1477 Dec. 10. CHAP. VI. exceeded the supply, the subject was taken up, the forbearance of the general disapproved of, and at the same time, instructions were given for the rigorous exertion in future of his powers to seize. In reply to the letter communicating these resolves, the general stated the conduct he had observed, insisted that provisions had been taken very extensively, and at the same time repeated his opinion, that such measures would be much more readily submitted to if executed by the civil authority, than when they appeared to flow entirely from the military. In obedience, however, to the will of congress he issued a proclamation, calling on the farmers within seventy miles of head quarters to thresh out the one half of their grain by the first of February, and the residue by the first of March, under the penalty of having the whole seized as straw. The success of this experiment for subsisting the army entirely by impressments, did not correspond with the wishes of congress. Independent of the uncertainty attending supplies extracted daily by force from an unwilling people for the use of the moment, the procedure was attended with the pernicious and dange. rous consequences which had been foreseen by the general, and to avoid which, he had considered this system as a dernier resort, of which he was only to avail himself, when the danger that the property would fall into the hands of 1777. the enemy was apparent, or the necessity SO CHAP. VI. urgent as to render it indispensable. In answer to a letter from the board of war, stating that congress would take measures for correcting the abuses in the commissary department, but that for the present, it was absolutely neces sary to continue to support the army by force, he said, "I shall use every exertion that may be expedient and practicable for subsisting the army and keeping it together; but I must observe that this never can be done by coercive means. Supplies of provisions and clothing, must be had in another way, or it cannot exist. The small seizures that were made of the former, some days ago, in consequence of the most pressing and urgent necessity,....when the alternative was to do that or dissolve.... excited the greatest alarm and uneasiness imaginable, even among some of our best and warmest friends. Such procedures may relieve for an instant, but eventually, will prove of the most pernicious consequences. Besides spreading disaffection and jealousy among the people, they never fail, even in the most veteran armies under the most rigid and exact discipline, to raise in the soldiery a disposition to licentiousness, plunder, and robbery, which it has ever been found exceeding difficult to suppress; and which has not only proved ruinous to the inhabitants, but, in many instances, to the armies themselves.". To con CHAP. VI. gress, to whom a similar letter was addressed, 1777. he added, "I regret the occasion which com pelled us to the measure the other day, and shall consider it, as among the greatest of our misfortunes, to be under the necessity of practising it again. I am now obliged to keep several parties from the army threshing grain, that our supplies may not fail; but this will not do.” About this time, a strong combination was congress forming against the commander in chief, in general which several members of congress, and a very few officers of the army, are believed to have entered. Combination formed in against Washington. General concerned in it. The splendour with which the capitulation at Saratoga had surrounded the military reputation of general Gates, acquired some advocates for the opinion, that the arms of America would be more fortunate, if that gentleman posed to be should be elevated to the supreme command. He could not be supposed to be himself hostile to the prevalence of such an opinion, and some parts of his conduct were sufficient to show that, if it did not originate with him he was not among the last to adopt it. He had not only omitted to communicate to general Washington the successes of his army, after the victory of the seventh of October had opened to him the prospect of finally destroying the enemy opposed to him; but he carried on a correspondence with general Conway, in which that officer had expressed himself with great ence on this contempt of the commander in chief, and on CHAP. VI.. the disclosure of this circumstance general 1777. Gates had demanded the name of the informer, Correspondin a letter expressed in terms by no means subject conciliatory, and which was accompanied by two generals. the very extraordinary circumstance of being passed through congress.* The state of Pennsylvania, too, chagrined at losing its capital, and forgetful of its own backwardness in strengthening the army, which had twice fought superior numbers in its defence, furnished many discontented individuals, who supposed it to be the fault of general Washington that he had not, with an army inferior to that of the enemy in numbers, and in every equipment, effected the same result which had been produced in the north, by a Continental army, in itself much stronger than its adversary, and so re-enforced by militia as to amount to three times the number opposed to them. The legislature of that state, on the report that general Washington was moving into winter quarters, addressed a remonstrance to congress on the subject, which manifested in very intelligible terms, their dissatisfaction with the commander in chief. About the same time a new board of war was created, of which general Gates was appointed the president; and general Mifflin, who was supposed to be *See Note, No. V. at the end of the volume. VOL. III. X X * between the 1777. CHAP. VI. also of the party unfriendly to Washington, was one of its number. General Conway, who was perhaps the only brigadier in the army that had joined this faction, was appointed inspector general, and was elevated above brigadiers older than himself, to the rank of major general. There were other evidences that, if the hold which the commander in chief had taken of the affections and confidence of the army, and of the nation, could be shaken, the party in congress which was disposed to change their general, was far from being contemptible in point of numbers. But to loosen this hold was impossible. No better evidence of its strength can be given, than the indignation with which the idea of such a change was received, even by the victorious troops who had fought and conquered under Gates. Even the northern army clung to Washington as the saviour of their country. The machinations which were carrying on, possibly with good intentions, to diminish the well earned reputation of the commander in chief, could not escape his notice. They, however, made no undue impressions on his steady mind, nor did they in the slightest degree change one of his measures. His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of patriotism, of apprehension for his country, than of wounded pride. His desire to remain at the head of the army seemed rather to flow from the conviction that his retaining that station would be |