Oglethorpe got along with the Indians first-rate, and won their friendship. One great chief, having received a present from Oglethorpe consisting of a manicure set, on the following Christmas gave Oglethorpe a beautiful buffalo robe, on the inside of which were painted an eagle and a portable bath-tub, signifying, as the chief stated, that the buffalo was the emblem of strength, the eagle of swiftness, and the bath-tub the advertisement of cleanliness. "Thus," said the chief, "the English are strong as the buffalo, swift as the eagle, and love to convey the idea that they are just about to take a bath when you came and interrupted them."

The Moravians also came to Georgia, and the Scotch Highlanders. On the arrival of the latter, the Georgia mosquitoes held a mass meeting, at which speeches were made, and songs sung, and resolutions adopted making the Highland uniform the approved costume for the entire coast during summer.



George Whitefield the eloquent, who often addressed audiences (even in those days, when advertising was still in its infancy and the advance agent was unheard of) of from five thousand to forty thousand people, founded an orphan asylum. One audience consisted of sixty thousand people. The money from this work all went to help and sustain the orphan asylum. While reading of him we are reminded of our own Dr. Talmage, who is said to be the wealthiest apostle on the road.

The trustees of Georgia limited the size of a man's farm, did not allow women to inherit land, and forbade the importation of rum or of slaves. Several of these rules were afterwards altered, so that as late as 1893 at least a gentleman from Washington, D.C., well known for his truth and honesty, saw rum inside the State twice, though Bourbon whiskey was preferred. Slaves also were found inside the State, and the negro is seen there even now; but the popularity of a negro baby is nothing now to what it was at the time when this class of goods went up to the top notch.

Need I add that after a while the people became dissatisfied with these rules and finally the whole matter was ceded to the crown? From this time on Georgia remained a royal province up to the Revolution. Since that very little has been said about ceding it to the crown.

North Carolina also remained an English colony up to the same period, and, though one of the original thirteen Colonies, is still far more sparsely settled than some of the Western States.

Virginia Dare was the first white child born in America. She selected Roanoke, now in North Carolina, in August, 1587, as her birthplace. She was a grand-daughter of the Governor, John White. Her fate, like that of the rest of the colony, is unknown to this day.

* * * * *

The author begs leave to express his thanks here for the valuable aid furnished him by the following works,—viz.: "The Horse and his Diseases," by Mr. Astor; "Life and Times of John Oglethorpe," by Elias G. Merritt; "How to Make the Garden Pay," by Peter Henderson; "Over the Purple Hills," by Mrs. Churchill, of Denver, Colorado, and "He Played on the Harp of a Thousand Strings, and the Spirits of Just Men Made Perfect," by S. P. Avery.



CHAPTER XI.

INTERCOLONIAL AND INDIAN WARS.

Intercolonial and Indian wars furnished excitement now from 1689 into the early part of the eighteenth century. War broke out in Europe between the French and English, and the Colonies had to take sides, as did also the Indians.

Canadians and Indians would come down into York State or New England, burn a town, tomahawk quite a number of people, then go back on snow-shoes, having entered the town on rubbers, like a decayed show with no printing.

There was an attack on Haverhill in March, 1697, and a Mr. Dustin was at work in the field. He ran to his house and got his seven children ahead of him, while with his gun he protected their rear till he got them away safely. Mrs. Dustin, however, who ran back into the house to remove a pie from the oven as she feared it was burning, was captured, and, with a boy of the neighborhood, taken to an island in the Merrimac, where the Indians camped. At night she woke the boy, told him how to hit an Indian with a tomahawk so that "the subsequent proceedings would interest him no more," and that evening the two stole forth while the ten Indians slept, knocked in their thinks, scalped them to prove their story, and passed on to safety. Mrs. Dustin kept those scalps for many years, showing them to her friends to amuse them.

King William's War lasted eight years. Queen Anne's War lasted from 1702 to 1713. The brunt of this war fell on New England. Our forefathers had to live in block-houses, with barbed-wire fences around them, and carry their guns with them all the time. From planting the Indian with a shotgun, they soon got to planting their corn with the same agricultural instrument in the stony soil.

The French and Spanish tried to take Charleston in 1706, but were repulsed with great loss, consisting principally of time which they might have employed in raising frogs' legs and tantalizing a bull at so much per tant.

This war lasted eleven years, including stops, and was ended by the treaty of Utrecht (pronounced you-trecked).

After this, what was called the Spanish War continued between England and Spain for some time. An attempt to capture Georgia was made, and a garrison established itself there, with good prospects of taking in the State under Spanish rule, but our able friend Oglethorpe, the Henry W. Grady of his time, managed to accidentally mislay a letter which fell into the enemy's hands, the contents of which showed that enormous reinforcements were expected at any moment. This was swallowed comfortably by the commander, who blew up his impregnable works, changed the address of his Atlanta Constitution, and sailed for home.

Oglethorpe wore a wig, but was otherwise one of our greatest minds. It is said that anybody at a distance of two miles on a clear day could readily distinguish that it was a wig, and yet he died believing that no one had ever probed his great mystery and that his wig would rise with him at the playing of the last trump.



King George's War, which extended over four years, succeeded, but did not amount to anything except the capture of Cape Breton by English and Colonial troops. Cape Breton was called the Gibraltar of America; but a Yankee farmer who has raised flax on an upright farm for twenty years does not mind scaling a couple of Gibraltars before breakfast; so, without any West Point knowledge regarding engineering, they walked up the hill, and those who were alive when they got to the top took it. It was no Balaklava business and no dumb animal show, but simply revealed the fact that brave men fighting for their eight-dollar homes and a mass of children are disagreeable people to meet on the battle-field.

The French and Indian War lasted nine years,—viz., from 1754 to 1763. From Quebec to New Orleans the French owned the land, and mixed up a good deal socially with the Indians, so that the slender settlement along the coast had arrayed against it this vast line of northern and western forts, and the Indians, who were mostly friendly with the French, united with them in several instances and showed them some new styles of barbarism which up to that time they had never known about.

The half-breed is always half French and half Indian.

The English owned all lands lying on one side of the Ohio, the French on the other, which led a great chief to make a P. P. C. call on Governor Dinwiddie, and during the conversation to inquire with some naivete where the Indian came in. No answer was ever received.

We pause here to ask the question, Why did the pale-face usurp the lands of the Indians without remuneration? It was because the Indian was not orthodox. He may have been lazy from a Puritanical stand-point, and he may also have hunted on the twenty-seventh Sunday after Easter; but still was it not right that he should have received a dollar or two per county for the United States? No one would have felt it, and possibly it might have saved the lives of innocent people.

Verbum sap., however, comes in here with peculiar appropriateness, and the massive-browed historian passes on.

The French had three forts along in the Middle States, as they are now called, and Western Pennsylvania; and George Washington, of whom more will be said in the twelfth chapter, was sent to ask the French to remove these forts. He started at once.



The commanders were some of them arrogant, but the general, St. Pierre, treated him with great respect, refusing, however, to yield the ground discovered by La Salle and Marquette. The author had the pleasure of being arrested in Paris in 1889, and he feels of a truth, as he often does, that there can be no more polite people in the world than the French. Arrested under all circumstances and in many lands, the author can place his hand on his heart and say that he would go hundreds of miles to be arrested by a John Darm.

Washington returned four hundred miles through every kind of danger, including a lunch at Altoona, where he stopped twenty minutes.

The following spring Washington was sent under General Fry to drive out the French, who had started farming at Pittsburg. Fry died, and Washington took command. He liked it very much. After that Washington took command whenever he could, and soon rose to be a great man.

The first expedition against Fort Duquesne (pronounced du-kane) was commanded by General Braddock, whose portrait we are able to give, showing him at the time he did not take Washington's advice in the Duquesne matter. Later we show him as he appeared after he had abandoned his original plans and immediately after not taking Washington's advice.



"The Indians," said Braddock, "may frighten Colonial troops, but they can make no impression on the king's regulars. We are alike impervious to fun or fear."

Braddock thought of fighting the Indians by man[oe]uvring in large bodies, but the first body to be man[oe]uvred was that of General Braddock, who perished in about a minute.



We give the reader, above, an idea of Braddock's soldierly bearing after he had been man[oe]uvring a few times.

It was then that Washington took command, as was his custom, and began to fight the Indians and French as one would hunt varmints in Virginia.

Braddock's men fired by platoons into the trees and tore a few holes in the State line, but when most of the Colonial troops were dead the regulars presented their tournures to the foe and fled as far as Philadelphia, where they each took a bath and had some laundry-work done.

General Forbes took command of the second expedition. He spent most of his time building roads.

Time passed on, and Forbes built viaducts, conduits, culverts, and rustic bridges, till it was November, and they were yet fifty miles from the fort. He then decided to abandon the expedition, on account of the cold, and also fearing that he had not made all of his bridges wide enough so that he could take the captured fort home with him.

