XI. CHAPTER taining such facts, discussions, and opinions, as the judgment and military skill of the writers enabled them to present. 1778. Congress send a com army. January 10. Moved by the earnest solicitations of Washington, Conmittee to the gress at the same time took the subject into consideration. Their debates finally terminated in the appointment of a committee of five members of their body, who were instructed to repair to the camp at Valley Forge, and invested with ample powers to confer with the Commander, and digest in concert with him such a system as would correct existing abuses, lead to salutary reforms, and put the army on the footing he desired. When the committee arrived in camp, he laid before them a memoir, drawn up with great care, representing in detail the defects of previous arrangements, and containing an outline of a new and improved system. The committee continued in camp three months, and then returned to Congress and presented a report, which was in the main adopted. Half-pay to the officers for life proposed. On one point, however, which Washington considered not more equitable in itself, than essential to the continuance of an army, there was great difference of opinion among the members of Congress. Hitherto there had been no provision made for the officers after the war should end, and no other inducement offered to them than their * The author of the Life of Hamilton has claimed for him a larger share in this important memoir than can justly be conceded. He says, "it is manifestly the work of Colonel Hamilton." This inference is drawn from the circumstance, that a draft exists in his handwriting. But it was in fact the work of many hands. There are few points in the paper itself, which are not contained or intimated in some of the communications of the general officers. As one of General Washington's aids, it was natural that Colonel Hamilton should be employed to arrange and condense the materials into the proper form of a report, especially as no one connected with the General's family was better qualified to execute the task, both from his knowledge of the subject and his ability. This is the only sense in which it can be considered as his work. Indeed, whoever is accustomed to consult the manuscripts of public documents will often be led into error, if he ascribes the authorship of every paper to the person in whose handwriting it may be found. This remark has particular force, when applied to the im common wages while in actual service. Numerous com CHAPTER XI. Arguments pay estab for a half lishment. April 10. plaints and resignations convinced Washington, that this motive, even when strengthened by ambition and patriot- 1778. ism, was not enough. He proposed half-pay for life, after the close of the war, or some other permanent provision. "If my opinion be asked," said he in a letter to Congress, "with respect to the necessity of making this provision for the officers, I am ready to declare, that I do most religiously believe the salvation of the cause depends upon it, and, without it, your officers will moulder to nothing, or be composed of low and illiterate men, void of capacity for this or any other business. To prove this, I can with truth aver, that scarce a day passes without the offer of two or three commissions; and my advices from the eastward and southward are, that numbers who had gone home on furlough mean not to return, but are establishing themselves in more lucrative employments. Let Congress determine what will be the consequence of this spirit. "Personally, as an officer, I have no interest in their decision, because I have declared, and I now repeat it, that I never will receive the smallest benefit from the half-pay establishment; but, as a man who fights under the weight of proscription, and as a citizen, who wishes portant papers to which Washington affixed his name. They were always the result of patient thought and investigation on his own part, aided by such light as he could collect from others, in whose intelligence and judgment he could confide. Whatever pen he may have employed to embody these results, it may be laid down as a rule, to which there is no exception, that the writer aimed to express as clearly and compactly as he could what he knew to be the sentiments of Washington. This fact alone can account for the extraordinary uniformity in style, modes of expression, and turns of thought, which prevails throughout the immense body of Washington's letters, from his earliest youth to the end of his life. It will seldom be accurate to say, in regard to any of his papers, that the person, in whose handwriting they may be found, was their author; nor indeed is it believed that there is in history an instance of a public man, who was in the genuine sense of the term more emphatically the author of the papers, which received the sanction of his name. ΧΙ. 1778. CHAPTER to see the liberty of his country established upon a permanent foundation, and whose property depends upon the success of our arms, I am deeply interested. But, all this apart, and justice out of the question, upon the single ground of economy and public saving, I will maintain the utility of it; for I have not the least doubt, that, until officers consider their commissions in an honorable and interested point of view, and are afraid to endanger them by negligence and inattention, no order, regularity, or care, either of the men or public property, will prevail." New encouragement to the officers necessary. April 21. Difference between the British and American service. Finding that the