LX. against five; but nothing more was determined. The CHAP. debate on opening the ports was then continued; but seven weeks of hesitation preceded its decision. On the day of this discussion the assembly of Pennsylvania formed a quorum. It required of Joseph Reed, who had been chosen a member in the place of Mifflin, the oath of allegiance to King George; in a few days, the more wary Franklin, who thus far had not taken his seat in so loyal a body, sent in his resignation, under a plea of age, and was succeeded by Rittenhouse. On the nineteenth, Smith, the provost of the college in Philadelphia, delivered before congress, the Pennsylvania assembly, and other invited bodies, a eulogy on Montgomery; when, two days later, William Livingston moved a vote of thanks to the speaker, with a request that he would print his oration, earnest objections were raised, "because he had declared the sentiments of the congress to be in favor of continuing in a state of dependence." Livingston was sustained by Duane, Wilson, and Willing; was opposed by Chase, John Adams, Wythe, Edward Rutledge, Wolcott, and Sherman; and at last the motion was withdrawn. Yet there still prevailed a disinclination to grapple with the ever recurring question which required immediate solution. The system of short enlistments appeared to Washington so fraught with danger, that, unasked by congress and even against their resolves, he forced his advice upon them; and on the twenty second they took into consideration his importunate protest against the policy of raising a new army for each campaign. The system, of which the hazard was 1776 Feb. LX CHAP. incalculable, had precipitated the fate of Montgom~ery, had exposed his own position to imminent peril. 1776 Successive bodies of raw recruits could not form a Feb. well disciplined army, or perform the service of vet erans; their losses were always great while becoming inured to the camp; it was their nature to waste arms, ammunition, camp utensils, and barracks; discipline would be relaxed for the sake of inducing a second enlistment; the expense of calling in militia men, of whom at every relief two must be paid for the service of one, was enormous. The trouble and perplexity of disbanding one army and raising another at the same instant, and in the presence of an enemy, were, as he knew, "such as it is scarcely in the power of words to describe, and such as no man who had experienced them once would ever undergo again." He therefore proposed that a large bounty should be offered, and soldiers enlisted for the war. The obvious wisdom of the advice and the solemnity with which it was enforced, arrested attention; and Samuel Adams proposed to take up the question of lengthening the time of enlistments, which had originally been limited from the hope of a speedy reconciliation. Some members would not yet admit the thought of a protracted war; some rested hope on Rockingham and Chatham; some wished first to ascertain the powers of the coming commissioners; some wanted to wait for an explicit declaration from France; from the revolution of 1688 opposition to a standing army had been the watchword of liberty; the New England colonies had from their beginning been defended by their own militia; in the last French war, troops had been called out only for the season. "En LX. Feb. listment for a long period," said Sherman, "is a state CHAP. of slavery; a rotation of service in arms is favorable to liberty." "I am in favor of the proposition to 1776. raise men for the war," said John Adams; "but not to depend upon it, as men must be averse to it, and the war may last ten years." Congress was not in a mood to adopt decisive measures; and the touching entreaties of the general were passed by unheeded. England was sending over veteran armies; and they were to be met by soldiers engaged only for a year. The debate branched off into a discussion on the pay of officers, respecting which the frugal statesmen of the north differed from those of the south; John Adams thought the democratic tendency in New England less dangerous than the aristocratic tendency elsewhere; and Harrison seemed to insinuate that the war was a New England war. But it was becoming plain that danger hung over every part of the country; on the twenty seventh, the five middle colonies. from New York to Maryland were therefore constituted one military department, the four south of the Potomac another; and on the first of March, six new Mar. generals of brigade were appointed. In the selection for Virginia there was difficulty: Patrick Henry had been the first colonel in her army; but the committee of safety did not favor his military ambition, and the prevailing opinion recalled him to civil life; in the judgment of Washington, "Mercer would have supplied the place well;" but he was a native of Scotland; so the choice fell upon Andrew Lewis, whose courage Washington did not question, but who still suffered from "the odium thrown upon his conduct at Kanawha," where he had lingered in his camp, while the officers Mar. CHAP. and men, whom he sent forth, with fearless gallantry LX. and a terrible loss of life, shed over Virginia a lustre 1776. that reached to Tennessee and Kentucky. Congress soon repented of its election; and in less than a year forced Lewis to resign, by promoting an officer of very little merit over his head. To meet the expenses of the war, four millions of dollars in bills were ordered to be struck; which, with six millions already issued, would form a paper currency of ten millions. A few days later a committee of seven, including Duane and Robert Morris, was appointed on the ways and means of raising the supplies for the year, over and above the emission of bills of credit; but they never so much as made a report. Another committee was appointed, continued, and enlarged; and their labors were equally fruitless. Congress had neither credit to borrow nor power to tax. An officious and unauthorized suggestion from Lord Drummond to send a deputation to England in quest of "liberal terms founded in equity and candor," could claim no notice; the want of supplies, which was so urgent that two thousand men in Washington's army were destitute of arms and unable to procure them, led to an appeal in a different direc tion; and Silas Deane,—a graduate of Yale College, at one time a schoolmaster, afterwards a trader; reputed in congress to be well versed in commercial affairs; superficial, yet able to write and speak readily and plausibly; wanting deliberate forecast, accurate information, solidity of judgment, secrecy, and integrity,-finding himself left out of the delegation from Connecticut, whose confidence he never pos LX. Mar. sessed, solicited and received from the committee of CHAP. secret correspondence an appointment as commercial commissioner and agent to France. That country, the 1776. committee instructed him to say, "is pitched upon for the first application, from an opinion that if we should, as there is appearance we shall, come to a total separation with Great Britain, France would be the power whose friendship it would be fittest for us to obtain and cultivate." The announcement was coupled with a request for clothing and arms for twenty five thousand men, a hundred fieldpieces, and a suitable quantity of ammunition. This was the act of a committee; congress was itself about to send commissioners to Canada, and their instructions, reported by John Adams, Wythe, and Sherman, contained this clause: "You are to declare, that it is our inclination that the people of Canada may set up such a form of government as will be most likely in their judgment to produce their happiness." This invitation to the Canadians to form a government without any limitation of time, was, for three or four hours, resisted by Jay and others, on the ground that it "was an independency;" but the words were adopted, and they foreshadowed a similar decision for each one of the United Colonies. Congress had received the act of parliament prohibiting all trade with the thirteen colonies, and confiscating their ships and effects as if they were the ships and effects of open enemies. The first instinct was to retaliate; and on the sixteenth of March a committee of the whole considered the propriety of authorizing the inhabitants of the colonies to fit out privateers. Again it appeared that there |