Washington, however, though only an aidy kong of General Forbes, decided to take command. His mother had said to him over and over, "George, in an emergency always take command." He done so, as General Rusk would say. As he approached, the French set fire to the fort, and retreated, together with the Indians and Molly Maguires.

Pittsburg now stands on this historic ground, and is one of the most delightful cities of America.

Many other changes were going on at this time. The English got possession of Acadia and the French forts at the head of the Bay of Fundy.

In 1757 General Loudon collected an army for an attack on Louisburg. He drilled his troops all summer, and then gave up the attack because he learned that the French had one more skiff than he had.

The Loudons of America at the time of this writing are more quiet and sensible regarding their ancestry than any of the doodle-bug aristocracy of our promoted peasantry and the crested Yahoos of our cowboy republic.

The Loudons—or Lowdowns—of America had a very large family. Some of them changed their names and moved.

The next year after the fox pass of General Loudon, Amherst and Wolfe took possession of the entire island.

About the time of Braddock's justly celebrated expedition another started out for Crown Point. The French, under Dieskau (pronounced dees-kow), met the army composed of Colonial troops in plain clothes, together with the regular troops led by officers with drawn swords and overdrawn salaries. The regular general, seeing that the battle was lost, excused himself and retired to his tent, owing to an ingrowing nail which had annoyed him all day. Lyman, the Colonial officer now took command, and wrung victory from the reluctant jaws of defeat. For this Johnson, the English general, received twenty-five thousand dollars and a baronetcy, while Lyman received a plated butter-dish and a bass-wood what-not. But Lyman was a married man, and had learned to take things as they came.

Four months prior to the capture of Duquesne, one thousand boats loaded with soldiers, each with a neat little lunch-basket and a little flag to wave when they hurrahed for the good kind man at the head of the picnic,—viz., General Abercrombie,—sailed down Lake George to get a whiff of fresh air and take Ticonderoga.

When they arrived, General Abercrombie took out a small book regarding tactics which he had bought on the boat, and, after refreshing his memory, ordered an assault. He then went back to see how his rear was, and, finding it all right, he went back still farther, to see if no one had been left behind.



Abercrombie never forgot or overlooked any one. He wanted all of his pleasure-party to be where they could see the fight.

In that way he missed it himself. I would hate to miss a fight that way.

The Abercrombies of America mostly trace their ancestry back by a cut-off avoiding the general's line.

Niagara had an expedition sent against it at the time of Braddock's trip. The commander was General Shirley, but he ran out of money while at the Falls and decided to return. This post did not finally surrender till 1759.

This gave the then West to the English. They had tried for one hundred and forty years to civilize it, but, alas, with only moderate success. Prosperous and happy even while sniping in their fox-hunting or canvas-back-duck clothes, these people feel somewhat soothed for their lack of culture because they are well-to-do.

In 1759 General Wolfe anchored off Quebec with his fleet and sent a boy up town to ask if there were any letters for him at the post-office, also asking at what time it would be convenient to evacuate the place. The reply came back from General Montcalm, an able French general, that there was no mail for the general, but if Wolfe was dissatisfied with the report he might run up personally and look over the W's.

Wolfe did so, taking his troops up by an unknown cow-path on the off side of the mountain during the night, and at daylight stood in battle-array on the Plains of Abraham. An attack was made by Montcalm as soon as he got over his wonder and surprise. At the third fire Wolfe was fatally wounded, and as he was carried back to the rear he heard some one exclaim,—

"They run! They run!"

"Who run?" inquired Wolfe.

"The French! The French!" came the reply.

"Now God be praised," said Wolfe, "I die happy."

Montcalm had a similar experience. He was fatally wounded. "They run! They run!" he heard some one say.

"Who run?" exclaimed Montcalm, wetting his lips with a lemonade-glass of cognac.

"We do," replied the man.

"Then so much the better," said Montcalm, as his eye lighted up, "for I shall not live to see Quebec surrendered."

This shows what can be done without a rehearsal; also how the historian has to control himself in order to avoid lying.

The death of these two brave men is a beautiful and dramatic incident in the history of our country, and should be remembered by every school-boy, because neither lived to write articles criticising the other.

Five days later the city capitulated. An attempt was made to recapture it, but it was not successful. Canada fell into the hands of the English, and from the open Polar Sea to the Mississippi the English flag floated.

What an empire!

What a game-preserve!

Florida was now ceded to the already cedy crown of England by Spain, and brandy-and-soda for the wealthy and bitter beer became the drink of the poor.



Pontiac's War was brought on by the Indians, who preferred the French occupation to that of the English. Pontiac organized a large number of tribes on the spoils plan, and captured eight forts. He killed a great many people, burned their dwellings, and drove out many more, but at last his tribes made trouble, as there were not spoils enough to go around, and his army was conquered. He was killed in 1769 by an Indian who received for his trouble a barrel of liquor, with which he began to make merry. He remained by the liquor till death came to his relief.

The heroism of an Indian who meets his enemy single-handed in that way, and, though greatly outnumbered, dies with his face to the foe, is deserving of more than a passing notice.

The French and Indian War cost the Colonists sixteen million dollars, of which the English repaid only five million. The Americans lost thirty thousand men, none of whom were replaced. They suffered every kind of horror and barbarity, written and unwritten, and for years their taxes were two-thirds of their income; and yet they did not murmur.

These were the fathers and mothers of whom we justly brag. These were the people whose children we are. What are inherited titles and ancient names many times since dishonored, compared with the heritage of uncomplaining suffering and heroism which we boast of to-day because those modest martyrs were working people, proud that by the sweat of their brows they wrung from a niggardly soil the food they ate, proud also that they could leave the plough to govern or to legislate, able also to survey a county or rule a nation.



CHAPTER XII.

PERSONALITY OF WASHINGTON.

It would seem that a few personal remarks about George Washington at this point might not be out of place. Later on his part in this history will more fully appear.



The author points with some pride to a study of Washington's great act in crossing the Delaware, from a wax-work of great accuracy. The reader will avoid confusing Washington with the author, who is dressed in a plaid suit and on the shore, while Washington may be seen in this end of the boat with the air of one who has just discovered the location of a glue-factory on the side of the river.

A directory of Washington's head-quarters has been arranged by the author of this book, and at a reunion of the general's body-servants to be held in the future the work will be on sale.

The name of George Washington has always had about it a glamour that made him appear more in the light of a god than a tall man with large feet and a mouth made to fit an old-fashioned full-dress pumpkin pie.



George Washington's face has beamed out upon us for many years now, on postage-stamps and currency, in marble and plaster and in bronze, in photographs of original portraits, paintings, and stereoscopic views. We have seen him on horseback and on foot, on the war-path and on skates, playing the flute, cussing his troops for their shiftlessness, and then, in the solitude of the forest, with his snorting war-horse tied to a tree, engaged in prayer.

We have seen all these pictures of George, till we are led to believe that he did not breathe our air or eat American groceries. But George Washington was not perfect. I say this after a long and careful study of his life, and I do not say it to detract the very smallest iota from the proud history of the Father of his Country. I say it simply that the boys of America who want to become George Washingtons will not feel so timid about trying it.



When I say that George Washington, who now lies so calmly in the lime-kiln at Mount Vernon, could reprimand and reproach his subordinates, at times, in a way to make the ground crack open and break up the ice in the Delaware a week earlier than usual, I do not mention it in order to show the boys of our day that profanity will make them resemble George Washington. That was one of his weak points, and no doubt he was ashamed of it, as he ought to have been. Some poets think that if they get drunk and stay drunk they will resemble Edgar A. Poe and George D. Prentice. There are lawyers who play poker year after year and get regularly skinned because they have heard that some of the able lawyers of the past century used to come home at night with poker-chips in their pockets.

Whiskey will not make a poet, nor poker a great pleader. And yet I have seen poets who relied on the potency of their breath, and lawyers who knew more of the habits of a bobtail flush than they ever did of the statutes in such case made and provided.



George Washington was always ready. If you wanted a man to be first in war, you could call on George. If you desired an adult who would be first baseman in time of peace, Mr. Washington could be telephoned at any hour of the day or night. If you needed a man to be first in the hearts of his countrymen, George's post-office address was at once secured.

Though he was a great man, he was once a poor boy. How often you hear that in America! Here it is a positive disadvantage to be born wealthy. And yet sometimes I wish they had experimented a little that way on me. I do not ask now to be born rich, of course, because it is too late; but it seems to me that, with my natural good sense and keen insight into human nature, I could have struggled along under the burdens and cares of wealth with great success. I do not care to die wealthy, but if I could have been born wealthy it seems to me I would have been tickled almost to death.

I love to believe that true greatness is not accidental. To think and to say that greatness is a lottery, is pernicious. Man may be wrong sometimes in his judgment of others, both individually and in the aggregate, but he who gets ready to be a great man will surely find the opportunity.

You will wonder whom I got to write this sentiment for me, but you will never find out.

