om Wallabout Bay
to Red Hook. Washington rode out one day to inspect the defences, when
he approached a subaltern officer who was directing his men to raise a
heavy timber to its place. Instead of lending a helping hand, the
conceited fellow stood, shouting:

"Hurrah, boys, _n-o-w_, right _up_, _h-e-a-v-e_," etc.

"Why do you not lend a helping hand?" said Washington, whom the officer
did not know.

"What, sir! I lend a helping hand?" exclaimed the official sprig. "Why,
sir, I'll have you know that I am _corporal_!"

Washington leaped from his saddle, laid hold of the timber with the men,
and helped lift it to its place. Then turning to the "corporal," he said
sarcastically:

"Mr. Corporal, my name's George Washington. I have come over from New
York to inspect the works here; so soon as you have done this piece of
work, you will meet me at your commander's, General Sullivan's
quarters."

Washington despised officers who felt above their business.

On a flying visit to Connecticut, he failed to reach his destination on
Saturday night. Early Sunday morning he completed the few remaining
miles of his journey. On his way, a tithing man came out of a house and
inquired of the coachman:

"Is there any necessity of your travelling on the Lord's Day?"

Washington ordered his coachman to stop, and replied:

"I have no intention of breaking the laws of Connecticut; they meet my
most cordial approbation. But I was disappointed in not being able to
reach my destination last night, where I shall attend church."

Washington waited and waited for the enemy to move, and wondered that he
did not. Putnam wrote to Gates:

"Is it not strange that those invincible troops who were to lay waste
all the country, with their fleets and army, dare not put their feet on
the main?"

About this time General Washington made the following address to his
army:

"The time is now near at hand which must determine whether Americans are
to be free men or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can
call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and
destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness, from
which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions
will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our
cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave
resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve
to conquer or die