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ET. 49.]

PROPOSAL TO MAKE WASHINGTON A KING.

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might be produced for admitting the title of KING, which I conceive would be attended with some national advantage."

How little did even Nicola, who was very intimate with Washington, comprehend the true character of his disinterested patriotism in all its breadth and depth! The commander-in-chief perceived that Nicola was only the organ of a dangerous military faction, whose object was to create a new government through the active energies of the army, and to place their present leader at the head. He sympathized with the army in its distresses, but this movement met with his severest rebuke.

"Sir," said Washington, in a responsive letter to Nicola, "With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment, I have read with attention the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of this war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and which I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the present, the communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same time, in justice to my own feelings, I must add, that no man possesses a more serious wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do; and, as far as my power and influence, in a constitutional way, extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature. I am, etc."

This stern rebuke at once silenced the faction, and checked all further movement in the direction of king-making. How brightly

did the patriotism of Washington shine out in this affair! At the head of a victorious army; beloved and venerated by it and by the people; with personal influence unbounded, and with power in possession for consummating almost any political scheme not apparently derogatory to good government, he receives from an officer whom he greatly esteems, and who speaks for himself and others, an offer of the sceptre of supreme rule and the crown of royalty! What a bribe! Yet he does not hesitate for a moment; he does not stop to revolve in his mind any ideas of advantage in the proposed scheme, but at once rebukes the author sternly but kindly, and impresses his signet of strongest disapprobation upon the proposal. History can not present a parallel.

The summer of 1782 passed away without much apparent progress being made toward a definite and permanent arrangement for peace. At the beginning of August, Carleton and Digby wrote a joint letter to Washington, informing him that they had good authority for saying, that negotiations for peace had been commenced at Paris, by commissioners, and that the British representatives in that conference, would first propose the independence of the United States as a basis. But Washington, taught by past experience, was still doubtful of the reality of all these professions. "Jealousy and precaution," he said, "at least can do no harm. Too much confidence and supineness may be pernicious in the extreme."

No wonder he still doubted. The British government had not yet made any offer for a general cessation of hostilities. The Americans had allies whose interests must be consulted. Hostilities might cease in the United States, according to recent enactments of Parliament, but the very forces then on our shores, might be sent to make war upon the French dominions in the West Indies. The public faith required that the interests of France should be considered in the negotiations for peace; and until a cessation of general hostilities should be officially proclaimed by Great Britain, Washington resolved to be prepared for a renewal of the war.

Thus viewing affairs, the commander-in-chief advised Rochambeau, who was then (August, 1782) at Baltimore, to march his

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