wrote a brief and business-like account of the affair to Congress, from which one would hardly suppose that his own life had been aimed at.  It is a curious instance of his cool indifference to personal danger.  The conspiracy had failed, that was sufficient for him, and he had other things besides himself to consider.  “We expect a bloody summer in New York and Canada,” he wrote to his brother, and even while the Canadian expedition was coming to a disastrous close, and was bringing hostile invasion instead of the hoped-for conquest, British men-of-war were arriving daily in the harbor, and a large army was collecting on Staten Island.  The rejoicings over the Declaration of Independence had hardly died away, when the vessels of the enemy made their way up the Hudson without check from the embryo forts, or the obstacles placed in the stream.

July 12 Lord Howe arrived with more troops, and also with ample powers to pardon and negotiate.  Almost immediately he tried to open a correspondence with Washington, but Colonel Reed, in behalf of the General, refused to receive the letter addressed to “Mr. Washington.”  Then Lord Howe sent an officer to the American camp with a second letter, addressed to “George Washington, Esq., etc., etc.”  The bearer was courteously received, but the letter was declined.  “The etc., etc. implies everything,” said the Englishman.  It may also mean “anything,” Washington replied, and added that touching the pardoning power of Lord Howe there could be no pardon where there was no guilt, and where no forgiveness was asked.  As a result of these interviews, Lord Howe wrote to England that it would be well to give Mr. Washington his proper title.  A small question, apparently, this of the form of address, especially to a lover of facts, and yet it was in reality of genuine importance.  To the world Washington represented the young republic, and he was determined to extort from England the first acknowledgment of independence by compelling her to recognize the Americans as belligerents and not rebels.  Washington cared as little for vain shows as any man who ever lived, but he had the highest sense of personal dignity, and of the dignity of his cause and country.  Neither should be allowed to suffer in his hands.  He appreciated the effect on mankind of forms and titles, and with unerring judgment he insisted on what he knew to be of real value.  It is one of the earliest examples of the dignity and good taste which were of such inestimable value to his country.

He had abundant occasion also for the employment of these same qualities, coupled with unwearied patience and tact, in dealing with his own men.  The present army was drawn from a wider range than that which had taken Boston, and sectional jealousies and disputes, growing every day more hateful to the commander-in-chief, sprang up rankly.  The men of Maryland thought those of Connecticut ploughboys; the latter held the