The cabal, in fact, was so weak in ability and character that the moment any responsibility fell upon its members it was certain to break down, but the absolutely fatal obstacle to its schemes was the man it aimed to overthrow.  The idea evidently was that Washington could be driven to resign.  They knew that they could not get either Congress or public opinion to support them in removing him, but they believed that a few well-placed slights and insults would make him remove himself.  It was just here that they made their mistake.  Washington, as they were aware, was sensitive and high-spirited to the last degree, and he had no love for office, but he was not one of those weaklings who leave power and place in a pet because they are criticised and assailed.  He was not ambitious in the ordinary personal sense, but he had a passion for success.  Whether it was breaking a horse, or reclaiming land, or fighting Indians, or saving a state, whatever he set his hand to, that he carried through to the end.  With him there never was any shadow of turning back.  When, without any self-seeking, he was placed at the head of the Revolution, he made up his mind that he would carry it through everything to victory, if victory were possible.  Death or a prison could stop him, but neither defeat nor neglect, and still less the forces of intrigue and cabal.

When he wrote to his brother announcing Burgoyne’s surrender, he had nothing to say of the slight Gates put upon him, but merely added in a postscript, “I most devoutly congratulate my country and every well-wisher to the cause on this signal stroke of Providence.”  This was his tone to every one, both in private and public.  His complaint of not being properly notified he made to Gates alone, and put it in the form of a rebuke.  He knew of the movement against him from the beginning, but apparently the first person he confided in was Conway, when he sent him the brief note of November 9.  Even after the cabal was fully developed, he wrote about it only once or twice, when compelled to do so, and there is no evidence that he ever talked about it except, perhaps, to a few most intimate friends.  In a letter to Patrick Henry he said that he was obliged to allow a false impression as to his strength to go abroad, and that he suffered in consequence; and he added, with a little touch of feeling, that while the yeomanry of New York and New England poured into the camp of Gates, outnumbering the enemy two to one, he could get no aid of that sort from Pennsylvania, and still marvels were demanded of him.

Thus he went on his way through the winter, silent except when obliged to answer some friend, and always ready to meet his enemies.  When Conway complained to Congress of his reception at camp, Washington wrote the president that he was not given to dissimulation, and that he certainly had been cold in his manner.  He wrote to Lafayette that slander had been busy, and that he had urged his officers to be cool and