Even with the collapse of the army Cabal the opposition in Congress was maintained.  “I am very confident,” wrote General Greene, “that there is party business going on again, and, as Mifflin is connected with it, I doubt not its being a revival of the old scheme;” again writing, “General Schuyler and others consider it a plan of Mifflin’s to injure your Excellency’s operations.  I am now fully convinced of the reality of what I suggested to you before I came away.”  In 1779 John Sullivan, then a member of Congress, wrote,—­

“Permit me to inform your Excellency, that the faction raised against you in 1777, is not yet destroyed.  The members are waiting to collect strength, and seize some favorable moment to appear in force.  I speak not from conjecture, but from certain knowledge.  Their plan is to take every method of proving the danger arising from a commander, who enjoys the full and unlimited confidence of his army, and alarm the people with the prospects of imaginary evils; nay, they will endeavor to convert your virtue into arrows, with which, they will seek to wound you.”

But Washington could not be forced into a resignation, ill-treat and slight him as they would, and at no time were they strong enough to vote him out of office.  For once a Congressional “deal” between New England and Virginia did not succeed, and as Washington himself wrote, “I have a good deal of reason to believe that the machination of this junto will recoil on their own heads, and be a means of bringing some matters to light which by getting me out of the way, some of them thought to conceal,” In this he was right, for the re-elections of both Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee were put in danger, and for some time they were discredited even in their own colonies.  “I have happily had,” Washington said to a correspondent, “but few differences with those with whom I have had the honor of being connected in the service.  With whom, and of what nature these have been, you know.  I bore much for the sake of peace and the public good”

As is well known, Washington served without pay during his eight years of command, and, as he said, “fifty thousand pounds would not induce me again to undergo what I have done.”  No wonder he declared “that the God of armies may incline the hearts of my American brethren to support the present contest, and bestow sufficient abilities on me to bring it to a speedy and happy conclusion, thereby enabling me to sink into sweet retirement, and the full enjoyment of that peace and happiness, which will accompany a domestic life, is the first wish and most fervent prayer of my soul.”