quarter from management. The only resource, therefore, will be a battle, and I doubt our skill to manage that. At any rate, the season closes fast, and if Burgoyne cannot get to Albany, he must at least retire to Ticonderoga. I learn that Gates's army is eleven, and Lincoln's five thousand. Tant mieux-sed quære de hoc. I am also told that the Indians are determined to take up the hatchet for us. If this be true, it would be infinitely better to wear away the enemy's army, by a scrupulous and polite attention, than to violate the rules of decorum and the laws of hospitality, by making an attack upon strangers in our own country.

From Peekskill we have intelligence, that the enemy have marched into New Jersey with five thousand men, and from their motions seem determined to attempt the western pass of the mountains. Either their numbers are exaggerated greatly, or they mean some capital diversion. I rather think the former, and that their object is merely to return the compliment, which Sullivan paid them on Staten Island.

'General Washington, as you will have heard before this reaches you, has had a severe conflict with Howe. He was obliged to retire. Our loss is far from inconsiderable. Howe, I imagine, will get Philadelphia. This will be determined at Swede's Ford on the Schuykill. If we can beat him, he will be, if not ruined, yet as near it as any man need be. If the contrary happens, we must, to say the best of it, have another winter's campaign.

'The Chief Justice (Jay) is gone to fetch his wife. The Chancellor (Livingston) is solacing himself with his wife, his farm, and his imagination. Our Senate is doing, I know not what. In Assembly we wrangle long to little purpose. You will think so, when I tell you, that from nine in the morning till dusk in the evening, we were employed in appointing Scott, Pawling, Yates, and Webster to be the council of appointment. I tremble for the consequences, but I smile, and shall continue to do so, if possible. We have not appointed delegates, nor do I know when or whom we shall appoint. We have some

principles of fermentation, which must, if it be possible, evaporate before that business is entered upon. We are just about to think of a Militia Law, and I should be happy to be informed of your sentiments, or rather plans, upon that subject. It is doubtless of importance, and the mode now to be adopted, whether good or evil, will have a very distant operation. It will become a principal part of the jurisprudence of the State, and, as such, shed an influence upon the Constitution. I am yours, &c.

'GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.'

GENERAL SCHUYLER TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.

'Dear Sir,

'Albany, October 12th, 1777.

'If Arnold's advice had been pursued, the enemy would have been routed on the twentieth of last month, and the fortification below would, in all probability, not have been attacked. The same want of vigor has taken place, after the action of the seventh instant. Burgoyne retreated on the eighth, at night; was followed by an inferior body on the afternoon of the ninth ; and now occupies the heights between the barracks at Saratoga and Fishkill, with a dispirited army of less than five thousand; whilst General Gates's army of fifteen thousand are looking at him; for the General, by all accounts, has never yet been within ken of the enemy. This may be prudent, it is not very gallant. He knows Burgoyne cannot retreat, and will, therefore, not risk an engagement. But if Clinton should be able to push up to this place, the tables may be turned upon him. I hope that, however, will not be the case.

'Saratoga is destroyed.* I expected it would be so. I wrote you, or the Speaker so, some days ago. I hear Gates intends to write Burgoyne on the subject of his devastations.

* That is, General Schuyler's buildings and property at that place, which were burnt and destroyed by the enemy.

I fear he will not succeed better than in his former correspendence. I am yours,

'PHILIP SCHUYLER.'

It is the province of the historian to collect facts, combine circumstances, and weigh events with an impartial hand, before he pronounces a judgment on the actions of a man, in a prominent and responsible station; and whoever will do this, in regard to General Schuyler, will come to a very different decision from that, to which he might naturally be led by the treatment he received from Congress. Whatever causes or motives may have operated at the time, to bring about his removal, there can be but one opinion now, as to the necessity or justice of that measure. It was the effect of a temporary excitement founded on false impressions, of a prejudice for which no good reason could be assigned, and of a bitter party spirit, ready to immolate character and hazard the nation's best interests, to gratify its own narrow and perverted aims.

