itutional monarchy.

Washington had perceived these growing discontents with anxiety, and was
urging Congress to do something to allay them, when he received a letter
from Colonel Lewis Nicola, a veteran and well-bred officer of the
Pennsylvania line, which filled him with the greatest apprehensions. In
it Nicola, no doubt, spoke the sentiments of a great many of his
fellow-officers and soldiers at that time. He attributed all current
evils, and those in anticipation, to the existing form of government,
and then urged the necessity and expediency of adopting a mixed one like
that of England. Having fortified his position by argument, Nicola
added:--

"In this case it will, I believe, be uncontroverted, that the same
abilities which have led us through difficulties apparently
unsurmountable by human power to victory and glory--those
qualities, that have merited and obtained the universal esteem and
veneration of an army--would be most likely to conduct and direct
us in the smoother paths of peace. Some people have so connected
the ideas of tyranny and monarchy as to find it very difficult to
separate them. It may, therefore, be requisite to give the head of
such a constitution as I propose some title apparently more
moderate; but, if all other things were once adjusted, I believe
strong arguments might be produced for admitting the title of
KING, which I conceive would be attended with some national
advantage."

How little did even Nicola, who was very intimate with Washington,
comprehend the true character of his disinterested patriotism in all its
breadth and depth! The commander-in-chief perceived that Nicola was only
the organ of a dangerous military faction, whose object was to create a
new government through the active energies of the army, and to place
their present leader at the head. He sympathized with the army in its
distresses, but this movement met with his severest rebuke.

"_Sir_," said Washington, in a responsive letter to Nicola, "With a
mixture of great surprise and astonishment, I have read with attention
the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no
occurrence in the course of this war has given me more painful
sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in
the army as you have expressed, and which I must view with abhorrence
and reprehend with severity. For the present, the communicatio