rose, leaning on his crutch and still supported by his friends.  He raised one hand to heaven.  “I thank God,” he said, “that I have been enabled to come hither to-day to fulfil a duty and say what has been weighing so heavily on my heart.  I have already one foot in the grave; I shall soon descend into it; I have left my bed to sustain my country’s cause in this House, perhaps for the last time.  I think myself happy, my lords, that the grave has not yet closed over me, and that I am still alive to raise my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy!  My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as vast in extent as proud in reputation.  Shall we tarnish its lustre by a shameful abandonment of its rights and of its fairest possessions?  Shall this great kingdom, which survived in its entirety the descents of the Danes, the incursions of the Scots, the conquest of the Normans, which stood firm against the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall before the House of Bourbon?  Surely, my lords, we are not what we once were! . . .  In God’s name, if it be absolutely necessary to choose between peace and war, if peace cannot be preserved with honor, why not declare war without hesitation? . . .  My lords, anything is better than despair; let us at least make an effort, and, if we must fail, let us fail like men!”

He dropped back into his seat, exhausted, gasping.  Soon he strove to rise and reply to the Duke of Richmond, but his strength was traitor to his courage, he fainted; a few days later he was dead (May 11th, 1778); the resolution’ of the Duke of Richmond had been rejected.

When this news arrived in America, Washington was seriously uneasy.  He had to keep up an incessant struggle against the delays and the jealousies of Congress; it was by dint of unheard-of efforts and of unwavering perseverance that he succeeded in obtaining the necessary supplies for his army.  “To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness,” he exclaimed, “without blankets to lie upon, without victuals and often without shoes (for you might follow their track by the blood that trickled from their feet), advancing through ice and snow, and taking up their winter-quarters, at Christmas, less than a day’s march from the enemy, in a place where they have not to shelter them either houses or huts but such as they have thrown up themselves,—­to see these men doing all this without a murmur, is an exhibition of patience and obedience such as the world has rarely seen.”

As a set-off against the impassioned devotion of the patriots, Washington knew that the loyalists were still numerous and powerful; the burden of war was beginning to press heavily upon the whole country, he feared some act of weakness.  “Let us accept nothing short of Independence,” he wrote at once to his friends:  “we can never forget the outrages to which Great Britain has made us—­submit; a peace on any other conditions would be a source