inst the strenuous opposition of Samuel Adams had at length extorted
the promise of half-pay for life. In the spring of 1782, seeing the
utter inability of Congress to discharge its pecuniary obligations, many
officers began to doubt whether the promise would ever be kept. It had
been made before the articles of confederation, which required the
assent of nine states to any such measure, had been finally ratified. It
was well known that nine states had never been found to favour the
measure, and it was now feared that it might be repealed or repudiated,
so loud was the popular clamour against it. All this comes of
republican government, said some of the officers; too many cooks spoil
the broth; a dozen heads are as bad as no head; you do not know whose
promises to trust; a monarchy, with a good king whom all men can trust,
would extricate us from these difficulties. In this mood, Colonel Louis
Nicola, of the Pennsylvania line, a foreigner by birth, addressed a long
and well-argued letter to Washington, setting forth the troubles of the
time, and urging him to come forward as a saviour of society, and accept
the crown at the hands of his faithful soldiers. Nicola was an aged man,
of excellent character, and in making this suggestion he seemed to be
acting as spokesman of a certain clique or party among the
officers,--how numerous is not known. Washington instantly replied that
Nicola could not have found a person to whom such a scheme could be more
odious, and he was at a loss to conceive what he had ever done to have
it supposed that he could for one moment listen to a suggestion so
fraught with mischief to his country. Lest the affair, becoming known,
should enhance the popular distrust of the army, Washington said nothing
about it. But as the year went by, and the outcry against half-pay
continued, and Congress showed symptoms of a willingness to compromise
the matter, the discontent of the army increased. Officers and soldiers
brooded alike over their wrongs. "The army," said General Macdougall,
"is verging to that state which, we are told, will make a wise man mad."
The peril of the situation was increased by the well-meant but
injudicious whisperings of other public creditors, who believed that if
the army would only take a firm stand and insist upon a grant of
permanent funds to Congress for liquidating all public debts, the states
could probably be prevailed upon to make such a grant. Robert Morris,
the able secret