t Washington
could be driven to resign. They knew that they could not get either
Congress or public opinion to support them in removing him, but they
believed that a few well-placed slights and insults would make him
remove himself. It was just here that they made their mistake.
Washington, as they were aware, was sensitive and high-spirited to
the last degree, and he had no love for office, but he was not one of
those weaklings who leave power and place in a pet because they are
criticised and assailed. He was not ambitious in the ordinary personal
sense, but he had a passion for success. Whether it was breaking a
horse, or reclaiming land, or fighting Indians, or saving a state,
whatever he set his hand to, that he carried through to the end. With
him there never was any shadow of turning back. When, without any
self-seeking, he was placed at the head of the Revolution, he made
up his mind that he would carry it through everything to victory, if
victory were possible. Death or a prison could stop him, but neither
defeat nor neglect, and still less the forces of intrigue and cabal.

When he wrote to his brother announcing Burgoyne's surrender, he had
nothing to say of the slight Gates put upon him, but merely added in
a postscript, "I most devoutly congratulate my country and every
well-wisher to the cause on this signal stroke of Providence." This
was his tone to every one, both in private and public. His complaint
of not being properly notified he made to Gates alone, and put it in
the form of a rebuke. He knew of the movement against him from the
beginning, but apparently the first person he confided in was Conway,
when he sent him the brief note of November 9. Even after the cabal
was fully developed, he wrote about it only once or twice, when
compelled to do so, and there is no evidence that he ever talked about
it except, perhaps, to a few most intimate friends. In a letter to
Patrick Henry he said that he was obliged to allow a false impression
as to his strength to go abroad, and that he suffered in consequence;
and he added, with a little touch of feeling, that while the
yeomanry of New York and New England poured into the camp of Gates,
outnumbering the enemy two to one, he could get no aid of that sort
from Pennsylvania, and still marvels were demanded of him.

Thus he went on his way through the winter, silent except when obliged
to answer some friend, and always ready to meet his enemies. When
Conway com