[4]

[3] Mr. William L. Stone, the historical writer, recently published
the diary of a relative who served a few months in the Revolution,
and who received ten sheep for enlisting. The soldier in question
appears to have been in the habit of going home whenever he felt
like it to cultivate his crops.

Governor Clinton said of the militia: "They come in the morning and
return in the evening, and I never know when I have them, or what my
strength is."--_Letter to the New York Council of Safety._

[4] M. Barbe Marbois, who was Secretary of the French Legation in
the United States during the Revolution, says of Washington: "The
sound judgment of Washington, his steadiness and ability, had long
since elevated him above all his rivals and far beyond the reach of
envy. His enemies still labored, however, to fasten upon him, as a
general, the reproach of mediocrity. It is true that the military
career of this great man is not marked by any of those achievements
which seem prodigious, and of which the splendor dazzles and
astonishes the universe, but sublime virtues unsullied with the
least stain are a species of prodigy. His conduct throughout the
whole course of the war invariably attracted and deserved the
veneration and confidence of his fellow-citizens. The good of his
country was the sole end of his exertions, never personal glory. In
war and in peace, Washington is in my eyes the most perfect model
that can be offered to those who would devote themselves to the
service of their country and assert the cause of liberty."

As a statesman Washington merited distinction fully equal to that gained
in his military career. To him the United States were always a nation,
and only as a nation could they exist. His influence was as potent in
forming the Union as his military genius had been in achieving
independence, and the veneration with which he was regarded abroad
secured for the new nation a degree of respect in foreign cabinets, which
was almost vital to its existence, and which no other American could have
commanded. At home, too, he rose superior to the discord of ambitious men
and of rival factions, and those who, like Edmund Randolph, attempted to
belittle him, only called attention thereby to their own comparative
unworthiness and insignificance, and were glad in later years to