of war, which should secure his position and promote his aims. To this end he and his counsellors projected a winter expedition against Canada, to set out from Albany, pass Lake Champlain upon the ice, destroy the British vessels at St. Johns, and capture Montreal. With a view to seduce Lafayette from his allegiance to Washington, it was proposed to give the command of the expedition to him, with Conway as second in command. The first intimation that the commander in chief received that so foolhardy an undertaking had been agreed upon, was the forwarding of notice of Lafayette's appointment to the command, in a letter from Gates to himself, asking his advice, as a mere matter of form, more insulting in its observance than in its omission. Lafayette was at first determined not to accept the command, but Washington persuaded him to alter his resolution, and he proceeded to Yorktown, where he dissipated the hopes of the cabal, by proposing the health of the commander in chief at the dinner-table of General Gates, and by insisting that Baron De Kalb should receive an appointment to accompany him to the North. The history of the abortive and ill-advised expedition does not need recounting here. It was the first stone hung about the neck of the cabal, which eventually aided to sink it.

The last of the Conway-Gates correspondence was not yet. Wilkinson, who was a most accomplished liar, had denied to General Gates, the telling of tales about the Conway correspondence to Lord Stirling or Major McWilliams. Stirling thereupon wrote him a note asking an explanation, when, with mighty rhetorical flourish, Wilkinson responded, saying that he might, in a moment of confidence, have said something of the import alleged. Gates, upon his part, did not receive the denial of his former aide as absolutely conclusive, and Wilkinson challenged Gates to a duel, which was, however, never fought, being interrupted by a touching and lachrymose reconciliation of the two men, who had only ceased villifying each other to appeal to the code.

The cabal had already begun to suffer from its exposure. The people love fair play, and the publication of the existence of an organized movement to crush any public man is apt to cause its recoil upon its originators. The scandal connected with the Conway-Gates letter, had been of less injury than benefit to Washington. Following it, the course of Wilkinson had placed that officer before the world in a most unenviable light, and, as was inevitable, those with whom he had been associated, suffered by that fact.

One crowning and overreaching act of folly remained to signalize the closing days of the conspiracy. During the winter of 1778, a number of letters, purporting to have been written by Washington, were republished in pamphlet form in England, and reproduced in pamphlet and broadside in New York and Philadelphia. These were forged, though by a clever hand and by some person having a degree of familiarity with the private affairs of the commander in chief. Some

of the letters were addressed to Mrs. Washington, but the majority to Lund Washington, the general's man of business. They were circulated under the representation that they were first draughts of the letters, and had been left in the charge of Washington's colored valet, who was ill at Fort Lee, and was left behind upon its evacuation. The letters were mostly upon domestic and business subjects, and were artfully drawn to give them an appearance of genuineness. Mingled with other matters were occasional allusions to subjects connected with the army and the war, so flippant, so selfish and heartless in tone, that, had they been genuine, or generally believed so to be, they must have irreparably ruined the general. As it was, they were not so accepted. The writers had overreached themselves by too hardly taxing the credulity of the world. People might have been made to doubt the wisdom and generalship of Washington, but they knew him, his efforts and sacrifices, too well to believe him other than single hearted and truly patriotic. The letters, too, have intrinsic evidence of spuriousness. The unlikelihood of a busy man's re-writing letters to his wife and agent; the improbability of a wise man leaving compromising papers in the hands of a servant, and at an exposed fort; more than all, the tone of the letters, utterly foreign to the character of their alleged author and at varience with all his public and private utterances, all these considerations combined to defeat the design of the contemptible villain who uttered the forgeries. Who this was has never been discovered, but people were not slow to charge the cabal with the responsibility, and it reaped, whether or not the seeds were of its own sowing, a most unhappy harvest. Save in his private intercourse and correspondence, Washington never denied having written these letters, until his final retirement from the Presidential chair, when he deemed himself free from all chance of misconception. Then he dismissed the subject with a few words of simple assertion. Early in the spring of 1778, Washington had a conversation with Wilkinson, and laid before that mercurial officer the letters which had passed between himself and Gates. This drew from Wilkinson the following: "I beg you to receive the grateful homage of a sensible mind for your condescension in exposing to me General Gates' letters, which unmask his artifices and efforts to ruin me. The authenticity of the information received through Lord Stirling, I cannot confirm, as I solemnly assure your excellency I do not remember the conversation which passed on that occasion, nor can I recollect particular passages of that letter, as I had but a cursory view of it at a late hour. However, I so well remember its general tenor, that, although General Gates has pledged his word it was a wicked and malicious forgery, I would stake my reputation, if the genuine letter is produced, that words to the same effect would appear." A few days later Wilkinson, who had been made secretary of the board of war, of which, as

will be remembered, Gates was president, sent to the president of Congress the following communication:

"SIR:-While I make my acknowledgments to Congress for my appointment as secretary to the board of war and ordnance, I am sorry I should be constrained to resign that office; but, after the acts of treachery and falsehood, in which I have detected Major-general Gates, the president of that board, it is impossible for me to reconcile it with my honor to serve with him." This is justly the last heard of Wilkinson.

