Volume III Part 25 (1/2)

It is laughable to hear Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton talk of his _sympathetic feelings_, who has always been remarked, even among his friends, for not having any. He has, however, given no proofs of any to me. As to the pompous encomiums he so liberally pays to himself, on the score of the American revolution, the reality of them may be questioned; and since he has forced them so much into notice, it is fair to examine his pretensions.

A stranger might be led to suppose, from the egotism with which Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton speaks, that himself, and himself only, had generated, conducted, compleated, and established the revolution: In fine, that it was all his own doing.

In the first place, as to the political part, he had no share in it; and, therefore, the whole of _that_ is out of the question with respect to him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have been prudent in Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton not to have awakened enquiry upon that subject. Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and n.o.body was disposed to take away the laurels that, whether they were _acquired_ or not, had been _given_.

Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton's merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the common virtue of the revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I know but of one military defection, that of Arnold; and I know of no political defection, among those who made themselves eminent when the revolution was formed by the declaration of independence. Even Silas Deane, though he attempted to defraud, did not betray.(1)

1 This generous judgment by Deane's old adversary has become questionable under recent investigations.--_Editor._.

But when we speak of military character, something more is to be understood than constancy; and something more _ought_ to be understood than the Fabian system of _doing nothing_. The _nothing_ part can be done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head quarters, (who threatened to make the sun and the wind s.h.i.+ne through Rivington of New York,) 'could have done it as well as Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton. Deborah would have been as good as Barak.

Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton had the nominal rank of Commander in Chief, but he was not so in fact. He had, in reality, only a separate command. He had no controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates, that captured Burgoyne; nor of that to the south under [Nathaniel]

Greene, that recovered the southern States.(2) The nominal rank, however, of Commander in Chief, served to throw upon him the l.u.s.tre of those actions, and to make him appear as the soul and centre of all military operations in America.

1 The Tory publisher of New York City, whose press was destroyed in 1775 by a mob of Connecticut soldiers.-- _Editor._

2 See Mr. Winterbotham's valuable History of America, lately published.--Author. [The ”History of the Establishment of Independence” is contained in the first of Mr.

Winterbotham's four volumes (London, 1795).--_Editor._.]

He commenced his command June, 1775, during the time the Ma.s.sachusetts army lay before Boston, and after the affair of Bunker-hill. The commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months he remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise at that time, which the presence of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton chilled into cold defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March 1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more advantageous position at New York.

The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General Was.h.i.+ngton, when the enemy had a less force than in any other future period of the war, and the injudicious choice of positions taken by him in the campaign of 1776, when the enemy had its greatest force, necessarily produced the losses and misfortunes that marked that gloomy campaign. The positions taken were either islands or necks of land.

In the former, the enemy, by the aid of their s.h.i.+ps, could bring their whole force against apart of General Was.h.i.+ngton's, as in the affair of Long Island; and in the latter, he might be shut up as in the bottom of a bag. This had nearly been the case at New York, and it was so in part; it was actually the case at Fort Was.h.i.+ngton; and it would have been the case at Fort Lee, if General Greene had not moved precipitately off, leaving every thing behind, and by gaining Hackinsack bridge, got out of the bag of Bergen Neck. How far Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, as General, is blameable for these matters, I am not undertaking to determine; but they are evidently defects in military geography. The successful skirmishes at the close of that campaign, (matters that would scarcely be noticed in a better state of things,) make the brilliant exploits of General Was.h.i.+ngton's seven campaigns. No wonder we see so much pusillanimity in the President, when we see so little enterprise in the General!

The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by anything on the part of General Was.h.i.+ngton, but by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the army under his command, by the Northern army at Saratoga, under General Gates. So totally distinct and unconnected were the two armies of Was.h.i.+ngton and Gates, and so independent was the latter of the authority of the nominal Commander in Chief, that the two Generals did not so much as correspond, and it was only by a letter of General (since Governor) Clinton, that General Was.h.i.+ngton was informed of that event. The British took possession of Philadelphia this year, which they evacuated the next, just time enough to save their heavy baggage and fleet of transports from capture by the French Admiral d'Estaing, who arrived at the mouth of the Delaware soon after.

