and my duty as a good citizen,” and, as Washington wrote to a friend, “the author of the Queries, ‘Political and Military,’ has had no cause to exult in the favorable reception of them by the public.”  With Lee’s disappearance the last army rival dropped from the ranks, and from that time there was no question as to who should command the armies of America.  Long after, a would-be editor of Lee’s papers wrote to Washington to ask if he had any wishes in regard to the publication, and was told in the reply that,—­

“I never had a difference with that gentleman, but on public ground, and my conduct towards him upon this occasion was such only, as I conceived myself indispensably bound to adopt in discharge of the public trust reposed in me.  If this produced in him unfavorable sentiments of me, I yet can never consider the conduct I pursued, with respect to him, either wrong or improper, however I may regret that it may have been differently viewed by him and that it excited his censure and animadversions.  Should there appear in General Lee’s writings any thing injurious or unfriendly to me, the impartial and dispassionate world must decide how far I deserved it from the general tenor of my conduct.”

These attempts to undermine Washington owed their real vitality to the Continental Congress, and it is safe to say that but for Washington’s political enemies no army rival would have ventured to push forward.  In what the opposition in that body consisted, and to what length it went, are discussed elsewhere, but a glance at the reasons of hostility to him is proper here.

John Adams declared himself “sick of the Fabian systems,” and in writing of the thanksgiving for the Saratoga Convention, he said that “one cause of it ought to be that the glory of turning the tide of arms is not immediately due to the commander-in-chief....  If it had, idolatry and adulation would have been unbounded.”  James Lovell asserted that “Our affairs are Fabiused into a very disagreeable posture,” and wrote that “depend upon it for every ten soldiers placed under the command of our Fabius, five recruits will be wanted annually during the war.”  William Williams agreed with Jonathan Trumbull that the time had come when “a much exalted character should make way for a general” and suggested if this was not done “voluntarily,” those to whom the public looked should “see to it.”  Abraham Clark thought “we may talk of the Enemy’s Cruelty as we will, but we have no greater Cruelty to complain of than the Management of our Army.”  Jonathan D. Sargent asserted that “we want a general—­thousands of Lives & Millions of Property are yearly sacrificed to the Insufficiency of our Commander-in-Chief—­Two Battles he has lost for us by two such Blunders as might have disgraced a Soldier of three months standing, and yet we are so attached to this Man that I fear we shall rather sink with him than throw him off our Shoulders.  And sink we must under his Management.  Such Feebleness,