In conclusion, let me say that George Washington was successful for three reasons. One was that he never shook the confidence of his friends. Another was that he had a strong will without being a mule. Some people cannot distinguish between being firm and being a big blue donkey.

Another reason why Washington is loved and honored to-day is that he died before we had a chance to get tired of him. This is greatly superior to the method adopted by many modern statesmen, who wait till their constituency weary of them, and then reluctantly pass away.

* * * * *

N. B.—Since writing the foregoing I have found that Washington was not born a poor boy,—a discovery which redounds greatly to his credit,—that he was able to accomplish so much, and yet could get his weekly spending money and sport a French nurse in his extreme youth. B. N.



CHAPTER XIII.

CONTRASTS WITH THE PRESENT DAY.

Here it may be well to speak briefly of the contrast between the usages and customs of the period preceding the Revolution, and the present day. Some of these customs and regulations have improved with the lapse of time, others undoubtedly have not.

Two millions of people constituted the entire number of whites, while away to the westward the red brother extended indefinitely. Religiously they were Protestants, and essentially they were "a God-fearing people." Taught to obey a power they were afraid of, they naturally turned with delight to the service of a God whose genius in the erection of a boundless and successful hell challenged their admiration and esteem. So, too, their own executions of Divine laws were successful as they gave pain, and the most beautiful features of Christianity,—namely, love and charity,—according to history, were not cultivated very much.

There were in New England at one time twelve offences punishable with death, and in Virginia seventeen. This would indicate that the death-penalty is getting unpopular very fast, and that in the contiguous future humane people will wonder why murder should have called for murder, in this brainy, charitable, and occult age, in which man seems almost able to pry open the future and catch a glimpse of Destiny underneath the great tent that has heretofore held him off by means of death's prohibitory rates.



In Hartford people had to get up when the town watchman rang his bell. The affairs of the family, and private matters too numerous to mention, were regulated by the selectmen. The catalogues of Harvard and Yale were regulated according to the standing of the family as per record in the old country, and not as per bust measurement and merit, as it is to-day.

Scolding women, however, were gagged and tied to their front doors, so that the populace could bite its thumb at them, and hired girls received fifty dollars a year, with the understanding that they were not to have over two days out each week, except Sunday and the days they had to go and see their "sick sisters."

Some cloth-weaving was indulged in, and homespun was the principal material used for clothing. Mrs. Washington had sixteen spinning-wheels in her house. Her husband often wore homespun while at home, and on rainy days sometimes placed a pair of home-made trousers of the barn-door variety in the Presidential chair.

Money was very scarce, and ammunition very valuable. In 1635 musket-balls passed for farthings, and to see a New England peasant making change with the red brother at thirty yards was a common and delightful scene.

The first press was set up in Cambridge in 1639, with the statement that it "had come to stay." Books printed in those days were mostly sermons filled with the most comfortable assurance that the man who let loose his intellect and allowed it to disbelieve some very difficult things would be essentially——well, I hate to say right here in a book what would happen to him.



The first daily paper, called The Federal Orrery, was issued three hundred years after Columbus discovered America. It was not popular, and killed off the news-boys who tried to call it on the streets: so it perished.

There was a public library in New York, from which books were loaned at fourpence ha'penny per week. New York thus became very early the seat of learning, and soon afterwards began to abuse the site where Chicago now stands.

Travel was slow, the people went on horseback or afoot, and when they could go by boat it was regarded as a success. Wagons finally made the trip from New York to Philadelphia in the wild time of forty-eight hours, and the line was called The Flying Dutchman, or some other euphonious name. Benjamin Franklin, whose biography occurs in Chapter XV., was then Postmaster-General.

He was the first bald-headed man of any prominence in the history of America. He and his daughter Sally took a trip in a chaise, looking over the entire system, and going to all offices. Nothing pleased the Postmaster-General like quietly slipping into a place like Sandy Bottom and catching the postmaster reading over the postal cards and committing them to memory.

Calfskin shoes up to the Revolution were the exclusive property of the gentry, and the rest wore cowhide and were extremely glad to mend them themselves. These were greased every week with tallow, and could be worn on either foot with impunity. Rights and lefts were never thought of until after the Revolutionary War, but to-day the American shoe is the most symmetrical, comfortable, and satisfactory shoe made in the world. The British shoe is said to be more comfortable. Possibly for a British foot it is so, but for a foot containing no breathing-apparatus or viscera it is somewhat roomy and clumsy.



Farmers and laborers of those days wore green or red baize in the shape of jackets, and their breeches were made of leather or bed-ticking. Our ancestors dressed plainly, and a man who could not make over two hundred pounds per year was prohibited from dressing up or wearing lace worth over two shillings per yard. It was a pretty sad time for literary men, as they were thus compelled to wear clothing like the common laborers.

Lord Cornwallis once asked his aidy kong why the American poet always had such an air of listening as if for some expected sound. "I give it up," retorted the aidy kong. "It is," said Lord Cornwallis, as he took a large drink from a jug which he had tied to his saddle, "because he is trying to see if he cannot hear his bed-ticking." On the following day he surrendered his army, and went home to spring his bon-mot on George III.

Yet the laws were very stringent in other respects besides apparel. A man was publicly whipped for killing a fowl on the Sabbath in New England. In order to keep a tavern and sell rum, one had to be of good moral character and possess property, which was a good thing. The names of drunkards were posted up in the alehouses, and the keepers forbidden to sell them liquor. No person under twenty years of age could use tobacco in Connecticut without a physician's order, and no one was allowed to use it more than once a day, and then not within ten miles of any house. It was a common thing to see large picnic-parties going out into the backwoods of Connecticut to smoke.

(Will the reader excuse me a moment while I light up a peculiarly black and redolent pipe?)



Only the gentry were called Mr. and Mrs. This included the preacher and his wife. A friend of mine who is one of the gentry of this century got on the trail of his ancestry last spring, and traced them back to where they were not allowed to be called Mr. and Mrs., and, fearing he would fetch up in Scotland Yard if he kept on, he slowly unrolled the bottoms of his trousers, got a job on the railroad, and since then his friends are gradually returning to him. He is well pleased now, and looks humbly gratified even if you call him a gent.

The Scriptures were literally interpreted, and the Old Testament was read every morning, even if the ladies fainted.

The custom yet noticed sometimes in country churches and festive gatherings of placing the males and females on opposite sides of the room was originated not so much as a punishment to both, as to give the men an opportunity to act together when the red brother felt ill at ease.

I am glad the red brother does not molest us nowadays, and make us sit apart that way. Keep away, red brother; remain on your reservation, please, so that the pale-face may sit by the loved one and hold her little soft hand during the sermon.

Church services meant business in those days. People brought their dinners and had a general penitential gorge. Instrumental music was proscribed, as per Amos fifth chapter and twenty-third verse, and the length of prayer was measured by the physical endurance of the performer.

The preacher often boiled his sermon down to four hours, and the sexton up-ended the hourglass each hour. Boys who went to sleep in church were sand-bagged, and grew up to be border murderers.

New York people were essentially Dutch. New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for those she loved.

Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States, and was noted for its cleanliness and generally sterling qualities of mind and heart, its Sabbath trance and clean white door-steps.

The Southern Colonies were quite different from those of the North. In place of thickly-settled towns there were large plantations with African villages near the house of the owner. The proprietor was a sort of country squire, living in considerable comfort for those days. He fed and clothed everybody, black or white, who lived on the estate, and waited patiently for the colored people to do his work and keep well, so that they would be more valuable. The colored people were blessed with children at a great rate, so that at this writing, though voteless, they send a large number of members to Congress. This cheers the Southern heart and partially recoups him for his chickens. (See Appendix.)

The South then, as now, cured immense quantities of tobacco, while the North tried to cure those who used it.

Washington was a Virginian. He packed his own flour with his own hands, and it was never inspected. People who knew him said that the only man who ever tried to inspect Washington's flour was buried under a hill of choice watermelons at Mount Vernon.

Along the James and Rappahannock the vast estates often passed from father to son according to the law of entail, and such a thing as a poor man "prior to the war" must have been unknown.



Education, however, flourished more at the North, owing partly to the fact that the people lived more in communities. Governor Berkeley of Virginia was opposed to free schools from the start, and said, "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing-presses here, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." His prayer has been answered.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

William Pitt was partly to blame for the Revolutionary War. He claimed that the Colonists ought not to manufacture so much as a horseshoe nail except by permission of Parliament.

It was already hard enough to be a colonist, without the privilege of expressing one's self even to an Indian without being fined. But when we pause to think that England seemed to demand that the colonist should take the long wet walk to Liverpool during a busy season of the year to get his horse shod, we say at once that P. Henry was right when he exclaimed that the war was inevitable and moved that permission be granted for it to come.

Then came the Stamp Act, making almost everything illegal that was not written on stamp paper furnished by the maternal country.

John Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Otis made speeches regarding the situation. Bells were tolled, and fasting and prayer marked the first of November, the day for the law to go into effect.

