atoned for their desertion, and mingles admiration with censure.

Washington was at New-Windsor, on the Hudson, immediately above the Highlands, when the news of the mutiny reached him, which was before the civil authorities of Pennsylvania had yielded in a great measure to the demands of the mutineers. He was placed in a situation of great embarrassment. He equally felt the justice of the demands of the poor soldiers, and the danger of compliance. To deny them might be followed by perseverance in the course they had taken; to yield to threats, made with arms in their hands, would, beyond doubt, encourage others having equal cause of complaint to pursue a similar course.

Under these circumstances, he declined to interpose that personal authority and influence which had hitherto been so uniformly successful in quelling the discontents of his army. He despaired of success, and did not choose to risk a failure, which might give a decisive shock to his dominion over the minds of his soldiers, and be the forerunner of a habit of disobedience fatal to his authority, which he felt was mainly based on their affection and confidence. It is

probable, too, that, having failed from year to year in his exertions to impress upon Congress and the states the importance of a new and better organization of the army, as well as more attention to their wants, he might rationally conclude it was best to leave to the civil authorities the settlement of difficulties justly referable to their own conduct. They required a serious lesson in the shape of an example, since precept had failed in producing a reformation. No immediate danger could result from the withdrawal of the Pennsylvania line in the dead of winter, and now was, perhaps, the best time to impress upon Congress and the state authorities the absolute necessity of providing for the future pay and wants of the army.

He justly concluded, that if a compliance with their wishes was accorded to the mutinous soldiers, it had better be done by the civil power than the commander-in-chief, who, by yielding to the demands of soldiers with arms in their hands, would give an example fatal to the future discipline of the army and his own authority. Accordingly, he contented himself with recommending to General Waynea watchful vigilance over the movements of

other portions of the army in his immediate vicinity, and advising him to draw the refractory line to the western side of the Delaware, for the purpose of rendering it more difficult. for the enemy to tamper with them in their present state of excitement.

The executive council of Pennsylvania having yielded to the demands of the mutinous soldiers, the consequences of this successful violence soon became apparent in the conduct of the other divisions of the American army. A considerable portion of the Jersey brigade took up arms, turned out, and made demands similar to those so successfully asserted by their neighbours of Pennsylvania; and there was reason to fear that a general disaffection would ere long manifest itself by similar effects. in other divisions.

Washington, who deliberated with great caution, acted with celerity when he had decided. He had foreseen the consequences of complying with demands which, though just, were illtimed, and made in a manner destructive to all military discipline. Perceiving also that in all probability every additional example of successful mutiny would be a signal for others, he

determined at once to take prompt and decisive measures towards the Jersey brigade. He directed the American General Howe to march against the new mutineers; to quell the resistance at all hazards; to make no terms with them under any circumstances; and whether they surrendered their arms, or resisted by force, to seize and hang a few of their ringleaders in the presence of their confederates. No resistance was made to General Howe; the mutineers laid down their arms; two of the most active were shot, and the remainder returned to their duty to a country which nothing but a series of hardships and privations, difficult for the most patriotic to bear, had prompted them, in a moment of impatient suffering, to desert.

Presuming that these ominous lessons might carry with them an influence which all his own unanswerable representations had failed to exercise, Washington seized this crisis to renew them. He wrote a circular letter, referring to the events just related, and urging on the states the fulfilment of their engagements to the suffering soldiery. While he reprehended their conduct, he pointed out the justice of their

complaints. They were frequently in want of provisions, and one of the usual modes of procuring supplies, only to be justified by the law of necessity, was sending out parties to seize them wherever they were to be found. Such expedients, besides being necessarily uncertain, carry with them the grossest violations of the right of property, accompanied by insult and all the aggravations of lawless violence. Nothing can operate more powerfully to render a people disaffected to the noblest principles than a resort to such desperate measures; and that the inhabitants of the United States so generally remained faithful to a cause which entailed upon them the wrongs, not only of enemies, but of friends, is a proof of patriotism which should be remembered with gratitude by their posterity.

Believing, as I do, that the life and actions. of Washington exhibit one series of the finest moral lessons to be found in those of any other hero, ancient or modern, and that his military fame, high as it is, must yield the palm to his wisdom and his virtues, I am the more solicitous to dwell on those situations which, though they perhaps may not excite the admiration of