 Chapter 11 of Washington and his comrades-in-arms by George Rong. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Yorktown. The critical stroke of the war was near. In the south after General Green superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn. Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates. Green arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina in December. He found an army badly equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted by a greatly superior force. He had, however, some excellent officers, and he did not scorn as Gates, with the stiff military traditions of a regular soldier, had scorned the aid of guerrilla leaders like Marion and Sumter. Serving with Green was General Daniel Morgan, the enterprising and resourceful Virginia rifleman, who had fought valorously at Quebec, at Saratoga, and later in Virginia. Steuben was busy in Virginia, holding the British in check and keeping open the line of communication with the North, the mobility and diversity of the American forces puzzled Cornwallis. When he marched from Camden into North Carolina, he hoped to draw Green into a battle and to crush him as he had crushed Gates. He sent Tarleton with a smaller force to strike a deadly blow at Morgan, who was threatening the British garrisons at the points in the interior farther south. There was no more capable leader than Tarleton. He had won many victories, but now came his day of defeat. On January 17, 1781, he met Morgan at the Cowpens, about 30 miles west from King's Mountain. Morgan, not quite sure of the discipline of his men, stood with his back to a broad river so that retreat was impossible. Tarleton had marched nearly all night over bad roads, but confident in the superiority of his weary and hungry veterans, he advanced to the attack at daybreak. The result was a complete disaster. Tarleton himself barely got away with 270 men and left behind nearly 900 casualties and prisoners. Cornwallis had lost one-third of his effective army. There was nothing for him to do but to take his loss and still depress on Northward in the hope that the more southerly inland posts could take care of themselves. In the early spring of 1781, when heavy rains were making the roads difficult and the rivers almost impossible, Green was luring Cornwallis northward and Cornwallis was chasing Green. At Hillsborough in the northwest corner of North Carolina, Cornwallis issued a proclamation saying that the colony was once more under the authority of the king and inviting the loyalists, bullied and oppressed during nearly six years, to come out openly on the royal side. On the 15th of March, Green took a stand and offered battle at Guilford Courthouse. In the early afternoon, after a march of 12 miles without food, Cornwallis, with less than 2,000 men, attacked Green's force of about 4,000. By evening, the British held the field and had captured Green's guns. But they had lost heavily and they were 200 miles from their base. Their friends were timid and in fact few and their numerous enemies were filled with passionate resolution. Cornwallis now wrote to urge Clinton to come to his aid. Abandoned New York, he said, bring the whole British force into Virginia and end the war by one smashing stroke. That would be better than sticking to salt pork in New York and sending only enough men to Virginia to steal tobacco. Cornwallis could not remain where he was, far from the sea, go back to Camden. He would not after a victory and thus seemed to admit a defeat. So he decided to risk all and go forward. By hard marching, he led his army down the Cape Fear River to Whimmington on the sea and there he arrived on the 9th of April. Green, however, simply would not do what Cornwallis wished. Stay in the North to be beaten by a second smashing blow. He did what Cornwallis would not do. He marched back into the South and disturbed the British dream that now the country was held securely. It mattered little that after this, the British won minor victories. Lord Rodden, still holding Camden, defeated Green on the 25th of April at Hobb-Kirks Hill. Nonetheless, did Rodden find his position untenable and he too was forced to march to the sea, which he reached at a point near Charleston. Augusta, the capital of Georgia, fell to the Americans on the 5th of June and the operations of the summer went decisively in their favor. The last battle in the field of the Father's South was fought on the 8th of September at Utah Springs, about 50 miles northwest of Charleston. The British held their position and thus could claim a victory, but it was fruitless. They'd been forced steadily to withdraw. All the boasted fabric of royal government in the South had come down with a crash and the Tories who had supported it were having evil days. While these events were happening, Father's South Cornwallis himself without waiting for word from Clinton in New York had adopted his own policy and marched from Wilmington Northward into Virginia. Benedict Arnold was now in Virginia doing what mischief he could to his former friends. In January, he burned the little town of Richmond, destined in the years to come to be a great center in another civil war. Some 20 miles south from Richmond lay in a strong position, Petersburg, later also to be drenched with blood shed in civil strife. Arnold was already at Petersburg when Cornwallis