These things alarmed England for the time, and the Stamp Act was repealed; but the king, who had been pretty free with his money and had entertained a good deal, began to look out for a chance to tax the Colonists, and ordered his Exchequer Board to attend to it.

Patrick Henry got excited, and said in an early speech, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third——" Here he paused and took a long swig of pure water, and added, looking at the newspaper reporters, "If this be treason, make the most of it." He also said that George the Third might profit by their example. A good many would like to know what he started out to say, but it is too hard to determine.



Boston ladies gave up tea and used the dried leaves of the raspberry, and the girls of 1777 graduated in homespun. Could the iron heel of despotism crunch such a spirit of liberty as that? Scarcely. In one family at Newport four hundred and eighty-seven yards of cloth and thirty-six pairs of stockings were spun and made in eighteen months.

When the war broke out it is estimated that each Colonial soldier had twenty-seven pairs of blue woollen socks with white double heels and toes. Does the intelligent reader believe that "Tommy Atkins," with two pairs of socks "and hit a-rainin'," could whip men with twenty-seven pairs each? Not without restoratives.

Troops were now sent to restore order. They were clothed by the British government, but boarded around with the Colonists. This was irritating to the people, because they had never met or called on the British troops. Again, they did not know the troops were coming, and had made no provision for them.



Boston was considered the hot-bed of the rebellion, and General Gage was ordered to send two regiments of troops there. He did so, and a fight ensued, in which three citizens were killed.

In looking over this incident, we must not forget that in those days three citizens went a good deal farther than they do now.

The fight, however, was brief. General Gage, getting into a side street, separated from his command, and, coming out on the Common abruptly, he tried eight or nine more streets, but he came out each time on the Common, until, torn with conflicting emotions, he hired a Herdic, which took him around the corner to his quarters.

On December 16, 1773, occurred the tea-party at Boston, which must have been a good deal livelier than those of to-day. The historian regrets that he was not there; he would have tried to be the life of the party.

England had finally so arranged the price of tea that, including the tax, it was cheaper in America than in the old country. This exasperated the patriots, who claimed that they were confronted by a theory and not a condition. At Charleston this tea was stored in damp cellars, where it spoiled. New York and Philadelphia returned their ships, but the British would not allow any shenanegin', as George III. so tersely termed it, in Boston.

Therefore a large party met in Faneuil Hall and decided that the tea should not be landed. A party made up as Indians, and, going on board, threw the tea overboard. Boston Harbor, as far out as the Bug Light, even to-day, is said to be carpeted with tea-grounds.

George III. now closed Boston harbor and made General Gage Governor of Massachusetts. The Virginia Assembly murmured at this, and was dissolved and sent home without its mileage.



Those opposed to royalty were termed Whigs, those in favor were called Tories. Now they are called Chappies or Authors.

On the 5th of September, 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled at Philadelphia and was entertained by the Clover Club. Congress acted slowly even then, and after considerable delay resolved that the conduct of Great Britain was, under the circumstances, uncalled for. It also voted to hold no intercourse with Great Britain, and decided not to visit Shakespeare's grave unless the mother-country should apologize.



In 1775, on the 19th of April, General Gage sent out troops to see about some military stores at Concord, but at Lexington he met with a company of minute-men gathering on the village green. Major Pitcairn, who was in command of the Tommies, rode up to the minute-men, and, drawing his bright new Sheffield sword, exclaimed, "Disperse, you rebels! throw down your arms and disperse!" or some such remark as that.

The Americans hated to do that, so they did not. In the skirmish that ensued, seven of their number were killed.

Thus opened the Revolutionary War,—a contest which but for the earnestness and irritability of the Americans would have been extremely brief. It showed the relative difference between the fighting qualities of soldiers who fight for two pounds ten shillings per month and those who fight because they have lost their temper.

The regulars destroyed the stores, but on the way home they found every rock-pile hid an old-fashioned gun and minute-man. This shows that there must have been an enormous number of minute-men then. All the English who got back to Boston were those who went out to reinforce the original command.

The news went over the country like wildfire. These are the words of the historian. Really, that is a poor comparison, for wildfire doesn't jump rivers and bays, or get up and eat breakfast by candle-light in order to be on the road and spread the news.

General Putnam left a pair of tired steers standing in the furrow, and rode one hundred miles without feed or water to Boston.

Twenty thousand men were soon at work building intrenchments around Boston, so that the English troops could not get out to the suburbs where many of them resided.



I will now speak of the battle of Bunker Hill.

This battle occurred June 17. The Americans heard that their enemy intended to fortify Bunker Hill, and so they determined to do it themselves, in order to have it done in a way that would be a credit to the town.

A body of men under Colonel Prescott, after prayer by the President of Harvard University, marched to Charlestown Neck. They decided to fortify Breed's Hill, as it was more commanding, and all night long they kept on fortifying. The surprise of the English at daylight was well worth going from Lowell to witness.

Howe sent three thousand men across and formed them on the landing. He marched them up the hill to within ten rods of the earth-works, when it occurred to Prescott that it would now be the appropriate thing to fire. He made a statement of that kind to his troops, and those of the enemy who were alive went back to Charlestown. But that was no place for them, as they had previously set it afire, so they came back up the hill, where they were once more well received and tendered the freedom of a future state.

Three times the English did this, when the ammunition in the fortifications gave out, and they charged with fixed bayonets and reinforcements.

The Americans were driven from the field, but it was a victory after all. It united the Colonies and made them so vexed at the English that it took some time to bring on an era of good feeling.

Lord Howe, referring afterwards to this battle, said that the Americans did not stand up and fight like the regulars, suggesting that thereafter the Colonial army should arrange itself in the following manner before a battle!



However, the suggestion was not acted on. The Colonial soldiers declined to put on a bright red coat and a pill-box cap, that kept falling off in battle, thus delaying the carnage, but preferred to wear homespun which was of a neutral shade, and shoot their enemy from behind stumps. They said it was all right to dress up for a muster, but they preferred their working-clothes for fighting. After the war a statistician made the estimate that nine per cent. of the British troops were shot while ascertaining if their caps were on straight.[4]



General Israel Putnam was known as the champion rough rider of his day, and once when hotly pursued rode down three flights of steps, which, added to the flight he made from the English soldiers, made four flights. Putnam knew not fear or cowardice, and his name even to-day is the synonyme for valor and heroism.

[Footnote 4: The authority given for this statement, I admit, is meagre, but it is as accurate as many of the figures by means of which people prove things.—B. N.]



CHAPTER XV.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, LL.D., PH.G., F.R.S., ETC.

It is considered advisable by the historian at this time to say a word regarding Dr. Franklin, our fellow-townsman, and a journalist who was the Charles A. Dana of his time.

Franklin's memory will remain green when the names of the millionaires of to-day are forgotten. Coextensive with the name of E. Rosewater of the Omaha Bee we will find that of Benjamin Franklin, whose bust sits above the fireplace of the writer at this moment, while a large Etruscan hornet is making a phrenological examination of same.

But let us proceed to more fully mark out the life and labors of this remarkable man.

Benjamin Franklin, formerly of Boston, came very near being an only child. If seventeen children had not come to bless the home of Benjamin's parents they would have been childless. Think of getting up in the morning and picking out your shoes and stockings from among seventeen pairs of them!

Imagine yourself a child, gentle reader, in a family where you would be called upon every morning to select your own cud of spruce gum from a collection of seventeen similar cuds stuck on a window-sill! And yet Benjamin Franklin never murmured or repined. He desired to go to sea, and to avoid this he was apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer.

It is said that Franklin at once took hold of the great Archimedean lever, and jerked it early and late in the interests of freedom.



It is claimed that Franklin, at this time, invented the deadly weapon known as the printer's towel. He found that a common crash towel could be saturated with glue, molasses, antimony, concentrated lye, and roller-composition, and that after a few years of time and perspiration it would harden so that "A Constant Reader" or "Veritas" could be stabbed with it and die soon.

Many believe that Franklin's other scientific experiments were productive of more lasting benefit to mankind than this, but I do not agree with them.

His paper was called the New England Courant. It was edited jointly by James and Benjamin Franklin, and was started to supply a long-felt want.

Benjamin edited it a part of the time, and James a part of the time. The idea of having two editors was not for the purpose of giving volume to the editorial page, but it was necessary for one to run the paper while the other was in jail.

In those days you could not sass the king, and then, when the king came in the office the next day and stopped his paper and took out his ad., put it off on "our informant" and go right along with the paper. You had to go to jail, while your subscribers wondered why their paper did not come, and the paste soured in the tin dippers in the sanctum, and the circus passed by on the other side.

How many of us to-day, fellow-journalists, would be willing to stay in jail while the lawn festival and the kangaroo came and went? Who of all our company would go to a prison-cell for the cause of freedom while a double-column ad. of sixteen aggregated circuses, and eleven congresses of ferocious beasts, fierce and fragrant from their native lair, went by us?

