se
of duty or a call from my country should become so imperious as to leave
me no choice, I should prepare for the relinquishment, and go with as
much reluctance from my present peaceful abode, as I should do to the
tomb of my ancestors.

"To say at this time, determinately, what I should do under such
circumstances, might be improper, having once before departed from a
similar resolution; but I may declare _to you_, that, as there is no
conviction in my breast that I could serve my country with more
efficiency in the command of the armies it might levy than many others,
an expression of its wish that I should do so must, somehow or other, be
unequivocally known, to satisfy my mind, that, notwithstanding the
respect in which I may be held on account of former services, a
preference might not be given to a man more in his prime; and it might
well be supposed, too, that I should like precisely to know who would be
my coadjutors, and whether you would be disposed to take an active part,
if arms are to be resorted to."[127]

President Adams found himself placed in a most perplexing position by
the authority given him by Congress to form a provisional army, with its
complement of major-generals and their subordinate officers. He had no
military knowledge upon which his judgment might rely. Among the
surviving officers of the Revolution, he perceived none in whom he felt
implicit confidence as a wise adviser, or as a proper person for
generalissimo of the new army; and, like all his fellow citizens, he
turned to Washington as the Maecenas upon whose sagacious counsels the
safety of the republic depended in that critical hour. He well knew how
painful it would be for the retired president to be again drawn into
active public life; and he also well knew that it had ever been a
controlling maxim of Washington's life never to allow personal
considerations to interfere with the public welfare. Impressed with this
fact, Adams wrote to Washington on the twenty-second of June, saying:
"In forming an army, whenever I must come to that extremity, I am at an
immense loss whether to call on all the old generals, or to appoint a
young set. If the French come here, we must learn to march with a quick
step, and to attack, for in that way only they are said to be
vulnerable. I must tax you sometimes for advice. We must have your name,
if you will in any case permit us to use it. There will be more
efficiency in it than in many an army."