erated by the brilliant
victory of Yorktown. Washington for his own part had but little trust
in the sense or the knowledge of his enemy. He felt that Yorktown was
decisive, but he also thought that Great Britain would still struggle
on, and that her talk of peace was very probably a mere blind, to
enable her to gain time, and, by taking advantage of our relaxed and
feeble condition, to strike again in hope of winning back all that had
been lost. He therefore continued his appeals in behalf of the
army, and reiterated everywhere the necessity for fresh and ample
preparations.

As late as May 4 he wrote sharply to the States for men and money,
saying that the change of ministry was likely to be adverse to
peace, and that we were being lulled into a false and fatal sense of
security. A few days later, on receiving information from Sir Guy
Carleton of the address of the Commons to the king for peace,
Washington wrote to Congress: "For my own part, I view our situation
as such that, instead of relaxing, we ought to improve the present
moment as the most favorable to our wishes. The British nation
appear to me to be staggered, and almost ready to sink beneath the
accumulating weight of debt and misfortune. If we follow the blow with
vigor and energy, I think the game is our own."

Again he wrote in July: "Sir Guy Carleton is using every art to
soothe and lull our people into a state of security. Admiral Digby
is capturing all our vessels, and suffocating as fast as possible in
prison-ships all our seamen who will not enlist into the service of
his Britannic Majesty; and Haldimand, with his savage allies, is
scalping and burning on the frontiers." Facts always were the object
of Washington's first regard, and while gentlemen on all sides were
talking of peace, war was going on, and he could not understand the
supineness which would permit our seamen to be suffocated, and our
borderers scalped, because some people thought the war ought to be and
practically was over. While the other side was fighting, he wished to
be fighting too. A month later he wrote to Greene: "From the former
infatuation, duplicity, and perverse system of British policy, I
confess I am induced to doubt everything, to suspect everything." He
could say heartily with the Trojan priest, "Quicquid id est timeo
Danaos et dona ferentes." Yet again, a month later still, when the
negotiations were really going forward in Paris, he wrote to McHenry:
"If we are w