and arguing, before taking any decisive step.  After much resistance and discussion, a second “humble and dutiful petition” to the king was adopted, and with strange contradiction a confederation was formed at the same time, and Congress proceeded to exercise the sovereign powers thus vested in them.  The most pressing and troublesome question before them was what to do with the army surrounding Boston, and with the actual hostilities there existing.

Washington, for his part, went quietly about as before, saying nothing and observing much, working hard as chairman of the military committees, planning for defense, and arranging for raising an army.  One act of his alone stands out for us with significance at this critical time.  In this second Congress he appeared habitually on the floor in his blue and buff uniform of a Virginia colonel.  It was his way of saying that the hour for action had come, and that he at least was ready for the fight whenever called upon.

Presently he was summoned.  Weary of waiting, John Adams at last declared that Congress must adopt the army and make Washington, who at this mention of his name stepped out of the room, commander-in-chief.  On June 15, formal motions were made to this effect and unanimously adopted, and the next day Washington appeared before Congress and accepted the trust.  His words were few and simple.  He expressed his sense of his own insufficiency for the task before him, and said that as no pecuniary consideration could have induced him to undertake the work, he must decline all pay or emoluments, only looking to Congress to defray his expenses.  In the same spirit he wrote to his soldiers in Virginia, to his brother, and finally, in terms at once simple and pathetic, to his wife.  There was no pretense about this, but the sternest reality of self-distrust, for Washington saw and measured as did no one else the magnitude of the work before him.  He knew that he was about to face the best troops of Europe, and he had learned by experience that after the first excitement was over he would be obliged to rely upon a people who were brave and patriotic, but also undisciplined, untrained, and unprepared for war, without money, without arms, without allies or credit, and torn by selfish local interests.  Nobody else perceived all this as he was able to with his mastery of facts, but he faced the duty unflinchingly.  He did not put it aside because he distrusted himself, for in his truthfulness he could not but confess that no other American could show one tithe of his capacity, experience, or military service.  He knew what was coming, knew it, no doubt, when he first put on his uniform, and he accepted instantly.