proposition was opposed in Congress, upon principles which seemed to him erroneous and impolitic, he wrote to one of the members in terms still more earnest. "The officers will not be persuaded," he observed, "to sacrifice all views of present interest, and encounter the numerous vicissitudes of war, in the defence of their country, unless she will be generous enough on her part to make a decent provision for their future support. I do not pronounce absolutely, that we shall have no army if the establishment fails, but the army which we may have will be without discipline, without energy, incapable of acting with vigor, and destitute of those cements necessary to promise success on the one hand, or to withstand the shocks of adversity on the other. It is indeed hard to say how extensive the evil may be, if the measure should be rejected, or much longer delayed. I find it a very arduous task to keep the officers in tolerable humor, and to protract such a combination for quitting the service, as might possibly undo us for ever. "The difference between our service and that of the enemy is very striking. With us, from the peculiar, unhappy situation of things, the officer, a few instances excepted, must break in upon his private fortune for present support, without a prospect of future relief. With them, even companies are esteemed so honorable and so valuable, that they have sold of late from fifteen to twentytwo hundred pounds sterling; and I am credibly inform XI. 1778. ed, that four thousand guineas have been given for a CHAPTER troop of dragoons. You will readily determine how this difference will operate; what effects it must produce. Men may speculate as they will; they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples, from ancient story, of great achievements performed by its influence; but whoever builds upon them, as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war, will find himself deceived in the end. We must take the passions of men as nature has given them, and those principles as a guide, which are generally the rule of action. I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward. For a time it may, of itself, push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties; but it will not endure unassisted by interest." These representations, so judicious and forcible, could not fail to have some influence even on the minds of those, who were the most decided in their hostility to the measure. But they did not produce entire conviction, and the subject met with difficulties and delays. One party thought, or professed to think, that Congress had no power to act in such a matter, and proposed to refer it to the State legislatures; another was haunted with the fear of a standing army, a privileged class, and a pension list; and another could see no difference between the sacrifices of the officers, in defending their country, and of private citizens, whose property was plundered, ravaged, and destroyed by the enemy. After much discussion, the plan of half-pay for life was carried, but by so small a majority that the vote was reconsidered, and a compromise was effected. By the ultimate decision, the officers were to receive half-pay for the term of seven years, and a gratuity of eighty dollars was to be given to each non-commissioned officer and soldier, who should continue in the service to the end of the war. Congress re luctant to grant halfpay for life. CHAPTER XI. 1778. Jealousy of the army in Congress. While this subject was under discussion, Washington saw with deep concern the jealousy of the army, which was manifested in Congress, and its unhappy influence on their deliberations. In other countries this prejudice exists against standing armies only in times of peace, and this because the troops are a distinct body from the citizens, having few interests in common with them, and little other means of support than what flows from their military employment. But "it is our policy," said he, "to be prejudiced against them in time of war, though they are citizens, having all the ties and interests of citizens, and in most cases property totally unconnected with the military line." So heavily did this subject weigh upon his mind, that he unburdened himself freely in a letter to a member of Congress, and used all his endeavors to promote harmony, union, and a national feeling among those on whom the safety of the republic depended, whether acting in a civil or military capacity. "If we would pursue a right system of policy," he observed, "in my opinion, there should be none of these distinctions. We should all, Congress and army, be considered as one people, embarked in one cause, in one interest; acting on the same principle, and to the same end. The distinction, the jealousies set up, or perhaps only incautiously let out, can answer not a single good purpose. They are impolitic in the extreme. Among individuals the most certain way to make a man your enemy is to tell him you esteem him such. So with public bodies; and the very jealousy, which the narrow politics of some may affect to entertain of the army, in order to a due subordination to the supreme civil authority, is a likely means to produce a contrary effect; to incline it to the pursuit of those measures, which they may wish it to avoid. It is unjust, because no order of men in the Hardships of Thirteen States has paid a more sacred regard to the proceedings of Congress than the army; for without arrogance or the smallest deviation from truth it may be said, that no history now extant can furnish an instance of an the troops. |