our glory, shall be
taken from your sides, and no mark of military distinction left but your
wants, infirmities, and scars? If you have sense enough to discover and
spirit to oppose tyranny, whatever garb it may assume, awake to your
situation. If the present moment be lost, your threats hereafter will be
as empty as your entreaties now. Appeal from the justice to the fears of
government, and suspect the man who would advise to longer
forbearance."

Better English has seldom been wasted in a worse cause. Washington, the
man who was aimed at in the last sentence, got hold of the paper next
day, just in time, as he said, "to arrest the feet that stood wavering
on a precipice." The memory of the revolt of the Pennsylvania line,
which had so alarmed the people in 1781, was still fresh in men's minds;
and here was an invitation to more wholesale mutiny, which could hardly
fail to end in bloodshed, and might precipitate the perplexed and
embarrassed country into civil war. Washington issued a general order,
recognizing the existence of the manifesto, but overruling it so far as
to appoint the meeting for a later day, with the senior major-general,
who happened to be Gates, to preside. This order, which neither
discipline nor courtesy could disregard, in a measure tied Gates's
hands, while it gave Washington time to ascertain the extent of the
disaffection. On the appointed day he suddenly came into the meeting,
and amid profoundest silence broke forth in a most eloquent and touching
speech. Sympathizing keenly with the sufferings of his hearers, and
fully admitting their claims, he appealed to their better feelings, and
reminded them of the terrible difficulties under which Congress
laboured, and of the folly of putting themselves in the wrong. He still
counselled forbearance as the greatest of victories, and with consummate
skill he characterized the anonymous appeal as undoubtedly the work of
some crafty emissary of the British, eager to disgrace the army which
they had not been able to vanquish. All were hushed by that majestic
presence and those solemn tones. The knowledge that he had refused all
pay, while enduring more than any other man in the room, gave added
weight to every word. In proof of the good faith of Congress he began
reading a letter from one of the members, when, finding his sight dim,
he paused and took from his pocket the new pair of spectacles which the
astronomer David Rittenhouse had just sent him. He