neers, received great approbation for their excellent conduct in this decisive operation. Several of the officers were promoted, others were honorably mentioned, while the Count de Rochambeau received the highest acknowledgments. Congress passed resolutions of thanks to the French officers and army, and resolved that a monument should be erected at Yorktown in commemoration of the triumphant event.]

General Washington, on this very joyful occasion, ordered that those who were under arrest should be pardoned and set at liberty, and closed his orders in the following pious and impressive manner: "Divine service shall be performed to-morrow in the different brigades and divisions. The commander-in-chief recommends that all the troops that are not upon duty do assist at it with a serious deportment, and that sensibility of heart which the recollection of the surprising and particular interposition of Divine Providence in our favor claims." Congress resolved to go in solemn procession to the Dutch Lutheran church, to return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the allied arms with success, and issued a proclamation appointing the 13th day of December "as a day of general thanksgiving and prayer, on account of this signal interposition of Divine Providence."

[Although some minor hostilities continued, the surrender of Cornwallis virtually ended the war, which now grew strongly unpopular in England. Commissioners for 'negotiating peace were soon after appointed. On the part of the United States these were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens; on the part of Great Britain, Mr. Fitzherbert and Mr. Oswald. Provisional articles were agreed to on November 30, and a cessation of hostilities was ordered on January 20 of the following year. During this year the independence of the United States was generally acknowledged throughout Europe, and the final treaty of peace was signed on September 3. The British had been compelled to evacuate Savannah and Charleston during 1782, and on the 25th of November, 1783, New York was evacuated, and the country finally freed of the foe against whom its people had so long and so bitterly contended.]

THE UNION FOUNDED AND SUSTAINED.

THE ARMY AND COUNTRY AFTER THE WAR.

JOHN MARSHALL.

[The close of the Revolutionary War found America in anything but an enviable state. Financially there was a complete collapse. The army, unpaid, and with no prospect of being paid, was in a desperate and dangerous mood. The only man who possessed any controlling influence over it was its illustrious commander; and had he been ambitious of power the newly-formed government might have been overturned, and a monarchy erected upon its ruins. Happily, Washington was a patriot in the fullest sense. His one controlling thought was the good of his country, and all his great influence was used to abate the discontent of the soldiers, and to remove the perils which threatened the infant republic.

The country had become virtually bankrupt. The year 1782 opened without a dollar in the public treasury. Congress had required the payment of two millions on the 1st of April, yet not a cent had been received by the 23d of that month. Rigid reforms in expenditure had been introduced, yet the absolutely necessary 'expenses could not be met, and on the 1st of June only twenty thousand dollars, little more than was required for the use of one day, had reached the treasury. Robert Morris, the minister of finance, made every possible exertion to sustain the public credit. The bank he had established at Philadelphia, and the system of credit he had inaugurated, were of the utmost utility; but they could not accomplish miracles, and miracles were needed to pay money out of an empty purse.

Fortunately for America, the British public was thoroughly tired of the war, and the sentiment in Parliament soon became over

poweringly in favor of peace. Yet it was not certain that peace would be declared, while it was evident that Great Britain was seeking to make terms with the European allies of America. No important warlike operations took place, however. The British army lay quietly in New York, and its commander took measures to restrain those incursions of hostile Indians upon the frontier settlements which had formed a terrible part of the British policy during the war. That the commissioners at Paris would succeed in making a treaty of peace became evident as time went on. Yet the army was still under arms, and still unpaid. The States grew more and more lax in forwarding their contributions to the minister of finance, and Congress was without power to lay a tax, or to enforce payment from the States. A state of affairs had been reached in which the fatal weakness of the established form of union became evident, and the necessity of a stronger central government vitally apparent. By the month of August only eighty thousand dollars had been received from all the States, a sum barely sufficient for the subsistence of the army. To pay the troops was impossible, and nearly every other debt remained unpaid. The events which succeeded this distressing state of affairs may be given in a selection from Chief-Justice Marshall's "Life of George Washington," in which they are detailed at length.]

It was then in contemplation to reduce the army, by which many of the officers would be discharged. While the general declared, in a confidential letter to the Secretary of War, his conviction of the alacrity with which they would retire into private life, could they be placed in a situation as eligible as that they had left to enter into the service, he added, "Yet I cannot help fearing the result of the measure, when I see such a number of men goaded by a thousand stings of reflection on the past, and of anticipation on the future, about to be turned into the world, soured by penury, and what they call the ingratitude of the public; involved in debts, without one farthing of money to carry them home, after having spent the flower of their days, and, many of them, their patrimo

nies, in establishing the freedom and independence of their country, and having suffered everything which human nature is capable of enduring on this side of death. I repeat it, when I reflect on these irritable circumstances, unattended by one thing to soothe their feelings or brighten the gloomy prospect, I cannot avoid apprehending that a train of evils will follow of a very serious and distressing nature. . . . You may rely upon it, the patience and longsuffering of this army are almost exhausted, and there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at this instant. While in the field, I think it may be kept from breaking out into acts of outrage; but when we retire into winter quarters (unless the storm be previously dissipated) I cannot be at ease respecting the consequences. It is high time for a peace."

[A resolution had been passed in 1780, granting half-pay for life to the officers. Yet not only was there no prospect of money to meet this requirement, but a spirit unfriendly to the law had arisen in Congress. This legislative hostility increased the irritation of the officers. In October the army went into winter-quarters. Washington remained in camp, not through fear of military operations, but from dread of some outbreak of violence in the army.]

In America the approach of peace, combined with other causes, produced a state of things highly interesting and critical. There was much reason to fear that Congress possessed neither the power nor the inclination to comply with its engagements to the army; and the officers who had wasted their fortunes and their prime of life in unrewarded service could not look with unconcern at the prospect which was opening to them. In December, soon after going into winter-quarters, they presented a petition to Congress, respecting the money actually due them, and the commutation of the half-pay stipulated by the resolution of October, 1780, for a sum in gross, which they

flattered themselves would be less objectionable than the half-pay establishment.

[There was a strong party in Congress jealous of and hostile to the demands of the army. The question of funding the public debt, whether in State or Continental securities, was also a subject of slow debate.]

In consequence of these divisions on the most interesting points, the business of the army advanced slowly; and the important question regarding the commutation of their half-pay remained undecided in March, when intelligence was received of the signature of the preliminary and eventual articles of peace between the United States and Great Britain.

Soured by their past sufferings, their present wants, and their gloomy prospects, and exasperated by the neglect with which they believed themselves to be treated, and by the injustice supposed to be meditated against them, the ill-temper of the army was almost universal, and seemed to require only a slight impulse to give it activity. To render this temper the more dangerous, an opinion had been insinuated, that the commander-in-chief was restrained by extreme delicacy from advocating their interests with that zeal which his feelings and knowledge of their situation had inspired. Early in March a letter was received from their committee in Philadelphia, showing that the objects they solicited had not been obtained. On the 10th of that month an anonymous paper was circulated, requiring a meeting of the general and field officers at the public building on the succeeding day at eleven in the morning.

On the same day was privately circulated an address to the army, admirably well prepared to work on the passions of the moment and to conduct them to the most desperate resolutions. . . .