arrived on the 20th of May. He was now in high spirits. He did not yet realize the extent of the failure of Father's South. Virginia, he believed to be half loyalist at heart. The Negroes would, he thought, turn against their masters when they knew that the British were strong enough to defend them. Above all, he had a finely disciplined army of 5,000 men. Cornwallis was the more confident when he knew by whom he was opposed. In April, Washington had placed Lafayette in charge of the defense of Virginia and not only was Lafayette young and untried in such a command, but he had at first only 3,000 badly trained men to confront the formidable British general. Cornwallis said cheerfully that the boy was certainly now his prey and began the task of catching him. An exciting chase followed. Lafayette did some good work. It was impossible with his inferior force to fight Cornwallis, but he could tire him out by drawing him into long marches. When Cornwallis advanced to attack Lafayette at Richmond, Lafayette was not there, but had slipped away and was able to use rivers and mountains for his defense. Cornwallis had more than one string to his bow. The legislature of Virginia was sitting at Charlottesville, lying in the interior, nearly a hundred miles northwest from Richmond, and Cornwallis conceived the daring plan of raiding Charlottesville, capturing the governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, and at one stroke shattering the civil administration. Tarleton was the man for such an enterprise of hard writing and bold fighting, and he nearly succeeded. Jefferson indeed escaped by rapid flight, but Tarleton took the town, burned the public records and captured ammunition and arms. But he really effected little. Lafayette was still unconquered, his army was growing, and the British were finding that Virginia, like New England, was definitely against them. At New York, meanwhile, Clinton was in a dilemma. He was dismayed at the news of the march of Cornwallis to Virginia. Cornwallis had been so long practically independent in the self that he assumed not only the right to shape his own policy, but adopted a certain tartness in his dispatches to Clinton, his superior. When now in this tone, he urged Clinton to abandon New York and join him. Clinton's answer on the 26th of June was a definite order to occupy some port in Virginia, easily reached from the sea to make it secure and to send to New York reinforcements. The French army at Newport was beginning to move towards New York, and Clinton had intercepted letters from Washington to Lafayette, revealing a serious design to make an attack with the aid of the French fleet. Such was the game which Fortune was playing with the British generals. Each desired the other to abandon his own plans and to come to his aid. They were agreed, however, that some strong point must be held in Virginia as a naval base and on the 2nd of August, Cornwallis established this base at Yorktown at the mouth of the York River, a mile wide where it flows into Chesapeake Bay. His cannon could command the whole width of the river and keep in safety ships anchored above the town. Yorktown lay about halfway between York and Charleston and from here a fleet could readily carry a military force to any needed point on the sea. Lafayette with a growing army closed in on Yorktown and Cornwallis almost before he knew it was besieged with no hope of rescue except by a fleet. Then it was that from the sea, the restless and mysterious sea came the final decision. Man seems so much the sport of circumstance that apparent trifles remote from his consciousness appear at times to determine his fate. It is a commonplace of romance that a pretty face or a stray bullet has altered the destiny, not merely a family's but of nations. And now in the American Revolution it was not forts on the Hudson nor maneuvers in the South that were to decide the issue but the presence of a few more French warships than the British could muster at a given spot and time. Washington had urged in January that France should plan to have at least temporary naval superiority in American waters in accordance with Roe-Chambeau's principle, nothing without naval supremacy. Washington wished to concentrate against New York but the French were of a different mind believing that the great effort should be made in Chesapeake Bay. There the British could have no defenses like those at New York and the French fleet which was stationed in the West Indies could reach more readily than New York or point in the South. Early in May, Roe-Chambeau knew that a French fleet was coming to his aid but not yet did he know where the stroke should be made. It was clear, however, that there was nothing for the French to do at Newport and by the beginning of June, Roe-Chambeau prepared to set his army in motion. The first step was to join Washington on the Hudson and at any rate alarm Clinton as to an imminent attack on New York and hold him to that spot. After nearly a year of idleness, the French soldiers were delighted that now at last there was to be an active movement. The long march from Newport to New York began in glowing June amid the beauties of nature now overcome by intense heat and obliged to march at two o'clock in the morning. Now drenched by heavy rains, the French plotted on and joined their American comrades along the Hudson early