duties of that high trust, which he held through the whole of the war,
has given an example to the world for talents as a military commander;
for integrity, fortitude, and firmness under the severest trials; for
respect to the civil authority and devotion to the rights and liberties
of his country, of which neither Rome nor Greece have exhibited the
equal. I saw him in my earliest youth, in the retreat through Jersey,
at the head of a small band, or rather in its rear, for he was always
next the enemy, and his countenance and manner made an impression on me
which time can never efface. A lieutenant then in the Third Virginia
Regiment, I happened to be on the rear guard at Newark, and I counted
the force under his immediate command by platoons as it passed me, which
amounted to less than 3,000 men. A deportment so firm, so dignified,
so exalted, but yet so modest and composed, I have never seen in any
other person.

On the 6th July, 1775, Congress published a declaration of the causes
which compelled them to take up arms, and immediately afterwards took
measures for augmenting the Army and raising a navy; for organizing the
militia and providing cannon and small arms and military stores of every
kind; for raising a revenue and pushing the war offensively with all the
means in their power. Nothing escaped the attention of that enlightened
body. The people of Canada were invited to join the Union, and a force
sent into the province to favor the Revolutionary party, which, however,
was not capable of affording any essential aid. The people of Ireland
were addressed in terms manifesting due respect for the sufferings, the
talents, and patriotism of that portion of the British Empire, and a
suitable acknowledgment was made to the assembly of Jamaica for the
approbation it had expressed of our cause and the part it had taken
in support of it with the British Government.

On the 2d of June, 1775, the convention of Massachusetts, by a letter
signed by their president, of May the 10th, stated to Congress that they
labored under difficulties for the want of a regular form of government,
and requested to be favored with explicit advice respecting the taking
up and exercising the powers of civil government, and declaring their
readiness to submit to such a general plan as the Congress might direct
for the colonies, or that they would make it their great study to
establish such a form of government there as should not only promote
t