constantly exposed to the most horrible forms of mob violence. If they succeeded in escaping to the British lines, their property was confiscated (oftentimes to enrich grafting speculators at corruptly managed sales), and they themselves, by hundreds

COLONEL BAUASTRE TARLETON, the commander of "Tarleton's Legion," the most famous of all the Loyalist regiments. A painting by Reynolds.

at a time, were condemned

to death in case of return

A "bill of attainder" is a legislative act imposing penalties upon one or more individuals. The legislature condemns, not the courts; and of course the accused lose all the ordinary securities against injustice. Such bills had been used occasionally in English history. By our constitution of 1787, bills of attainder are wholly forbidden. Until the adoption of that instrument, however, many States did pass such bills against prominent Tories,-sometimes against great numbers of them at once. An attempt was made in the Virginia bill of rights to prohibit such bills; but Patrick Henry urged that they might be indispensable in that time of war. Some States incorporated the prohibition in their first bill of rights.

§ 286]

YORKTOWN

239

mendous odds. Meantime, in America, Congress kept its sinking finances afloat by generous gifts and huge loans from France. The army, however, was dangerously discontented. Desertions to the enemy rose to a hundred or two hundred a month.

Suddenly an unexpected chance offered. Washington, ever ready, grasped at it, and this time no evil fate intervened. With the indispensable coöperation of the French army and fleet, Cornwallis and his army were cooped up in Yorktown. With

Trumbull in the Capitol at Washington.

his surrender (October 19, 1781) war virtually closed, though peace was not signed, nor British troops withdrawn from the American coast, for many months.

286. While peace negotiations dragged along in Europe, came one more famous episode in America. This was Washington's "Newburg Address." The pay of the army was years behind, and Congress showed no wish to settle the matter. Taking advantage of the soldiers' bitter discontent, a group of officers in the camp at Newburg formed a plan to get better 1 Cf. Modern Progress, p. 246, or Modern World, § 498.

government by making Washington king. This proposition. Washington at once repulsed, with grieved anger; but still an anonymous committee called a meeting of officers to find some way of forcing Congress to act while the army still had arms in their hands. A conflict that would have sullied the beginning of the new nation's career was averted only by the tact and unrivaled influence of Washington. He anticipated the meeting of the officers by calling an earlier one himself, at which he prevailed upon their patriotism to abandon all forms of armed compulsion; and then he finally prevailed upon Congress to pay a five years' salary in government certificates, worth perhaps twenty cents on the dollar, a meager return, but perhaps all that the demoralized government at that date was equal to.

287. The negotiations for peace were carried on from Paris, with Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams to represent the United States. In spite of King George, the fall of Yorktown overthrew Lord North's ministry; and the new English gov, ernment contained statesmen friendly to America, such as Fox, Rockingham, and Shelburne (§ 230). This fact and the remarkable ability of the American negotiators resulted in a treaty marvelously advantageous. England could not well avoid conceding American independence, but Shelburne meant to do it in generous fashion. He intended not merely peace, he said, but "reconciliation with America, on the noblest terms and by the noblest means."

288. The important question concerned territory. Just before the war (1769), a few Virginians had crossed the western mountains to settle in fertile lands between the Ohio and Cumberland rivers, in what we now call Kentucky and Tennessee; and, during the war itself, many thousands had established homes in that region. From the Kentucky settlements, George Rogers Clark, a Virginia officer, in incredibly daring campaigns (1778-1779), had captured from England the old French posts Kaskaskia and Cahokia, on the Mississippi, and Vincennes on the Wabash. This district, though it contained