in July. By the 14th of August, Washington knew two things that a great French fleet under the Comte de Grasse had sailed for the Chesapeake and that the British army had reached Yorktown. Soon the two Allied armies both lying on the east side of the Hudson moved southward. On the 20th of August, the Americans began to cross the river at King's very eight miles below peak skill. Washington had to leave the greater part of his army before New York and his meager force of some 2000 was soon over the river in spite of torrential rains. By the 24th of August, the French too had crossed with some 4,000 men and with their heavy equipment. The British made no move. Clinton was however watching these operations nervously. The United armies marched down the right bank of the Hudson so rapidly that they had to leave useful effects behind and some grumbled at the privation. Clinton thought his enemy might still attack New York from the New Jersey shore. He knew that near Staten Island, the Americans were building great bakeries as if to feed an army besieging New York. Suddenly on the 29th of August, the armies turned away from New York, southwestward across New Jersey and still only the two leaders knew whether they were bound. American patriotism has liked to dwell on this last great march of Washington. To him, this was familiar country. It was here that he had harassed Clinton on the march from Philadelphia to New York three long years before. The French marched on the right at the rate of about 15 miles a day. The country was beautiful and the roads were good. Autumn had come and the air was bracing. The peaches hung ripe on the trees. The Dutch farmers who four years earlier had been plaintive about the pillage by the Hessians now seem prosperous enough and brought abundance of provisions to the army. They had just gathered their harvest. The armies passed through Princeton with its fine college, numbering as many as 50 students, then onto Trenton and across the Delaware to Philadelphia, which the vanguard reached on the 3rd of September. There were gala scenes in Philadelphia. 20,000 people witnessed a review of the French army. To one of the French officers, the city seemed immense with its 72 streets all in a straight line. The shops appeared to be equal to those of Paris and they were pretty women well dressed in the French fashion. The Quaker city forgot its old suspicion of the French and their Catholic religion. Luzern, the French minister gave a great banquet on the evening of the 5th of September. 80 guests took their places at table and as they sat down, good news arrived. As yet few knew the destination of the army but now Luzern read momentous tidings and the secret was out. 28 French ships of the line had arrived in Chesapeake Bay. An army of 3,000 men had already disembarked and was in touch with the army of Lafayette. Washington and Rochambeau were bound for your town to attack Cornwallis. Great was the joy in the streets, the soldiers and the people shouted and sang and humorous mounted on chairs delivered in advance mock funeral orations on Cornwallis. It was planned that the army should march the 50 miles to Elkton at the head of Chesapeake Bay and there take boat to your town, 200 miles to the south at the other end of the bay. But there were not ships enough Washington had asked the people of influence in the neighborhood to help them to gather transports but few of them responded. A deadly apathy in regard to the war seems to have fallen upon many parts of the country. The bay now in control of the French fleet was quite safe for unarmed ships. Half the Americans and some of the French embarked and the rest continued on foot. There was need of haste and the troops marched on to Baltimore and beyond at the rate of 20 miles a day over roads often bad and across rivers sometimes unbridged. At Baltimore some further regiments were taken on board transports and most of them made the final stages of the journey by water. Some there were however and among them by the Noia brother-in-law of Lafayette who tramped on foot the whole 756 miles from Newport to Yorktown. Washington himself left the army at Elkton and rode on with Rochambeau making about 60 miles a day. Mount Vernon lay on the way and hear Washington pause for two or three days. It was the first time he had seen it since he had set out on May 4, 1775 to attend the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, little dreaming then of himself as chief leader in a long war. Now he pressed on to join Lafayette by the end of the month an army of 16,000 men of whom about one half were French was besieging Cornwallis with 7,000 men in Yorktown. Hearts during events had happened while the armies were marching to the south. The calm grass with his great fleet arrived at the entrance to the Chesapeake on the 30th of August while the British fleet under Admiral Graves still lay at New York. Grass, now the pivot upon which everything turned was the French Admiral in the West Indies taking advantage of a law in operations he has slipped away with his whole fleet to make his stroke and be back again before his absence had caused great loss. It was a risky enterprise but a wise leader takes risks. He intended to be back in the West Indies before the end of October. It was not easy for the British to realize that they could be outmatched on the sea. Rodney