At the age of seventeen Ben got disgusted with his brother, and went to Philadelphia and New York, where he got a chance to "sub" for a few weeks and then got a regular "sit."

Franklin was a good printer, and finally got to be a foreman. He made an excellent foreman, sitting by the hour in the composing-room and spitting on the stove, while he cussed the make-up and press-work of the other papers. Then he would go into the editorial rooms and scare the editors to death with a wild shriek for more copy.

He knew just how to conduct himself as a foreman so that strangers would think he owned the paper.



In 1730, at the age of twenty-four, Franklin married, and established the Pennsylvania Gazette. He was then regarded as a great man, and almost every one took his paper.

Franklin grew to be a great journalist, and spelled hard words with great fluency. He never tried to be a humorist in any of his newspaper work, and everybody respected him.

Along about 1746 he began to study the habits and construction of lightning, and inserted a local in his paper in which he said that he would be obliged to any of his readers who might notice any new or odd specimens of lightning, if they would send them in to the Gazette office for examination.

Every time there was a thunderstorm Franklin would tell the foreman to edit the paper, and, armed with a string and an old door-key, he would go out on the hills and get enough lightning for a mess.



In 1753 Franklin was made postmaster of the Colonies. He made a good Postmaster-General, and people say there were fewer mistakes in distributing their mail then than there have ever been since. If a man mailed a letter in those days, old Ben Franklin saw that it went to where it was addressed.

Franklin frequently went over to England in those days, partly on business and partly to shock the king. He liked to go to the castle with his breeches tucked in his boots, figuratively speaking, and attract a great deal of attention.

It looked odd to the English, of course, to see him come into the royal presence, and, leaning his wet umbrella up against the throne, ask the king, "How's trade?"

Franklin never put on any frills, but he was not afraid of a crowned head. He used to say, frequently, that a king to him was no more than a seven-spot.

He did his best to prevent the Revolutionary War, but he couldn't do it. Patrick Henry had said that the war was inevitable, and had given it permission to come, and it came.

He also went to Paris, and got acquainted with a few crowned heads there. They thought a good deal of him in Paris, and offered him a corner lot if he would build there and start a paper. They also promised him the county printing; but he said, No, he would have to go back to America or his wife might get uneasy about him. Franklin wrote "Poor Richard's Almanac" in 1732 to 1757, and it was republished in England.

Franklin little thought, when he went to the throne-room in his leather riding-clothes and hung his hat on the throne, that he was inaugurating a custom of wearing groom clothes which would in these days be so popular among the English.

Dr. Franklin entered Philadelphia eating a loaf of bread and carrying a loaf under each arm, passing beneath the window of the girl to whom he afterwards gave his hand in marriage.



Nearly everybody in America, except Dr. Mary Walker, was once a poor boy.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE CRITICAL PERIOD.

Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold on the 10th of May led two small companies to Ticonderoga, a strong fortress tremendously fortified, and with its name also across the front door. Ethan Allen, a brave Vermonter born in Connecticut, entered the sally-port, and was shot at by a guard whose musket failed to report. Allen entered and demanded the surrender of the fortress.

"By whose authority?" asked the commandant.

"By the authority of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," said Allen, brandishing his naked sword at a great rate.

"Very well," said the officer: "if you put it on those grounds, all right, if you will excuse the appearance of things. We were just cleaning up, and everything is by the heels here."

"Never mind," said Allen, who was the soul of politeness. "We put on no frills at home, and so we are ready to take things as we find them."

The Americans therefore got a large amount of munitions of war, both here and at Crown Point.

General Washington was now appointed commander-in-chief of all the troops at the second session of the Continental Congress. On his arrival at Boston there were only fourteen thousand men. He took command under the historic elm at Cambridge. He was dressed in a blue broadcloth coat with flaps and revers of same, trimmed with large beautiful buttons. He also wore buff small-clothes, with openings at the sides where pockets are now put in, but at that time given up to space. They were made in such a way as to prevent the naked eye from discovering at once whether he was in advance or retreat. He also wore silk stockings and a cocked hat.

The lines of Dryden starting off "Mark his majestic fabric" were suggested by his appearance and general style. He always dressed well and rode a good horse, but at Valley Forge frosted his feet severely, and could have drawn a pension, "but no," said he, "I can still work at light employment, like being President, and so I will not ask for a pension."

Each soldier had less than nine cartridges, but Washington managed to keep General Gage penned up in Boston, and, as Gage knew very few people there, it was a dull winter for him.

The boys of Boston had built snow hills on the Common, and used to slide down them to the ice below, but the British soldiers tore down their coasting-places and broke up the ice on the pond.

They stood it a long time, rebuilding their playground as often as it was torn down, until the spirit of American freedom could endure it no longer. They then organized a committee consisting of eight boys who were noted for their great philosophical research, and with Charles Sumner Muzzy, the eloquent savant from Milk Street, as chairman, the committee started for General Gage's head-quarters, to confer with him regarding the matter.



In the picture Mr. Muzzy is seen addressing General Gage. The boy in the centre with the colored glasses is Marco Bozzaris Cobb, who discovered and first brought into use the idea of putting New Orleans molasses into Boston brown bread. To the left of Mr. Cobb is Mr. Jehoab Nye, who afterwards became the Rev. Jehoab Nye and worked with heart and voice for over eight of the best years of his life against the immorality of the codfish-ball, before he learned of its true relations towards society.

Above and between these two stands Whomsoever J. Opper, who wrote "How to make the Garden Pay" and "What Responsible Person will see that my Grave is kept green?" In the background we see the tall form of Wherewithal G. Lumpy, who introduced the Pompadour hair-cut into Massachusetts and grew up to be a great man with enlarged joints but restricted ideas.

Charles Sumner Muzzy addressed General Gage at some length, somewhat to the surprise of Gage, who admitted in a few well-chosen words that the committee was right, and that if he had his way about it there should be no more trouble.

Charles was followed by Marco Bozzaris Cobb, who spoke briefly of the boon of liberty, closing as follows: "We point with pride, sir, to the love of freedom, which is about the only excitement we have. We love our country, sir, whether we love anything else much or not. The distant wanderer of American birth, sir, pines for his country. 'Oh, give me back,' he goes on to say, 'my own fair land across the bright blue sea, the land of beauty and of worth, the bright land of the free, where tyrant foot hath never trod, nor bigot forged a chain. Oh, would that I were safely back in that bright land again!'"

Mr. Wherewithal G. Lumpy said he had hardly expected to be called upon, and so had not prepared himself, but this occasion forcibly brought to his mind the words also of the poet, "Our country stands," said he, "with outstretched hands appealing to her boys; from them must flow her weal or woe, her anguish or her joys. A ship she rides on human tides which rise and sink anon: each giant wave may prove her grave, or bear her nobly on. The friends of right, with armor bright, a valiant Christian band, through God her aid may yet be made, a blessing to our land."



General Gage was completely overcome, and asked for a moment to go apart and think it over, which he did, returning with an air which reminded one of "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room."

"You may go, my brave boys; and be assured that if my troops molest you in the future, or anywhere else, I will overpower them and strew the Common with their corses.

"Of corse he will," said the hairy boy to the right of Whomsoever J. Opper, who afterwards became the father of a lad who grew up to be editor of the Persiflage column of the Atlantic Monthly.

Thus the boys of America impressed General Gage with their courage and patriotism and grew up to be good men.

An expedition to Canada was fitted out the same winter, and an attack made on Quebec, in which General Montgomery was killed and Benedict Arnold showed that he was a brave soldier, no matter how the historian may have hopped on him afterwards.

The Americans should not have tried to take Canada. Canada was, as Henry Clay once said, a persimmon a trifle too high for the American pole, and it is the belief of the historian, whose tears have often wet the pages of this record, that in the future Canada will be what America is now, a free country with a national debt of her own, a flag of her own, an executive of her own, and a regular annual crisis of her own, like other nations.

In 1776 Boston was evacuated. Washington, in order to ascertain whether Lord Howe had a call to fish, cut bait, or go ashore, began to fortify Dorchester Heights, March 17, and on the following morning he was not a little surprised to note the change. As the weather was raw, and he had been in-doors a good deal during the winter, Lord Howe felt the cold very keenly. He went to the window and looked at the Americans, but he would come back chilly and ill-tempered to the fire each time. Finally he hitched up and went away to Halifax, where he had acquaintances.



On June 28 an attack was made by the English on Fort Moultrie. It was built of palmetto logs, which are said to be the best thing in the world to shoot into if one wishes to recover the balls and use them again. Palmetto logs accept and retain balls for many years, and are therefore good for forts.

When the fleet got close enough to the fort so that the brave Charlestonians could see the expression on the admiral's face, they turned loose with everything they had, grape, canister, solid shot, chain-shot, bar-shot, stove-lids, muffin-irons, newspaper cuts, etc., etc., so that the decks were swept of every living thing except the admiral.