The power of the cabal to harm Washington was practically at an end. Early in the following campaign it was officially defeated by a vote of Congress. Washington dismissed it in a letter to Patrick Henry, with these words: "I cannot precisely mark the extent of their views; but it appeared, in general, that General Gates was to be appointed upon the ruins of my reputation and influence. This I am authorized to say, from undeniable facts in my possession, from publications, the evident scope of which could not be mistaken, and from private detractions industriously circulated. General Mifflin, it is commonly supposed, bore the second part in the cabal; and General Conway, I know was a very active and malignant partisan; but I have good reason to believe that their machinations have recoiled most seriously upon themselves."

The remaining history of the cabal may be very tersely summed up. It had lost its power and what small amount of popularity it ever possessed. Congress transferred Gates to the command of the Hudson, and placed him directly under the orders of the man whom he had sought to humiliate. Conway, who set out for Canada with Lafayette, and for a time, remained in command at Albany, was thence ordered to Peekskill, and, in the face of a campaign, was again sent to Albany. After the last mentioned transfer, he wrote an exceedingly impertinent letter to the president of Congress, intimating a desire to resign his commission. To his intense surprise and mortification, he found himself taken at his word, and the most abject effort upon his part failed to secure him a re-instatement. The position of inspector-general, with the rank and pay of major-general, thus vacated, was, upon Washington's recommendation, given to the gallant Baron Steuben. After leaving the army, Conway frequently indulged in abuse of Washington and his friends. This, on one occasion, gave offense to General John Cadwalader; a challenge passed, a duel was fought, and Conway was dangerously, as he supposed, fatally, wounded. Like many another weak man, he was ready and anxious to give that justice upon his death-bed, which he had refused when it would have been of value. Hence, he penned these lines, and dispatched them to Washington:

"PHILADELPHIA, 23d July, 1778.

"SIR: I find myself just able to hold the pen during a few minutes, and take this opportunity of expressing my sincere grief for having done, written,

or said anything disagreeable to your Excellency. My career will soon be over, therefore justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You are, in my eyes, the great and good man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and esteem of these States, whose liberties you have asserted by your virtues.

"I am, with great respect, etc.,

THOMAS CONWAY."

Had Conway possessed the grace to die at once, after writing these lines, he might have been forgiven, as one is apt to be, who repents and confesses in extremis, but he persisted in recovering, and finding himself universally avoided and held in contempt, sailed for France and went out of sight forever. With his disappearance we gladly dismiss the infamous intrigue to which he gave a name.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PEACE COMMISSION-ATTEMPT AGAINST LAFAYETTE-THE FRENCH ALLIANCE.

THE

HE effect of the surrender of Burgoyne upon the opinion of the British Parliament and people, was effectual in decidedly modifying the tone adopted in discussing the American war. Not the least cause of this change of heart could be found in the fear that France would be led into an alliance with the colonies. When, therefore, early in the winter, Lord North presented his famous "conciliatory bills," they met but small opposition. The principal argument used against them was that embodied by Stedman, the British historian, in the words: "If what was now proposed was a right measure, it ought to have been adopted at first, and before the sword was drawn; on the other hand, if the claims of the mother country over her colonies were originally worth contending for, the strength and resources of the nation were not yet so far exhausted, as to justify ministers in relinquishing them without a further struggle." Scarcely had Lord North's resolutions been adopted, when came news from Versailles that confirmed the worst fears of that statesman. It was to the effect that Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee, American commissioners to the court of His Christian Majesty, had obtained the recognition of the independence of the United States, and that an alliance, offensive and defensive, had been perfected between the greatest European rival of Great Britain, and her revolting colonies. The treaty stipulated that, should war ensue between France and England, it should be made a common cause, that neither France nor America should make peace without the consent of the other, nor should either lay down its arms until the independence of the colonies should be established.

No sooner did the English ministry learn of the conclusion of this treaty, than it dispatched post haste to America, a copy of North's bill, intending to pave the way for the peace commission and also to forestall the effect of the French alliance. Immediately upon the arrival of the document at New York, Governor Tryon had copies printed and sent throughout the country for circulation. He even had the inconceivable impudence to send copies to