of Washington, if they did not force him to resign. Separate
and detached commands were created, which were made independent of the
commander-in-chief, and for this purpose even a scheme which the General
called "a child of folly" was undertaken. Officers notoriously inimical to
Washington, yet upon whom he would be forced to rely, were promoted. A
board of war made up of his enemies, with powers "in effect paramount,"
Hamilton says, "to those of the commander-in-chief," was created It is
even asserted that it was moved in Congress that a committee should be
appointed to arrest Washington, which was defeated only by the timely
arrival of a new delegate, by which the balance of power was lost to the
Cabal.

Even with the collapse of the army Cabal the opposition in Congress was
maintained. "I am very confident," wrote General Greene, "that there is
party business going on again, and, as Mifflin is connected with it, I
doubt not its being a revival of the old scheme;" again writing, "General
Schuyler and others consider it a plan of Mifflin's to injure your
Excellency's operations. I am now fully convinced of the reality of what I
suggested to you before I came away." In 1779 John Sullivan, then a member
of Congress, wrote,--

"Permit me to inform your Excellency, that the faction raised against you
in 1777, is not yet destroyed. The members are waiting to collect
strength, and seize some favorable moment to appear in force. I speak not
from conjecture, but from certain knowledge. Their plan is to take every
method of proving the danger arising from a commander, who enjoys the full
and unlimited confidence of his army, and alarm the people with the
prospects of imaginary evils; nay, they will endeavor to convert your
virtue into arrows, with which, they will seek to wound you."

But Washington could not be forced into a resignation, ill-treat and
slight him as they would, and at no time were they strong enough to vote
him out of office. For once a Congressional "deal" between New England and
Virginia did not succeed, and as Washington himself wrote, "I have a good
deal of reason to believe that the machination of this junto will recoil
on their own heads, and be a means of bringing some matters to light which
by getting me out of the way, some of them thought to conceal," In this he
was right, for the re-elections of both Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee
were put in danger, and for some time they were discredited