President and council, threatening military violence if their demands were not complied with in the course of twenty minutes.

Though these menaces were directed against the State government, Congress felt itself outraged by being thus surrounded and blockaded for several hours by an armed soldiery. Fearing lest the State of Pennsylvania might not be able to furnish adequate protection, it adjourned to meet within a few days at Princeton; sending information, in the meantime, to Washington of this mutinous outbreak.

The latter immediately detached General Howe with fifteen hundred men to quell the mutiny and punish the offenders; at the same time, in a letter to the President of Congress, he expressed his indignation and distress at seeing a handful of men, "contemptible in numbers and equally so in point of service, and not worthy to be called soldiers," insulting the sovereign authority of the Union, and that of their own State. He vindicated the army at large, however, from the stain the behavior of these men might cast upon it. These were mere recruits, soldiers of a day, who had not borne the heat and burden of the war, and had in reality few hardships to complain of. He contrasted their conduct with that of the soldiers recently furloughed, veterans who had

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patiently endured hunger, nakedness, and cold; who had suffered and bled without a murmur, and who had retired in perfect good order to their homes, without a settlement of their accounts or a farthing of money in their pockets. While he gave vent to his indignation and scorn, roused by the "arrogance and folly and wickedness of the mutineers," he declared that he could not sufficiently admire the fidelity, bravery, and patriotism of the rest of the army.

Fortunately, before the troops under General Howe reached Philadelphia, the mutiny had been suppressed without bloodshed. Several of the mutineers were tried by a court-martial, two were condemned to death, but ultimately pardoned, and four received corporal punishment.

Washington now found his situation at head-quarters irksome; there was little to do, and he was liable to be incessantly teased with applications and demands, which he had neither the means nor power to satisfy. He resolved, therefore, to while away part of the time that must intervene before the arrival of the definitive treaty, by making a tour to the northern and western parts of the State, and visiting the places which had been the theatre of important military transactions. He had another object in view; he desired to facilitate

VOL, VII.-2

as far as in his power the operations which would be necessary for occupying, as soon as evacuated by British troops, the posts ceded by the treaty of peace.

Governor Clinton accompanied him on the expedition. They set out by water from Newburgh, ascended the Hudson to Albany, visited Saratoga and the scene of Burgoyne's surrender, embarked on Lake George, where light boats had been provided for them, traversed that beautiful lake so full of historic interest; proceeded to Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and after reconnoitering those eventful posts, returned to Schenectady, whence they proceeded up the valley of the Mohawk River, "to have a view," writes Washington, "of that tract of country which is so much celebrated for the fertility of its soil and the beauty of its situation." Having reached Fort Schuyler, formerly Fort Stanwix, they crossed over to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida Lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. They then traversed the country to the head of the castern branch of the Susquehanna, and viewed Lake Otsego and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River.

Washington returned to headquarters at Newburgh on the 5th of August, after a tour of at least seven hundred and fifty miles, per

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formed in nineteen days, and for the most part on horseback. In a letter to the Chevalier de Chastellux, written two or three months afterwards, and giving a sketch of his tour through what was, as yet, an unstudied wilderness, he writes: "Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States from maps and the information of others; and could not but be struck with the immense extent and importance of it, and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with so profuse a hand; would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the western country, and traversed those lines, or a great part of them, which have given bounds to a new empire." The vast advantages of internal communication between the Hudson and the great lakes, which dawned upon Washington's mind in the course of this tour, have since been realized in that grand artery of national wealth, the Erie Canal.

Chapter 11.

The Army to be Discharged Parting Address of Washington Evacuation of New York-Parting Scene of Washington with his Officers at New York -Washington Resigns his Commission to Congress -Retires to Mount Vernon.

B

Y a proclamation of Congress, dated 18th of October, all officers and soldiers absent on furlough were discharged from

further service; and all others who had engaged to serve during the war, were to be discharged from and after the 3d of November. A small force only, composed of those who had enlisted for a definite time, were to be retained in service until the peace establishment should be organized.

In general orders of November 2d, Washington, after adverting to this proclamation, adds: It only remains for the commanderin-chief to address himself once more, and that for the last time, to the armies of the