The capture of Burgoyne gave an eclat in Europe to the American arms, and facilitated the alliance with France. The eclat, however, was not kept up by any thing on the part of General Was.h.i.+ngton. The same unfortunate languor that marked his entrance into the field, continued always. Discontent began to prevail strongly against him, and a party was formed in Congress, whilst sitting at York-town, in Pennsylvania, for removing him from the command of the army. The hope, however, of better times, the news of the alliance with France, and the unwillingness of shewing discontent, dissipated the matter.

Nothing was done in the campaigns of 1778, 1779, 1780, in the part where General Was.h.i.+ngton commanded, except the taking of Stony Point by General Wayne. The Southern States in the mean time were over-run by the enemy. They were afterwards recovered by General Greene, who had in a very great measure created the army that accomplished that recovery.

In all this General Was.h.i.+ngton had no share. The Fabian system of war, followed by him, began now to unfold itself with all its evils; but what is Fabian war without Fabian means to support it? The finances of Congress depending wholly on emissions of paper money, were exhausted.

Its credit was gone. The continental treasury was not able to pay the expense of a brigade of waggons to transport the necessary stores to the army, and yet the sole object, the establishment of the revolution, was a thing of remote distance. The time I am now speaking of is in the latter end of the year 1780.

In this situation of things it was found not only expedient, but absolutely necessary, for Congress to state the whole case to its ally.

I knew more of this matter, (before it came into Congress or was known to General Was.h.i.+ngton) of its progress, and its issue, than I chuse to state in this letter. Colonel John Laurens was sent to France as an Envoy Extraordinary on this occasion, and by a private agreement between him and me I accompanied him. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance frigate, February 11th, 1781. France had already done much in accepting and paying bills drawn by Congress. She was now called upon to do more.

The event of Colonel Laurens's mission, with the aid of the venerable Minister, Franklin, was, that France gave in money, as a present, six millions of livres, and ten millions more as a loan, and agreed to send a fleet of not less than thirty sail of the line, at her own expense, as an aid to America. Colonel Laurens and myself returned from Brest the 1st of June following, taking with us two millions and a half of livres (upwards of one hundred thousand pounds sterling) of the money given, and convoying two s.h.i.+ps with stores.

We arrived at Boston the 25th of August following. De Gra.s.se arrived with the French fleet in the Chesapeak at the same time, and was afterwards joined by that of Barras, making 31 sail of the line.

The money was transported in waggons from Boston to the Bank at Philadelphia, of which Mr. Thomas Willing, who has since put himself at the head of the list of pet.i.tioners in favour of the British treaty, was then President. And it was by the aid of this money, and this fleet, and of Rochambeau's army, that Cornwallis was taken; the laurels of which have been unjustly given to Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton. His merit in that affair was no more than that of any other American officer.

I have had, and still have, as much pride in the American revolution as any man, or as Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton has a right to have; but that pride has never made me forgetful whence the great aid came that compleated the business. Foreign aid (that of France) was calculated upon at the commencement of the revolution. It is one of the subjects treated of in the pamphlet _Common Sense_, but as a matter that could not be hoped for, unless independence was declared.1 The aid, however, was greater than could have been expected.

It is as well the ingrat.i.tude as the pusillanimity of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, and the Was.h.i.+ngton faction, that has brought upon America the loss of character she now suffers in the world, and the numerous evils her commerce has undergone, and to which it is yet exposed. The British Ministry soon found out what sort of men they had to deal with, and they dealt with them accordingly; and if further explanation was wanting, it has been fully given since, in the snivelling address of the New York Chamber of Commerce to the President, and in that of sundry merchants of Philadelphia, which was not much better.

1 See vol. i. of this work, p. ixx. Paine was sharply taken to task on this point by ”Cato.” Ib.% pp. 145-147.-- _Editor._.