self-contained. The people looked upon him, and were
confident that this was a man worthy and able to dare and do all
things.

On June 21 he set forth accompanied by Lee and Schuyler, and with a
brilliant escort. He had ridden but twenty miles when he was met by
the news of Bunker Hill. "Did the militia fight?" was the immediate
and characteristic question; and being told that they did fight, he
exclaimed, "Then the liberties of the country are safe." Given the
fighting spirit, Washington felt he could do anything. Full of this
important intelligence he pressed forward to Newark, where he was
received by a committee of the provincial congress, sent to conduct
the commander-in-chief to New York. There he tarried long enough to
appoint Schuyler to the charge of the military affairs in that colony,
having mastered on the journey its complicated social and political
conditions. Pushing on through Connecticut he reached Watertown, where
he was received by the provincial congress of Massachusetts, on July
2, with every expression of attachment and confidence. Lingering less
than an hour for this ceremony, he rode on to the headquarters at
Cambridge, and when he came within the lines the shouts of the
soldiers and the booming of cannon announced his arrival to the
English in Boston.

The next day he rode forth in the presence of a great multitude, and
the troops having been drawn up before him, he drew his sword beneath
the historical elm-tree, and took command of the first American army.
"His excellency," wrote Dr. Thatcher in his journal, "was on horseback
in company with several military gentlemen. It was not difficult to
distinguish him from all others. He is tall and well proportioned, and
his personal appearance truly noble and majestic." "He is tall and of
easy and agreeable address," the loyalist Curwen had remarked a few
weeks before; while Mrs. John Adams, warm-hearted and clever, wrote
to her husband after the general's arrival: "Dignity, ease, and
complacency, the gentleman and the soldier, look agreeably blended in
him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face. Those lines of
Dryden instantly occurred to me,--

'Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
His soul's the deity that lodges there;
Nor is the pile unworthy of the God.'"

Lady, lawyer, and surgeon, patriot and tory, all speak alike, and as
they wrote so New England felt. A slave-owner, an a