General Clinton by land tried to draw the attention of the rear gunners of the fort, but he was a poor draughtsman, and so retired, and both the land and naval forces quit Charleston and went to New York, where board was not so high.

July 4 was deemed a good time to write a Declaration of Independence and have it read in the grove.

Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, moved that "the United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and Independent states." John Adams, of Massachusetts, seconded the resolution. This was passed July 2, and the report of the committee appointed to draw up a Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4.



The Declaration was dictated by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the most melodious English of any American of his time.

Jefferson had a vocabulary next to Noah Webster, with all the dramatic power of Dan. He composed the piece one evening after his other work. We give a facsimile of the opening lines.

Philadelphia was a scene of great excitement. The streets were thronged, and people sat down on the nice clean door-steps with perfect recklessness, although the steps had just been cleaned with ammonia and wiped off with a chamois-skin. It was a day long to be remembered, and one that made George III. wish that he had reconsidered his birth.

In the steeple of the old State-House was a bell which had fortunately upon it the line "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." It was rung by the old man in charge, though he had lacked faith up to that moment in Congress. He believed that Congress would not pass the resolution and adopt the Declaration till after election.



Thus was the era of good feeling inaugurated both North and South. There was no North then, no South, no East, no West; just one common country, with Washington acting as father of same. Oh, how nice it must have been!

Washington was one of the sweetest men in the United States. He gave his hand in marriage to a widow woman who had two children and a dark red farm in Virginia.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

The British army now numbered thirty thousand troops, while Washington's entire command was not over seven thousand strong. The Howes, one a general and the other an admiral, now turned their attention to New York. Washington, however, was on the ground beforehand.

Howe's idea was to first capture Brooklyn, so that he could have a place in which to sleep at nights while engaged in taking New York.

The battle was brief. Howe attacked the little army in front, while General Clinton got around by a circuitous route to the rear of the Colonial troops and cut them off. The Americans lost one thousand men by death or capture. The prisoners were confined in the old sugar-house on Liberty Street, where they suffered the most miserable and indescribable deaths.

The army of the Americans fortunately escaped by Fulton Ferry in a fog, otherwise it would have been obliterated. Washington now fortified Harlem Heights, and later withdrew to White Plains. Afterwards he retired to a fortified camp called North Castle.

Howe feared to attack him there, and so sent the Hessians, who captured Fort Washington, November 16.

It looked scaly for the Americans, as Motley says, and Philadelphia bade fair to join New York and other cities held by the British. The English van could be seen from the Colonial rear column. The American troops were almost barefooted, and left their blood-stained tracks on the frozen road.

It was at this time that Washington crossed the Delaware and thereby found himself on the other side; while Howe decided to remain, as the river was freezing, and when the ice got strong enough, cross over and kill the Americans at his leisure. Had he followed the Colonial army, it is quite sure now that the English would have conquered, and the author would have been the Duke of Sandy Bottom, instead of a plain American citizen, unknown, unhonored, and unsung.



Washington decided that he must strike a daring blow while his troops had any hope or vitality left; and so on Christmas night, after crossing the Delaware as shown elsewhere, he fell on the Hessians at Trenton in the midst of their festivities, captured one thousand prisoners, and slew the leader.

The Hessians were having a symposium at the time, and though the commander received an important note of warning during the Christmas dinner, he thrust it into his pocket and bade joy be unconfined.

When daylight came, the Hessians were mostly moving in alcoholic circles trying to find their guns. Washington lost only four men, and two of those were frozen to death.

The result of this fight gave the Colonists courage and taught them at the same time that it would be best to avoid New Jersey symposiums till after the war was over.

Having made such a hit in crossing the Delaware, Washington decided to repeat the performance on the 3d of January. He was attacked at Trenton by Cornwallis, who is known in history for his justly celebrated surrender. He waited till morning, having been repulsed at sundown. Washington left his camp-fires burning, surrounded the British, captured two hundred prisoners, and got away to Morristown Heights in safety. If the ground had not frozen, General Washington could not have moved his forty cannon; but, fortunately, the thermometer was again on his side, and he never lost a gun.

September 11 the English got into the Chesapeake, and Washington announced in the papers that he would now fight the battle of the Brandywine, which he did.



Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, fought bravely with the Americans in this battle, twice having his name shot from under him.

The patriots were routed, scoring a goose-egg and losing Philadelphia.

October 4, Washington attacked the enemy at Germantown, and was beaten back just as victory was arranging to perch on his banner. Poor Washington now retired to Valley Forge, where he put in about the dullest winter of his life.

The English had not been so successful in the North. At first the Americans could only delay Burgoyne by felling trees in the path of his eight thousand men, which is a very unsatisfactory sort of warfare, but at last Schuyler, who had borne the burden and heat of the day, was succeeded by Gates, and good luck seemed to come slowly his way.

A foolish boy with bullet-holes cut in his clothes ran into St. Leger's troops, and out of breath told them to turn back or they would fill a drunkard's grave. Officers asked him about the numbers of the enemy, and he pointed to the leaves of the trees, shrieked, and ran for his life. He ran several days, and was barely able to keep ahead of St. Leger's troops by a neck.

Burgoyne at another time sent a detachment under Colonel Baum to take the stores at Bennington, Vermont. He was met by General Stark and the militia. Stark said, "Here come the redcoats, and we must beat them to-day, or Molly Stark is a widow." This neat little remark made an instantaneous hit, and when they counted up their string of prisoners at night they found they had six hundred souls and a Hessian.

Burgoyne now felt blue and unhappy. Besides, his troops were covered with wood-ticks and had had no washing done for three weeks.

He moved southward and attacked Gates at Bemis Heights, or, as a British wit had it, "gave Gates ajar," near Saratoga. A wavering fight occupied the day, and then both armies turned in and fortified for two weeks. Burgoyne saw that he was running out of food, and so was first to open fire.

Arnold, who had been deprived of his command since the last battle, probably to prevent his wiping out the entire enemy and getting promoted, was so maddened by the conflict that he dashed in before Gates could put him in the guard-house, and at the head of his old command, and without authority or hat, led the attack. Gates did not dare to come where Arnold was, to order him back, for it was a very warm place where Arnold was at the time. The enemy was thus driven to camp.

Arnold was shot in the same leg that was wounded at Quebec; so he was borne back to the extreme rear, where he found Gates eating a doughnut and speaking disrespectfully of Arnold.

A council was now held in Burgoyne's tent, and on the question of renewing the fight stood six to six, when an eighteen-pound hot shot went through the tent, knocking a stylographic pen out of General Burgoyne's hand. Almost at once he decided to surrender, and the entire army of six thousand men was surrendered, together with arms, portable bath-tubs, and leather hat-boxes. The Americans marched into their camp to the tune of Yankee Doodle, which is one of the most impudent compositions ever composed.



During the Valley Forge winter (1777-78) Continental currency depreciated in value so that an officer's pay would not buy his clothes. Many, having also spent their private funds for the prosecution of the war, were obliged to resign and hire out in the lumber woods in order to get food for their families. Troops had no blankets, and straw was not to be had. It was extremely sad; but there was no wavering. Officers were approached by the enemy with from one hundred to one thousand pounds if they would accept and use their influence to effect a reconciliation; but, with blazing eye and unfaltering attitude, each stated that he was not for sale, and returned to his frozen mud-hole to rest and dream of food and freedom.

Those were the untitled nobility from whom we sprung. Let us look over our personal record and see if we are living lives that are worthy of such heroic sires.

Five minutes will now be given the reader to make a careful examination of his personal record.

* * * * *

In the spring the joyful news came across the sea that, through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, France had acknowledged the independence of the United States, and a fleet was on the way to assist the struggling troops.

The battle of Monmouth occurred June 28. Clinton succeeded Howe, and, alarmed by the news of the French fleet, the government ordered Clinton to concentrate his troops near New York, where there were better facilities for getting home.

Washington followed the enemy across New Jersey, overtaking them at Monmouth. Lee was in command, and got his men tangled in a swamp where the mosquitoes were quite plenty, and, losing courage, ordered a retreat.

Washington arrived at that moment, and bitterly upbraided Lee. He used the Flanders method of upbraiding, it is said, and Lee could not stand it. He started towards the enemy in preference to being there with Washington, who was still rebuking him. The fight was renewed, and all day long they fought. When night came, Clinton took his troops with him and went away where they could be by themselves.

An effort was made to get up a fight between the French fleet and the English at Newport for the championship, but a severe storm came up and prevented it.

In July the Wyoming Massacre, under the management of the Tories and Indians, commanded by Butler, took place in that beautiful valley near Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

This massacre did more to make the Indians and Tories unpopular in this country than any other act of the war. The men were away in the army, and the women, children, and old men alone were left to the vengeance of the two varieties of savage. The Indians had never had gospel privileges, but the Tories had. Otherwise they resembled each other.

