t in printing it "I
have transgressed against truth, justice and my duty as a good citizen,"
and, as Washington wrote to a friend, "the author of the Queries,
'Political and Military,' has had no cause to exult in the favorable
reception of them by the public." With Lee's disappearance the last army
rival dropped from the ranks, and from that time there was no question as
to who should command the armies of America. Long after, a would-be editor
of Lee's papers wrote to Washington to ask if he had any wishes in regard
to the publication, and was told in the reply that,--

"I never had a difference with that gentleman, but on public ground, and
my conduct towards him upon this occasion was such only, as I conceived
myself indispensably bound to adopt in discharge of the public trust
reposed in me. If this produced in him unfavorable sentiments of me, I yet
can never consider the conduct I pursued, with respect to him, either
wrong or improper, however I may regret that it may have been differently
viewed by him and that it excited his censure and animadversions. Should
there appear in General Lee's writings any thing injurious or unfriendly
to me, the impartial and dispassionate world must decide how far I
deserved it from the general tenor of my conduct."

These attempts to undermine Washington owed their real vitality to the
Continental Congress, and it is safe to say that but for Washington's
political enemies no army rival would have ventured to push forward. In
what the opposition in that body consisted, and to what length it went,
are discussed elsewhere, but a glance at the reasons of hostility to him
is proper here.

John Adams declared himself "sick of the Fabian systems," and in writing
of the thanksgiving for the Saratoga Convention, he said that "one cause
of it ought to be that the glory of turning the tide of arms is not
immediately due to the commander-in-chief.... If it had, idolatry and
adulation would have been unbounded." James Lovell asserted that "Our
affairs are Fabiused into a very disagreeable posture," and wrote that
"depend upon it for every ten soldiers placed under the command of our
Fabius, five recruits will be wanted annually during the war." William
Williams agreed with Jonathan Trumbull that the time had come when "a much
exalted character should make way for a _general_" and suggested if this
was not done "voluntarily," those to whom the public looked should "see to
it." Abraham Cl