had sent word from the West Indies that 10 ships were the limit of Grass's numbers and that even 14 British ships would be adequate to meet him. A British fleet numbering 19 ships of the line commanded by Admiral Graves left New York on the 31st of August and five days later stood off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. On the mainland, across the bay, lay Yortown, the one point now held by the British on that great stretch of coast. When Graves arrived, he had an unpleasant surprise. The strength of the French had been well concealed. There to confront him lay 24 enemy ships. The situation was even worse for the French fleet from Newport was on its way to join Grass. On the afternoon of the 5th of September, the day of the great rejoicing in Philadelphia, there was a spectacle of surpassing interest off Cape Henry at the mouth of the bay. The two great fleets joined battle under sail and poured their fire into each other. When night came, the British had about 350 casualties and the French about 200. There was no brilliant leadership on either side. One of Graves's largest ships, the terrible was so crippled that he burnt her and several others were badly damaged. Admiral Hood, one of Graves's officers, says that if his leader had turned suddenly and anchored his ships across the mouth of the bay, the French Admiral with his fleet outside would probably have sailed away and left the British fleet in possession. As it was, the two fleets lay at sea inside of each other for four days. On the morning of the 10th of squadron from Newport under Barris arrived and increased across the ships to 36. Against such odds, Graves could do nothing. He lingered near the mouth of the Chesapeake for a few days still and then sailed away to New York to refit. At the most critical hour of the whole war, a British fleet crippled and spiritless was hurrying to a protecting port and the Fleur-de-Lis waved unchallenged on the American coast. The action of Graves spelled the doom of Cornwallis. The most potent fleet ever gathered in those waters cut him off from rescue by sea. Yorktown fronted on the York River with a deep ravine and swamps at the back of the town. From the land it could on the west side be approached by a road leading over marsh and easily defended and on the east side by solid ground about half a mile wide, now protected by redoubts and entrenchments with an outer and an inner parallel. Could Cornwallis hold out? At New York no longer in any danger there was still a keen desire to rescue him. By the end of September, he received word from Clinton that reinforcements had arrived from England and that with a fleet of 26 ships of the line carrying 5,000 troops he hoped to sail on the 5th of October to the rescue of Yorktown. There was delay. Later, Clinton wrote that on the basis of assurances from Admiral Graves, he hoped to get away on the 12th. A British officer in New York describes the hopes with which the populace watched these preparations. The fleet, however, did not sail until the 19th of October. A speaker in Congress at the time said that the British Admiral should certainly hang for this delay. On the 5th of October, for some reason unexplained, Cornwallis abandoned the outer parallel and withdrew behind the inner one. This left him in Yorktown a space so narrow that nearly every part of it could be swept by enemy artillery. By the 11th of October, shells were dropping incessantly from a distance of only 300 yards. And before this powerful fire, the earthworks crumbled. On the 14th, the French and Americans carried by storm to redoubts on the second parallel. The redoubtable Tarleton was in Yorktown and he says that day and night there was acute danger to anyone showing himself and that every gun was dismounted as soon as seen. He was for evacuating the place and marching away wither he hardly knew. Cornwallis still held Gloucester on the opposite side of the York River and he now planned to cross to that place with his best troops, leaving behind his sick and wounded. He would try to reach Philadelphia by the route over which Washington had just ridden. The feat was not impossible. Washington would have had a stern chase and following Cornwallis who might have been able to live off the country. Clinton could help by attacking Philadelphia which was almost defenseless. As it was, a storm prevented the crossing to Gloucester. The defenses of Yorktown were weakening and in face of this new discouragement, the British leader made up his mind that the end was near. Tarleton and other officers condemned Cornwallis sharply for not persisting in the effort to get away. Cornwallis was a considerate man. I thought it would have been wanton and inhuman. He reported later to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers. He had already written to Clinton to say that there would be great risk in trying to send a fleet and army to rescue him. On the 19th of October came the climax. Cornwallis surrendered with some hundreds of sailors and about 7,000 soldiers of whom 2,000 were in hospital. The terms were similar to those which the British had granted at Charleston to General Lincoln who was now charged with carrying out the surrender, such as the play of human fortune. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the British marched out between two lines, the French on the one side, the Americans on the other, the French in full dress uniform, the Americans in some cases, half naked and barefoot. No civilian sight seers were admitted and there was a respectful silence in the presence of this great humiliation to a proud army. The town itself was a dreadful spectacle with as a French observer noted, big holes made by bombs, cannonballs, splinters, barely covered graves, arms and legs of blacks and whites scattered here and there. Most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid of window panes. On the very day of surrender, Clinton sailed from New York with a rescuing army. Nine days later, 44 British ships were counted off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. The next day there were none. The great fleet had heard of the surrender and had turned back to New York. Washington urged Grosse to attack New York or Charleston, but the French Admiral was anxious to take his fleet back to meet the British menace farther south and he sailed away with all his great array. The waters of the Chesapeake, the scene of one of the decisive events in human history were deserted by ships of war. Grosse had sailed, however, to meet a stern fate. He was a fine fighting sailor. His men said of him that he was on ordinary days, six feet in height, but on battle days, six feet and six inches. Nonetheless, did a few months bring the British a quick revenge on the sea. On April 12th, 1782, Rodney met Grosse in a terrible naval battle in the West Indies. Some 5,000 in both fleets perished when night came. Grosse was Rodney's prisoner and Britain had recovered her supremacy on the sea. On returning to France, Grosse was tried by court martial and though acquitted, he remained in disgrace until he died in 1788. Weary, as he said, of the burden of life. The defeated Cornwallis was not blamed in England. His character commanded wide respect and he lived to play a great part in public life. He became Governor General of India and was Vice-Roy of Ireland when his restless union with England was brought about in 1800. Yorktown settled the issue of the war but did not end it for more than a year. Still hostilities continued and in parts of the South, embittered faction led to more bloodshed. In England, the news of Yorktown caused a commotion. When Lord George Germain received the first dispatch, he drove with one or two colleagues through the Prime Minister's house in Downing Street. A friend asked Lord George how Lord North had taken the news. As he would have taken a ball in the breast, he replied before he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly as he paced up and down the apartment during a few minutes. Oh God, it is all over. Words which he repeated many times under emotions of the deepest agitation and distress. Lord North might well be agitated for the news meant the collapse of a system. The King was at cue and word was sent to him. That Sunday evening, Lord George Germain had a small dinner party and the King's letter in reply was brought to the table. The guests were curious to know how the King took the news. The King writes just as he always does, said Lord George, except that I observe he has omitted to mark the hour and the minute of his writing with his usual precision. It needed a heavy shock to disturb the routine of George III. The King hoped no one would think that the bad news makes the smallest alteration in those principles of my conduct, which have directed me in past time. Lesser men might change in the face of evils. George III was resolved to be changeless and never, never to yield to the coercion of facts. He yield however he did the months which followed were months of political commotion in England for a time the ministry held its majority against the fierce attacks of Burke and Fox. The House of Commons voted that the war must go on but the heart had gone out of British effort everywhere the people were growing restless. Even the ministry acknowledged that the war in America must henceforth be defensive only. In February 1782, a motion in the House of Commons for peace was lost by only one vote and in March in spite of the frantic expostulations of the King, Lord North resigned. The King insisted that at any rate some members of the new ministry must be named by himself and not as is the British constitutional custom by the Prime Minister. On those two he had to yield and a weak ministry under the Marquis of Rockingham took office in March 1782. Rockingham died on the 1st of July and it was Lord Shelburne, later the Marquis of Lansdown under whom the war came to an end. The King meanwhile declared that he would return to Hanover rather than yield the independence of the colonies over and over again. He had said that no one should hold office in his government who would not pledge himself to keep the empire in tire. But even his obstinacy was broken. On December 5, 1782, he opened parliament with a speech in which the right of the colonies to independence was acknowledged. Did I lower my voice when I came to that part of my speech? George asked afterwards, he might well speak in a subdued tone for he had brought the British empire to the lowest level in its history. In America, meanwhile, the glow of victory had given way to weariness and lassitude. Rochambeau with his army remained in Virginia. Washington took his forces back to the lines before New York, spearing