emity, than history has ever yet furnished
instances of in the annals of North America, and such a vital wound
will be given to the peace of this great country, as time itself
cannot cure or eradicate the remembrance of." Washington was not a
political agitator like Sam Adams, planning with unerring intelligence
to bring about independence. On the contrary, he rightly declared that
independence was not desired. But although he believed in exhausting
every argument and every peaceful remedy, it is evident that he felt
that there now could be but one result, and that violent separation
from the mother country was inevitable. Here is where he differed from
his associates and from the great mass of the people, and it is to
this entire veracity of mind that his wisdom and foresight were so
largely due, as well as his success when the time came for him to put
his hand to the plough.

When Congress adjourned, Washington returned to Mount Vernon, to the
pursuits and pleasures that he loved, to his family and farm, and to
his horses and hounds, with whom he had many a good run, the last that
he was to enjoy for years to come. He returned also to wait and
watch as before, and to see war rapidly gather in the east. When the
Virginia convention again assembled, resolutions were introduced to
arm and discipline men, and Henry declared in their support that
an "appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts" was all that was left.
Washington said nothing, but he served on the committee to draft a
plan of defense, and then fell to reviewing the independent companies
which were springing up everywhere. At the same time he wrote to his
brother John, who had raised a troop, that he would accept the command
of it if desired, as it was his "full intention to devote his life and
fortune in the cause we are engaged in, if needful." At Mount Vernon
his old comrades of the French war began to appear, in search of
courage and sympathy. Thither, too, came Charles Lee, a typical
military adventurer of that period, a man of English birth and of
varied service, brilliant, whimsical, and unbalanced. There also came
Horatio Gates, likewise British, and disappointed with his prospects
at home; less adventurous than Lee, but also less brilliant, and not
much more valuable.

Thus the winter wore away; spring opened, and toward the end of April
Washington started again for the North, much occupied with certain
tidings from Lexington and Concord which just then