In 1779 the English seemed to have Georgia and the South pretty well to themselves. Prevost, the English general, made an attack on Charleston, but, learning that Lincoln was after him, decided that, as he had a telegram to meet a personal friend at Savannah, he would go there. In September, Lincoln, assisted by the French under D'Estaing, attacked Savannah. One thousand lives were lost, and D'Estaing showed the white feather to advantage. Count Pulaski lost his life in this fight. He was a brave Polish patriot, and his body was buried in the Savannah River.

The capture of Stony Point about this time by "Mad Anthony Wayne" was one of the most brilliant battles of the war.



Learning the countersign from a negro who sold strawberries to the British, the troops passed the guard over the bridge that covered the marsh, and, gagging the worthy inside guard, they marched up the hill with fixed bayonets and fixed the enemy to the number of six hundred.

The countersign was, "The fort is won," and so it was, in less time than it takes to ejaculate the word "scat!" Wayne was wounded at the outset, but was carried up the hill in command, with a bandage tied about his head. He was a brave man, and never knew in battle what fear was. Yet, strange to say, a bat in his bed would make him start up and turn pale.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION.

The atrocities introduced into this country by the Tories and Indians caused General Sullivan to go out against the measly enemy, whip him near Elmira, and destroy the fields of corn and villages in the Genesee country, where the Indian women were engaged in farming while their men-folks attended to the massacre industry.

The weak point with the Americans seemed to be lack of a suitable navy. A navy costs money, and the Colonists were poor. In 1775 they fitted out several swift sailing-vessels, which did good service. Inside of five years they captured over five hundred ships, cruised among the British isles, and it is reported that they captured war-vessels that were tied to the English wharves.



Paul Jones had a method of running his vessel alongside the enemy's, lashing the two together, and then having it out with the crew, generally winning in a canter. His idea in lashing the two ships together was to have one good ship to ride home on. Generally it was the one he captured, while his own, which was rotten, was allowed to go down. This was especially the case in the fight between the Richard and the Serapis, September 23, 1779.

In 1780 the war was renewed in South Carolina. Charleston, after a forty days' siege, was forced to surrender. Gates now took charge of the South, and also gave a sprinting exhibition at Camden, where he was almost wiped off the face of the earth. He had only two troops left at the close of the battle, and they could not keep up with Gates in the retreat. This battle and the retreat overheated Gates and sowed the seeds of heart-disease, from which he never recovered. He should have chosen a more peaceful life, such as the hen-traffic, or the growth of asparagus for the market.

Benedict Arnold has been severely reproached in history, but he was a brave soldier, and possibly serving under Gates, who jealously kept him in the background, had a good deal to do with the little European dicker which so darkened his brilliant career as a soldier.



Unhappy man! He was not well received in England, and, though a brilliant man, was forced to sit in a corner evening after evening and hear the English tell his humorous stories as their own.

The Carolinas were full of Tories, and opposition to English rule was practically abandoned in the South for the time, with the exception of that made in a desultory swamp-warfare by the partisan bands with such leaders as Marion, Sumter, and Pickens.

Two hundred thousand dollars of Continental money was the sum now out. Forty dollars of it would buy one dollar's worth of groceries; but the grocer had to know the customer pretty well, and even then it was more to accommodate than anything else that he sold at that price.

The British flooded the country with a counterfeit that was rather better-looking than the genuine: so that by the time a man had paid six hundred dollars for a pair of boots, and the crooked bills had been picked out and others substituted, it made him feel that starting a republic was a mighty unpopular job.

General Arnold had married a Tory lady, and lived in Philadelphia while recovering from his wounds received at Quebec and Saratoga. He was rather a high roller, and ran behind, so that it is estimated that his bills there per month required a peach-basket-full of currency with which to pay them, as the currency was then quoted. Besides, Gates had worried him, and made him think that patriotism was mostly politics. He was also overbearing, and the people of Philadelphia mobbed him once. He was reprimanded gently by Washington, but Arnold was haughty and yet humiliated. He got command of West Point, a very important place indeed, and then arranged with Clinton to swap it for six thousand three hundred and fifteen pounds and a colonelcy in the English army.

Major Andre was appointed to confer with Arnold, and got off the ship Vulture to make his way to the appointed place, but it was daylight by that time, and the Vulture, having been fired on, dropped down the river. Andre now saw no way for him but to get back to New York; but at Tarrytown he was met by three patriots, who caught his horse by the reins, and, though Andre tried to tip them, he did not succeed. They found papers on his person, among them a copy of Punch, which made them suspicious that he was not an American, and so he was tried and hanged as a spy. This was one of the saddest features of the American Revolution, and should teach us to be careful how we go about in an enemy's country, also to use great care in selecting and subscribing for papers.

In 1781, Greene, who succeeded Gates, took charge of the two thousand ragged and bony troops. January 17 he was attacked at Cowpens by Tarleton. The militia fell back, and the English made a grand charge, supposing victory to be within reach. But the wily and foxy troops turned at thirty yards and gave the undertaking business a boom that will never be forgotten.

Morgan was in command of the Colonial forces. He went on looking for more regulars to kill, but soon ran up against Cornwallis the surrenderer.

General Greene now joined Morgan, and took charge of the retreat. At the Yadkin River they crossed over ahead of Cornwallis, when it began for to rain. When Cornwallis came to the river he found it so swollen and restless that he decided not to cross. Later he crossed higher up, and made for the fords of the Dan at thirty miles a day, to head off the Americans. Greene beat him, however, by a length, and saved his troops.

The writer has seen the place on the Yadkin where Cornwallis decided not to cross. It was one of the pivotal points of the war, and is of about medium height.

A fight followed at Guilford Court-House, where the Americans were driven back, but the enemy got thinned out so noticeably that Cornwallis decided to retreat. He went back to Washington on a Bull Run schedule, without pausing even for feed or water. Cornwallis was greatly agitated, and the coat he wore at the time, and now shown in the Smithsonian Institution, shows distinctly the marks made where the Colonists played checkers on the tail.

The battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, also greatly reduced the British forces at that point.

Arnold conducted a campaign into Virginia, and was very brutal about it, killing a great many people who were strangers to him, and who had never harmed him, not knowing him, as the historian says, from "Adam's off ox."

Cornwallis in this Virginia and Southern trip destroyed ten million dollars' worth of property, and then fortified himself at Yorktown.

Washington decided to besiege Yorktown, and, making a feint to fool Clinton, set out for that place, visiting Mount Vernon en route after an absence of six and a half years, though only stopping two days. Washington was a soldier in the true sense, and, when a lad, was given a little hatchet by his father. George cut down some cherry-trees with this, in order to get the cherries without climbing the trees. One day his father discovered that the trees had been cut down, and spoke of it to the lad.

"Yes," said George, "I did it with my little hatchet; but I would rather cut down a thousand cherry-trees and tell the truth about it than be punished for it."

"Well said, my brave boy!" exclaimed the happy father as he emptied George's toy bank into his pocket in payment for the trees. "You took the words right out of my mouth."



In speaking of the siege of Yorktown, the historian says, "The most hearty good will prevailed." What more could you expect of a siege than that?

Cornwallis capitulated October 19. It was the most artistic capitulation he had ever given. The troops were arranged in two lines facing each other, British and American with their allies the French under Rochambeau.

People came from all over the country who had heard of Cornwallis and his wonderful genius as a capitulator. They came for miles, and brought their lunches with them; but the general, who felt an unnecessary pique towards Washington, refused to take part in the exercises himself, claiming that by the advice of his physicians he would have to remain in his tent, as they feared that he had over-capitulated himself already. He therefore sent his sword by General O'Hara, and Washington turned it over to Lincoln, who had been obliged to surrender to the English at Charleston.



The news reached Philadelphia in the night, and when the watchman cried, "Past two o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken!" the people arose and went and prayed and laughed like lunatics, for they regarded the war as virtually ended. The old door-keeper of Congress died of delight. Thanks were returned to Almighty God, and George Washington's nomination was a sure thing.

England decided that whoever counselled war any further was a public enemy, and Lord North, then prime minister, when he heard of the surrender of Cornwallis through a New York paper, exclaimed, "Oh, God! it is all over!"

Washington now showed his sagacity in quelling the fears of the soldiers regarding their back pay. He was invited to become king, but, having had no practice, and fearing that he might run against a coup d'etat or faux pas, he declined, and spoke kindly against taking violent measures.

In 1783, September 3, a treaty of peace was signed in Paris, and Washington, delivering the most successful farewell address ever penned, retired to Mount Vernon, where he began at once to enrich his farm with the suggestions he had received during his absence, and to calmly take up the life that had been interrupted by the tedious and disagreeable war.

The country was free and independent, but, oh, how ignorant it was about the science of government! The author does not wish to be personal when he states that the country at that time did not know enough about affairs to carry water for a circus elephant.

It was heavily in debt, with no power to raise money. New England refused to pay her poll-tax, and a party named Shays directed his hired man to overturn the government; but a felon broke out on his thumb, and before he could put it down the crisis was averted and the country saved.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT.

