Human nature could not bear up against such protracted sufferings, and desertions and plunder of private property became frequent.

Washington, all this time, had not a kitchen to cook his dinner in, although his guards had put up the logs of one for him. His family consisted of eighteen, which, with that of Mrs. Ford, were "all crowded together in her kitchen, and scarce one of them able to speak for the colds they had caught." Washington crowded into a kitchen with more than twenty others, for two months, without salary, without reward of any kind, and struggling with a selfish Congress, and compelled to defend the purity of his motives from the aspersions of those for whose benefit he is laboring, is a study for a patriot.

During this extreme cold weather, Lord Stirling took fifteen hundred men in sleds and crossed the ice at midnight, from Elizabethtown to Staten Island, to surprise the British. The latter had, however, got wind of the expedition, and the troops returned with only a few prisoners, some blankets and stores as trophies. One third of this detachment had some parts of their persons frozen, and were more or less seriously injured. A sort of partisan warfare was maintained all winter, keeping the camp in a constant state of watchfulness. As an illustration of the duties of the Life Guard, it was their habit during this winter, at the first discharge of guns along the line of sentinels, to rush into Washington's house, barricade the doors, throw up the windows, and stand five to a window, with muskets cocked and brought to a charge. On some mere foolish alarm, Washington's wife and Mrs. Ford would often be compelled to lie shivering within their bed-curtains till the cause of it could be ascertained.

The Chevalier de Luzerne, who had succeeded Gerard as minister, visited Washington in camp, as he had previously done at West Point. The cheerful manner with which he,

from the first, accepted the poor fare and miserable accommodations offered him, had won the good-will and respect of both officers and men. Spain having also at last declared war against England, our prospects grew still brighter, and a Spanish agent, though not an accredited one, named Miralles, accompanied Luzerne to look after the interests of his government in the south. He died this winter at Morristown, and was buried with distinguished honors, Washington and the principal officers appearing as chief mourners. To prevent any one from reopening the grave, to obtain possession of the diamonds and jewels that were buried with him, a guard was placed over it till the body could be taken to Philadelphia for interment.

It was while encamped here that the following incident occurred, illustrating Washington's religious character. On hearing that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be administered in the Presbyterian church, the following Sunday, he called on the pastor, Dr. Jones, and inquired if they allowed the communicants of other churches to unite with them in the service. "Most certainly," replied the doctor, "ours is not a Presbyterian table, but the Lord's table, general, and hence we give the Lord's invitation to all his followers of whatever name." Washington replied that he was glad of it-that so it should be, and next Sunday was seen seated among the communicants. Unsullied by his camp life, with not a stain on his blade, he could go from the battle-field to the communion-table, as well as to his closet in the wintry forest.

The subject of the exchange of prisoners being again presented by the British commander, the French minister was very solicitous that Washington should not consent to any but the most favorable terms; urging the double motive that the British government now found it hard to replenish the army from Germany, and needed men badly, and, also, that it was of the utmost importance to insist on a perfect

equality in all things, not only for our own sake at home, but from the effect of such a position abroad.

During this winter the finances of the country reached their lowest ebb, and national bankruptcy seemed inevitable. Lotteries for loans, laws making paper a legal tender, and every substitute only plunged the nation into deeper diffi culties. Every measure calculated to bring relief was seized on by speculators, to advance their own interests, and thus added to the embarrassment already existing. Washington became so indignant at this villany of "forestallers," as he called them, or mere speculators, that in a letter to Read, he said "I would to God that some of the more atrocious in each State were hung in gibbets, upon a gallows four times as high as the one prepared for Haman." The British and loyalists saw the dilemma into which the government had fallen, and increased it by issuing large quantities of forged paper. They felt and said that unless we could obtain a foreign loan, which they did not believe possible, "unless all the moneyed nations had turned fools," we must inevitably go to the wall. No more battles were needed; bankruptcy would finish the rebellion. Washington had all along predicted such a crisis, and now, with other patriots, looked gloomily into that gloomiest of all gulfs in time of war, a bankrupt treasury,

At the beginning of April the army consisted of only ten thousand four hundred men. This number was soon after still more reduced, by sending off reinforcements to the South, where now was the chief theatre of the war.

To enliven a little the gloom that at this time encompassed the struggle for liberty, Lafayette, the untiring friend and resistless pleader for the American cause, arrived with the cheerful intelligence that the French government had sent six ships-of-the-line, and six thousand troops, which would soon be on our coast. He landed at Boston amid public rejoicing, but locked up the glad tidings he bore, till