; and of this sum not a shilling had been received from the East or the South. A vehement circular of Morris to the states was suppressed by the advice of Madison, and one congressional committee was sent to importune the states of the North, another those of the South.

An aged officer of the army, colonel in rank, unheard of in action, Nicola by name, not an American by birth, clung obstinately to the opinion that republics are unstable, and that a mixed government, of which the head might bear the title of king, would be best able to extricate the United States from their embarrassments. In a private letter to Washington, written, so far as appears, without concert with any one, he set forth his views in favor of monarchy, with an intimation that, after discussion, it would be readily adopted by the people, and that he who had so gloriously conducted the war should conduct the country "in the smoother paths of peace."

To this communication Washington, on the twenty-second of May, replied: "No occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you, then, 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."

The confederation acted only on the states, and not on persons; yet Morris obtained from congress authority to appoint receivers of the revenues of the United States. From the siege of Yorktown, Hamilton had repaired to Albany for the study of the law, that in summer he might be received as attorney, in autumn as counsellor, yet ready, if the war should be renewed, to take part in its dangers and its honors. Him

war.

Morris appointed collector of the revenue for the district of the state of New York. The office, which he accepted with hesitation, was almost a sinecure; but he was instructed by Morris to exert his talents with the New York legislature to forward the views of congress. He had meditated on the facility with which the eastern states had met in convention to deliberate jointly on the best methods of supporting the On the next meeting of the New York legislature he repaired to Poughkeepsie and explained his views on the only system by which the United States could obtain a constitution. On the nineteenth of July, Schuyler, his father-in-law, invited the senate to take into consideration the state of the nation. The committee into which that body at once resolved itself reported, "that the radical source of most of the public embarrassments was the want of sufficient power in congress to effectuate the ready and perfect co-operation of the states; that the powers of government ought without loss of time to be extended; that the general government ought to have power to provide revenue for itself"; and it was declared "that the foregoing important ends can never be attained by deliberations of the states separately; but that it is essential to the common welfare that there should be as soon as possible a conference of the whole on the subject; and that it would be advisable for this purpose to propose to congress to recommend, and to each state to adopt, the measure of assembling a general convention of the states, specially authorized to revise and amend the confederation, reserving a right to the respective legislatures to ratify their determinations."

These resolutions, offered by Schuyler in the senate, were accepted unanimously by each branch of the legislature; and Hamilton was elected a delegate to the congress of the United States. Robert Morris saw the transcendent importance of the proceedings of the New York legislature, and welcomed the young statesman to his new career, saying: "A firm, wise, manly system of federal government is what I once wished, what I now hope, what I dare not expect, but what I will not despair of." Under these auspices Hamilton of New York became the colleague in congress of Madison of Virginia.