bear-our property is expended-our private resources 1 7 8 3 at an end, and our friends wearied out and disgusted with our incessant applications." The memorial was referred to a grand committee that conferred with the superintendent of finance who said that it was impossible to pay and that it would be imprudent even to make any more promises of paying. The report of the grand committee was prepared by Hamilton who had renounced his individual claim for half pay. It advised a payment as soon as possible, after which the troops and other creditors alike were to wait for the funding of the public debt. It was hoped that the zeal of the army and of all other creditors might be enlisted in aid of some efficient scheme for permanent sources of revenue to be collected by authority of congress. Thus Hamilton wrote to Washington that the claims of the army, February 7 "urged with moderation but firmness, may operate on those weak minds which are influenced by their apprehensions more than by their judgments, so as to produce a concurrence in the measures which the exigencies of affairs demand," and Gouverneur Morris wrote to General Greene: "If the army in common with all other public creditors insist on the granting of general permanent funds for liquidating all the public debts, there can be little doubt that such revenues will be obtained and will afford to every order of public creditors a solid security. With the due exception of miracles, there is no probability that the states will ever make such grants unless the army be united and determined. in the pursuit of it and unless they be firmly supported by and as firmly support the other creditors. hasten such an end, Robert Morris sent to congress a January 24 communication saying: "The funding the public debt on solid revenues I fear will never be made. If before the end of May effectual measures to make permanent provision for the public debts of every kind are not taken, congress will be pleased to appoint some other man to be the superintendent of finances; I will never be the minister of injustice." Early in February and Το 1 7 8 3 by the authority of congress, Morris issued his warrants for a month's pay, a total of a little more than a quarter million dollars. The Washington On the tenth of March, 1783, an anonymous call for a meeting of the officers on the evening of the following day was circulated. The letter seems to have been COLLECTION of PAPERS, RELATIVE то HALF PAY AND COMMUTATION HALF PAY GRANTED EY CONGRESS TD THIE OFFICERS OF THE ARM Y. COMPILED. written by a member of General Gates's staff, Major John Armstrong, son of the general of that name whom we met at Brandywine. The purpose of the able document doubtless was to arouse congress to a sense of justice to an army that was about to be disbanded, but its impassioned language was more likely to excite the resentment of the troops. "Can you then," the paper asked, "consent to be the only sufferers by this revolution, and retiring from the field, grow old in poverty and wretchedness and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of despondency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honour! If you can-GO-and carry with you the jest of tories and the scorn of whigs-the ridicule, and what is worse, the pity of the world. Go, starve, and be forgotten!" By Permition of His Excellency General WASHINGTON, P13 - K L L. SAYLEL LOUDON, PAINTED BY Title-page of the first Printed Edition of the Newburg Letters The situation was full of danger. Even Robert Saves the Day Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton had come to the conclusion that forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, but Washington saw that such a movement once begun might become uncontrollable. He At had issued general orders forbidding the meeting and 178 3 calling for one at noon of the following Saturday, when suddenly a second anonymous address appeared. the appointed time, the officers assembled with General March 15 Gates in the chair. Washington took his place at the desk and, in eloquent words, appealed to the patriotism of the officers. "Let me conjure you, he said, "in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man, who wishes, under specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood." When he finished, most of the officers were in tears; after his withdrawal, they passed resolutions unanimously condemning the anonymous proposals and asking Washington to press their claims. Thus "that body of officers, in a moment, damned with infamy two publications, which, during the four preceding days, most of them had read with admiration, and talked of with rapture. It may be doubted whether Washington ever performed a greater patriotic service than on this occasion. Impotence Upon Washington's representations, congress soon Congressional commuted half pay for life into a sum equal to five Action and years' full pay, for which certificates bearing interest at six per cent. were to be issued. Even this measure March 22 aroused great opposition among sturdy fireside patriots who were anxious for liberty but unwilling to pay its price. Meanwhile, steps were taken to reduce the army, as explained in the preceding chapter. The veterans, at least such of them as still had homes, went home peacefully without a settlement of their accounts or a penny in their pockets. In little groups of four or five they trudged along, living in great part on farmhouse hospitality. At his journey's end, the veteran hung his memorial musket over the chimneypiece and I June 19, 1783 1 7 8 3 turned again to the furrow and the cattle; years of 1 7 8 4 suffering behind and years of poverty before. But some of the new Pennsylvania troops at Lancaster, "soldiers of a day" Washington called them, mutinied. About eighty strong, they marched to Philadelphia and created such a terror that congress fled to Princeton. No more convincing proof of the impotence of congress could be found. McMaster says that it had "degenerated into a debating club, and a debating club of no very high order. Neglected by its own members, insulted and threatened by its mutinous troops, reviled by the press, and forced to wander from city to city in search of an abiding place, its acts possessed no national importance June 3, 1784 whatever. A year later, it closed a session at Annapolis to meet at Trenton on the thirteenth of October, leaving the management of federal affairs in the hands of a "grand committee" of one from each state. Four of the committee attended none of its sessions and, one day in August, some of the others angrily left the room and thus broke the quorum. On the next day, three of the nine set out for their homes; until the reassembling of congress, the country was without even the shadow of a government. In this summer of 1784, the people of America were gladdened by the return of Lafayette from France. He landed on the fourth of August and went directly to Mount Vernon. Thence he hastened to New York and, in September, went up the Hudson to Albany. In October, he was given a memorable entertainment at Boston whence he went by water to Annapolis and thence again to Mount Vernon. On the ninth of December, he was at Philadelphia where bonfires lighted up the streets and the bells were rung from the time of his arrival until ten o'clock at night. He took formal leave of congress at Trenton and, on Christmas Day, sailed from New York for France. Everywhere he had been received with the homage and enthusiastic welcome of a grateful people. The articles of confederation were ratified in 1781; before the end of that year, Gouverneur Morris wrote 1 7 8 1 to General Greene: "I have no expectation that the 17 8 3 government will acquire force; and no hope that our The Need of Gou Morris Autograph of Gouverneur Morris union can subsist, except in the form of an absolute Coercive As it was necessary to obtain the consent of all the Difficulty of states, it was impossible to amend the articles. In Feb- Amendment ruary, 1781, it was proposed that congress should be given the power to levy a duty of five per cent. on imports, the proceeds "to be applied to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debts already contracted." The proposal was reasonable, twelve states assented, but Rhode Island stubbornly refused. In |