only solicitude shown was to find out the person who brought
them to light; while, in the second letter, the whole was pronounced,
"in word as well as in substance, a wicked forgery." "It is not my
intention," observes Washington, "to contradict this assertion, but
only to intimate some considerations which tend to induce a
supposition that, though none of General Conway's letters to you
contained the offensive passage mentioned, there might have been
something in them too nearly related to it, that could give such an
extraordinary alarm. If this were not the case, how easy in the first
instance to have declared there was nothing exceptionable in them, and
to have produced the letters themselves in support of it?"{1}

{Footnote 1: [The Conway letter proved a further source of trouble to
the cabal. Wilkinson learning that Gates had denounced him as the
betrayer of the letter, and spoken of him in the grossest language,
wrote to Gates demanding honorable reparation. They met, however, and
the explanations of Gates appeased Wilkinson for the time, who now
turned to Lord Stirling as the betrayer of his confidence, asserting
that he should "bleed for his conduct." But in this case, as in the
other, Wilkinson's irritable honor was easily pacified. Lord Stirling
having admitted, according to Wilkinson's request, that the disclosure
in question "occurred in a private company during a convivial hour."
Subsequently Wilkinson was shown, by Washington, Gates' letter, in
which the extract from Conway's letter was pronounced a forgery.
Wilkinson, who was secretary of the Board of War, of which Gates was
president, now resigned his office, compelled to it, as he said, "by
the acts of treachery and falsehood in which he had detected
Major-general Gates." Wilkinson, as bearer of the news of the capture
of Burgoyne to Congress, had been rewarded by promotion to the rank of
brigadier-general. This was protested against by a large number of
colonels, whereupon Wilkinson resigned, and withdrew from the army.]}

CHAPTER XLIX.
EXPLOITS OF LEE AND LAFAYETTE.--BRITISH COMMISSIONERS.

During the winter's encampment at Valley Forge, Washington sedulously
applied himself to the formation of a new system for the army. At his
earnest solicitation, Congress appointed a committee of five, called
the Committee of Arrangement, to repair to the camp and assist him in
the task.{1} Before their arrival he had collected the written
opinions and s