friend of
Gates and one of the chief conspirators in the Conway Cabal. His
military career closed at the battle of Monmouth, and from letters
that have come to light there is little doubt that he was then
in treasonable correspondence with the enemy.

After being deprived of his command at Monmouth, he was challenged
by Colonel John Laurens, one of the aides of the Commander-in-chief,
because of his denunciation of Washington. The challenge was
accepted, and the parties fought with pistols in a retired spot
near Philadelphia. Additional interest attaches to this duel from
the fact that Colonel Alexander Hamilton of Washington's staff,
was the second for Laurens.

At the first fire Lee was wounded, and then, through the interposition
of Hamilton the affair terminated. The gratifying narrative has
come down to us that, "upon the whole, we think it a piece of
justice to the two gentlemen to declare that, after they met, their
conduct was strongly marked with all the politeness, generosity,
coolness, and firmness, that ought to characterize a transaction
of this nature."

The last years of Lee's life were spent at his Virginia plantation.
He died in an obscure boarding-house in Philadelphia, in 1782.
Upon a visit I made to his Virginia home some years ago, I was
shown a certified copy of his will, which contained this remarkable
provision:

"It is my will, that I shall not be buried within one mile of
any churchyard, or of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist church, for
the reason that _as I have kept a great deal of bad company in this
world, I do not wish to do so in the next."_

This country has known few abler or more eminent men than DeWitt
Clinton. He was successively Mayor of the city of New York, Governor
of that State, a Senator in Congress, and in 1812 an unsuccessful
candidate for the Presidency against Mr. Madison. Distinguished as a
lawyer and statesman, he is even better known as "the Father of the
Erie Canal." His biographer says:

"After undergoing constant, unremitting, and factious resistance, he
had the felicity of being borne, in October, 1825, in a barge on
the artificial river--which he seemed to all to have constructed
--from Lake Erie to the Bay of New York, while bells were rung,
and cannon saluted him at every stage of that imposing progress."

In 1803, while in the Senate, Clinton accepted a challenge from
General Dayton, a Senator from New Jersey. The ground of the
challenge was wo