o fall a victim to Rodney, that he would
not even transport troops to Wilmington. Thus deprived of the force
which alone made comprehensive and extended movements possible,
Washington returned, as he had done so often before, to making the
best of cramped circumstances and straitened means. He sent all the
troops he could spare to Greene, to help him in wresting the southern
States from the enemy, the work to which he had in vain summoned De
Grasse. This done, he prepared to go north. On his way he was stopped
at Eltham by the illness and death of his wife's son, John Custis, a
blow which he felt severely, and which saddened the great victory he
had just achieved. Still the business of the State could not wait on
private grief. He left the house of mourning, and, pausing for an
instant only at Mount Vernon, hastened on to Philadelphia. At the
very moment of victory, and while honorable members were shaking each
other's hands and congratulating each other that the war was now
really over, the commander-in-chief had fallen again to writing them
letters in the old strain, and was once more urging them to keep up
the army, while he himself gave his personal attention to securing a
naval force for the ensuing year, through the medium of Lafayette.
Nothing was ever finished with Washington until it was really complete
throughout, and he had as little time for rejoicing as he had for
despondency or despair, while a British force still remained in the
country. He probably felt that this was as untoward a time as he had
ever met in a pretty large experience of unsuitable occasions, for
offering sound advice, but he was not deterred thereby from doing it.
This time, however, he was destined to an agreeable disappointment,
for on his arrival at Philadelphia he found an excellent spirit
prevailing in Congress. That body was acting cheerfully on his advice,
it had filled the departments of the government, and set on foot such
measures as it could to keep up the army. So Washington remained for
some time at Philadelphia, helping and counseling Congress in its
work, and writing to the States vigorous letters, demanding pay and
clothing for the soldiers, ever uppermost in his thoughts.

But although Congress was compliant, Washington could not convince
the country of the justice of his views, and of the continued need of
energetic exertion. The steady relaxation of tone, which the strain of
a long and trying war had produced, was accel