'Your enemies,' says a member writing to General Schuyler from Congress,' your enemies, relentless, and bent on your destruction, would willingly involve you in the odium of losing Ticonderoga. The change of command was not, however, founded on that principle, but merely on the representation of the Eastern States, that their militia, suspicious of your military character, would not turn out in defence of New York, while you presided in the northern department. So confident were they in these assertions, and such, from your own representations, was the gloomy aspect of our affairs there, that the southern members were alarmed, and we thought it prudent not to attempt to stem the torrent. It was, however, agreed and declared, as I before hinted, that the eastern prejudices against you were the only motives for your recall. The application of eastern generals for your continuance in the department, and the respectable reinforcement from New Hampshire, which so palpably contradict the assertions that were the basis of your removal, are no small occasion of triumph to some of us, and will not speedily be forgotten. We

have much to expect from the northward. Give us the earliest intelligence. Every mouth is full of the praises of Herkimer, Stark, Gansevoort, and Willet.'

The foundation of this prejudice of the Eastern States against General Schuyler cannot, perhaps, at this day, be easily ascertained. As a gentleman of a strong and cultivated mind, integrity, honor, and public spirit, none stood higher in his own State, or possessed more entirely the confidence of his copatriots. In his correspondence, he was sometimes betrayed into expressions not well suited to win by their suavity, or subdue by their forbearance, and now and then he incautiously disturbed the nerves of Congress, by the tenor of his letters. A friend writes to him from that body; 'You know Congress, like a hysteric woman, wants cordials. Write truths, without making any reflections of your own.' Some of his letters to the legislature of Massachusetts assumed a tone, but little calculated to allay jealousies, or gain friends. This was impolitic, but it could in no degree justify the ill treatment he received as a public man, and especially so abrupt a dismissal from a command, which he had up to that moment conducted with all the energy, address, and ability, that it was possible for any officer to exercise under the same circumstances. His plans were well laid, and the crown of victory was clearly within his reach, when another stepped into his place, who, to secure the prize, had only to stand still and wait the onward tide of events. General Gates was successful, where it would have been impossible for any man, with a particle of prudence, to fail. Fortune was his friend, and to her caprices, more than to all other causes combined, he was indebted for the glory he acquired in gathering the laurels of Saratoga.*

*A just and well written tribute to the character of General Schuyler, may be found in Chancellor Kent's late Discourse before the Historical Society of New York.

CHAPTER IX.

MR MORRIS CHOSEN A DELEGATE TO THE CONTINENTAL

CONGRESS

AT

FROM NEW YORK. TAKES HIS SEAT.-PASSES THE WINTER VALLEY FORGE ON A COMMITTEE FROM CONGRESS.-HIS INTIMACY WITH WASHINGTON.-ARRANGEMENTS OF THE ARMY.-HE DRAWS UP A PAPER FOR CONGRESS ON THE STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. -DEBATES IN CONGRESS ON A PROVISION FOR HALF PAY TO THE OFFICERS.-CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR JAY AND GENERAL WASHINGTON. CONWAY'S INTRIGUES.-GENERAL GREENE.

On the thirteenth of May the Convention, which formed and adopted the Constitution of New York, dissolved itself, as we have seen, and left the affairs of government in the hands of a Council of Safety. Before the dissolution, a provisionary appointment was made of five delegates to represent the State in Congress, till the Assembly should convene under the new Constitution. Gouverneur Morris was one of these delegates, but the critical posture of affairs in New York, and the demand for his presence in the councils of his own State, prevented his joining Congress, till the time had expired for which he was chosen. On the third of October, when the legislature was convened, a new appointment of delegates took place, in the mode prescribed by the Constitution. Mr Morris was re-elected, but it does not appear by the journals of Congress, that he took his seat till the twentieth of January following.

He had now been nearly three years in public life, and he entered Congress with a reputation for talents, general intelligence, zeal, and activity in business, probably not surpassed by that of any other person of his age in the country, being not yet twenty six years old. Congress manifested at an ear