ed to suffer in his hands. He appreciated the
effect on mankind of forms and titles, and with unerring judgment
he insisted on what he knew to be of real value. It is one of the
earliest examples of the dignity and good taste which were of such
inestimable value to his country.

He had abundant occasion also for the employment of these same
qualities, coupled with unwearied patience and tact, in dealing with
his own men. The present army was drawn from a wider range than that
which had taken Boston, and sectional jealousies and disputes, growing
every day more hateful to the commander-in-chief, sprang up rankly.
The men of Maryland thought those of Connecticut ploughboys; the
latter held the former to be fops and dandies. These and a hundred
other disputes buzzed and whirled about Washington, stirring his
strong temper, and exercising his sternest self-control in the
untiring effort to suppress them and put them to death. "It
requires," John Adams truly said, "more serenity of temper, a deeper
understanding, and more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough,
to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these qualities were all
there, and with them an honesty of purpose and an unbending directness
of character to which Anne's great general was a stranger.

Meantime, while the internal difficulties were slowly diminished, the
forces of the enemy rapidly increased. First it became evident that
attacks were not feasible. Then the question changed to a mere choice
of defenses. Even as to this there was great and harassing doubt, for
the enemy, having command of the water, could concentrate and attack
at any point they pleased. Moreover, the British had thirty thousand
of the best disciplined and best equipped troops that Europe could
furnish, while Washington had some twenty thousand men, one fourth of
whom were unfit for duty, and with the remaining three fourths, raw
recruits for the most part, he was obliged to defend an extended line
of posts, without cavalry, and with no means for rapid concentration.
Had he been governed solely by military considerations he would have
removed the inhabitants, burned New York, and drawing his forces
together would have taken up a secure post of observation. To have
destroyed the town, however, not only would have frightened the timid
and the doubters, and driven them over to the Tories, but would have
dispirited the patriots not yet alive to the exigencies of war, and
deeply injured the