struggling his best with great
anxieties, and with a host of petty cares. Washington, nevertheless,
kept his temper, and replied only by setting down a few hard facts
which answered the demands of Congress in a final manner, and with all
the sting of truth. Thus a little irritation had been generated
in Congress against the general, and there were some members who
developed a good deal of pronounced hostility. Sam Adams, a born
agitator and a trained politician, unequaled almost in our history as
an organizer and manager of men, able, narrow, coldly fierce, the man
of the town meeting and the caucus, had no possibility of intellectual
sympathy with the silent, patient, hard-gripping soldier, hemmed with
difficulties, but ever moving straight forward to his object, with
occasional wild gusts of reckless fighting passion. John Adams, too,
brilliant of speech and pen, ardent, patriotic, and high-minded,
was, in his way, out of touch with Washington. Although he moved
Washington's appointment, he began almost immediately to find fault
with him, an exercise to which he was extremely prone. Inasmuch as he
could see how things ought to be done, he could not understand
why they were not done in that way at once, for he had a fine
forgetfulness of other people's difficulties, as is the case with most
of us. The New England representatives generally took their cue from
these two, especially James Lovell, who carried his ideas into action,
and obtained a little niche in the temple of fame by making
himself disagreeably conspicuous in the intrigue against the
commander-in-chief, when it finally developed.

There were others, too, outside New England who were discontented, and
among them Richard Henry Lee, from the General's own State. He was
evidently critical and somewhat unfriendly at this time, although the
reasons for his being so are not now very distinct. Then there was Mr.
Clark of New Jersey, an excellent man, who thought the General was
invading popular rights; and to him others might be added who vaguely
felt that things ought to be better than they were. This party,
adverse to Washington, obtained the appointment of Gates to the
northern department, under whom the army won a great victory, and they
were correspondingly happy. John Adams wrote his wife that one
cause of thanksgiving was that the tide had not been turned by the
commander-in-chief and southern troops, for the adulation would have
been intolerable; and that