It now became the duty of the new republic to seek out the man to preside over it, and George Washington seems to have had no rivals. He rather reluctantly left his home at Mount Vernon, where he was engaged in trying the rotation of crops, and solemnly took the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, which had been adopted September 17, 1787. His trip in April, 1789, from Mount Vernon to the seat of government in New York was a simple but beautiful ovation.

Everybody tried to make it pleasant for him. He was asked at all the towns to build there, and 'most everybody wanted him "to come and make their house his home." When he got to the ferry he was not pushed off into the water by commuters, but lived to reach the Old Federal Hall, where he was sworn in.

In 1791 the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia, where it remained for ten years, after which the United States took advantage of the Homestead Act and located on a tract of land ten miles square, known as the District of Columbia. In 1846 that part of the District lying on the Virginia side of the Potomac was ceded back to the State.

President Washington did not have to escape from the capital to avoid office-seekers. He could get on a horse at his door and in five minutes be out of sight. He could remain in the forest back of his house until Martha blew the horn signifying that the man who wanted the post-office at Pigback had gone, and then he could return.



How times have changed with the growth of the republic! Now Pigback has grown so that the name has been changed to Hogback, and the President avails himself of every funeral that he can possibly feel an interest in, to leave the swarm of jobless applicants who come to pester him to death for appointments.

The historian begs leave to say here that the usefulness of the President for the good of his country and the consideration of greater questions will some day be reduced to very little unless he may be able to avoid this effort to please voters who overestimate their greatness.

It is said that Washington had no library, which accounted for his originality. He was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church; and to see his tall and graceful form as he moved about from pew to pew collecting pence for Home Missions, was a lovely sight.

As a boy he was well behaved and a careful student.

At one time he was given a hatchet by his father, which——

But what has the historian to do with this morbid wandering in search of truth?

Things were very much unsettled. England had not sent a minister to this country, and had arranged no commercial treaty with us.

Washington's Cabinet consisted of three portfolios and a rack in which he kept his flute-music.

The three ministers were the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Treasury. There was no Attorney-General, or Postmaster-General, or Secretary of the Interior, or of the Navy, or Seed Catalogue Secretary.

Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, advised that Congress at the earliest moment provide itself with a national debt, which was done, the war debt being assumed by the Congressional representatives of the thirteen Colonies.

A tax was levied on spirits, and a mint started, combining the two, and making the mint encourage the consumption of spirits, and thus the increase of the tax, very likely.

A Whiskey Rebellion broke out in 1794. Pennsylvania especially rebelled at the tax on this grocery, but it was put down. (Those wishing to know which was put down will find out by consulting the Appendix, which will be issued a year from this winter.)

A few Indian wars now kept the people interested, and a large number of the red brothers, under Little Turtle, soon found themselves in the soup, as Washington put it so tersely in his message the following year. Twenty-five thousand square miles north of the Ohio were obtained by treaty from the Indians.

England claimed that traffic with America was not desirable, as the Americans did not pay their debts. Possibly that was true, for muskrat pelts were low at that time, and England refused to take cord-wood and saw-logs piled on the New York landing as cash.

Chief-Justice Jay was sent to London to confer with the king, which he did. He was not invited, however, to come to the house during his stay, and the queen did not call on Mrs. Jay. The Jays have never recovered from this snub, and are still gently guyed by the comic papers.

But the treaty was negotiated, and now the Americans are said to pay their debts as well as the nobility who marry our American girls instead of going into bankruptcy, as some would do.

The Mississippi and the Mediterranean Sea were opened for navigation to American vessels now, and things looked better, for we could by this means exchange our cranberries for sugar and barter our Indian relics for camel's-hair shawls, of which the pioneers were very much in need during the rigorous winters in the North.

The French now had a difficulty with England, and Washington, who still remembered La Fayette and the generous aid of the French, wished that he was back at Mount Vernon, working out his poll-tax on the Virginia roads, for he was in a tight place.

It was now thought best to have two political parties, in order to enliven editorial thought and expression. So the Republican party, headed by Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph, and the Federalist party, led by Hamilton and Adams, were organized, and public speakers were engaged from a distance.

The latter party supported the administration,—which was not so much of a job as it has been several times since.

Washington declined to accept a third term, and wrote a first-rate farewell address. A lady, whose name is withheld, writing of those times, closes by saying that President Washington was one of the sweetest men she ever knew.



John Adams succeeded Washington as President, and did not change his politics to amount to much.

He made a good record as Congressman, but lost it as President largely because of his egotism. He seemed to think that if he neglected to oil the gearing of the solar system about so often, it would stop running. We should learn from this to be humble even when we are in authority. Adams and Jefferson were good friends during the Revolution, but afterwards political differences estranged them till they returned to private life. Adams was a poor judge of men, and offended several members of the press who called on him to get his message in advance.

Our country was on the eve of a war with France, when Napoleon I. was made Consul, and peace followed.

Adams's administration made the Federalists unpopular, owing to the Alien and Sedition laws, and Jefferson was elected the successor of Adams, Burr running as Vice-President with him. The election was so close that it went to the House, however.

Jefferson, or the Sage of Monticello, was a good President, noted for his simplicity. He married and brought his bride home to Monticello prior to this. She had to come on horseback about one hundred miles, and, as the house was unfinished and no servants there, they had to sleep on the work-bench and eat what was left of the carpenter's lunch.

Jeffersonian simplicity was his strong point, and people who called at the White House often found him sprinkling the floor of his office, or trying to start a fire with kerosene.

Burr was Vice-President, and, noticing at once that the office did not attract any attention to speak of, decided to challenge Mr. Alexander Hamilton to fight a duel with him.



The affair took place at Weehawken, July 11, 1804. Hamilton fell at the first fire, on the same spot where his eldest son had been killed in the same way.

The artist has shown us how Burr and Hamilton should have fought, but, alas! they were not progressive men and did not realize this till too late. Another method would have been to use the bloodless method of the French duel, or the newspaper customs adopted by the pugilists of 1893. The time is approaching when mortal combat in America will be confined to belligerent people under the influence of liquor. A newspaper assault instead of a duel might have made Burr President and Hamilton Vice-President.



Burr went West, and was afterwards accused of treason on the ground that he was trying to organize Mexico against the United States government. He was put in a common jail to await trial. Afterwards he was discharged, but was never again on good terms with the government, and never rose again.

When he came into town and registered at the hotel the papers did not say anything about it; and so he stopped taking them, thus falling into ignorance and oblivion at the same moment, although at one time he had lacked but a single vote to make him President of the United States.



England and France still continued at war, and American vessels were in hot water a good deal, as they were liable to be overhauled by both parties. England especially, with the excuse that she was looking for deserters, stopped American vessels and searched them, going through the sleeping-apartments before the work was done up,—one of the rudest things known in international affairs.

An Embargo Act was passed forbidding American vessels to leave port, an act which showed that the bray of the ass had begun to echo through the halls of legislation even at that early day.

In the mean time, Jefferson had completed his second term, and James Madison, the Republican candidate, had succeeded him at the helm of state, as it was then called.

His party favored a war with England, especially as the British had begun again to stir up the red brother.

Madison was a Virginian. He was a man of unblemished character, and was not too haughty to have fun sometimes. This endeared him to the whole nation. Unlike Adams, he never swelled up so that his dignity hurt him under the arms. He died in 1836, genial and sunny to the last.

It was now thought best to bring on the war of 1812, which began by an Indian attack at Tippecanoe on General Harrison's troops in 1811, when the Indians were defeated. June 19, 1812, war was finally declared.



The first battle was between the forces under General Hull on our side and the English and Indians on the British side, near Detroit. The troops faced each other, Tecumseh being the Indian leader, and both armies stood ready to have one of the best battles ever given in public or private, when General Hull was suddenly overcome with remorse at the thought of shedding blood, especially among people who were so common, and, shaking a large table-cloth out the window in token of peace, amid the tears of his men, surrendered his entire command in a way that reminded old settlers very much of Cornwallis.



CHAPTER XX.

THE WAR WITH CANADA.

October 13, General Van Rensselaer crossed the Niagara River and attacked the British at Queenstown Heights. The latter retreated, and General Brock was killed. General Van Rensselaer went back after the rest of his troops, but they refused to cross, on the ground that the general had no right to take them out of the United States, and thus the troops left in charge at the Heights were compelled to surrender.

These troops who refused to go over and accept a victory already won for them, because they didn't want to cross the Canadian line, would not have shied so at the boundary if they had been boodlers, very likely, in later years.

August 19 occurred the naval fight between the Constitution and Guerriere, off the Massachusetts coast. The Constitution, called "Old Ironsides," was commanded by Captain Isaac Hull. The Guerriere was first to attack, but got no reply until both vessels were very close together, when into her starboard Captain Hull poured such a load of hardware that the Guerriere was soon down by the head and lop-sided on the off side. She surrendered, but was of no value, being so full of holes that she would not hold a cargo of railroad-trestles.