wet men he could to help green in the south. Again, came a long period of watching and waiting. Washington knowing the obstinate determination of the British character urged Congress to keep up the numbers of the army so as to be prepared for any emergency. Sir Guy Carlton now commanded the British that New York and Washington feared that this capable Irishman might sue the Americans into a false security. He had to speak sharply for the people seemed indifferent to further effort in Congress was slack and impotent. The outlook for Washington's allies in the war darkened when in April 1782, Rodney won his crushing victory and carried to grass a prisoner to England. France's ally Spain had been besieging Gibraltar for three years, but in September 1782 when the great battering ships, especially built for the purpose, began a furious bombardment, which was expected to end the siege. The British defenders destroyed every ship and after that Gibraltar was safe. These events naturally stiffened the backs of the British in negotiating peace. Spain declared that she would never make peace without the surrender of Gibraltar and she was ready to leave the question of American independence undecided or decided against the colonies if she could only get for herself the terms which she desired. There was a period when France seemed ready to make peace on the basis of dividing the 13 states leaving some of them independent while others should remain under the British King. Congress was not willing to leave its affairs at Paris in the capable hands of Franklin alone. In 1780 it sent John Adams to Paris and John Jay and Henry Lawrence were also members of the American Commission. The austere Adams disliked and was jealous of Franklin gay in spite of his years seemingly indolent and easygoing always banned and reluctant to say no to any requests from his friends but ever astute in the interests of his country. Adams told Virgin that French foreign minister that the Americans owed nothing to France that France had entered the war in her own interests and that her alliance with America had greatly strengthened her position in Europe. France he added was really hostile to the colonies since she was jealously trying to keep them from becoming rich and powerful. Adams dropped hints that America might be compelled to make a separate peace with Britain when it was proposed that the depreciated continental paper money largely held in France for purchases there should be redeemed at the rate of one good dollar for every 40 in paper money. Adams declared to the horrified French creditors of the United States that the proposal was fair and just. At the same time, Congress was drawing on Franklin and Paris for money to meet its requirements and Franklin was expected to persuade the French treasury to furnish him with what he needed and to an amazing degree succeeded in doing so. The self-interest which Washington believed to be the dominant motive in politics was it is clear actively at work. In the end, the American commissioners negotiated directly with Great Britain without asking for the consent of their French allies. On November 30th, 1782, articles of peace between Great Britain and the United States were signed. They were, however, not to go into effect until Great Britain and France had agreed upon terms of peace and it was not until September 3rd, 1783 that the definite treaty was signed. So far as the United States was concerned, Spain was left quite properly to shift for herself. Thus it was that the war ended. Great Britain had urged, especially the case of the loyalists, the return to them of their property and compensation for their losses. She could not achieve anything. Franklin indeed asked that Americans who had been ruined by the destruction of their property should be compensated by Britain. That candidate should be added to the United States and that Britain should acknowledge her fault in distressing the colonies. In the end, the American commissioners agreed to ask the individual states to meet the desires of the British negotiators, but both sides understood that the states would do nothing, that the confiscated property would never be returned, that most of the exiled loyalists would remain exiles and that Britain herself must compensate them for their losses. This in time, she did on a scale inadequate indeed but expressive of a generous intention. The United States remained the Great Northwest when the Mississippi became the Western frontier with destiny already whispering that weekend grasping Spain must soon let go of the farther west stretching to the Pacific Ocean. When Great Britain signed peace with France in Spain in January 1783, Gibraltar was not returned. Spain had to be content with the return of Enorca in Florida, which she had been forced to yield to Britain in 1763. Each side restored its conquest in the West Indies. France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later use gained from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her ancient enemy. The magnanimity of France, especially towards her exacting American ally is one of the fine things in the great combat. The huge sum of nearly $800 million spent by France in the war was one of the chief factors in the financial crisis, which six years after the signing of the peace brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow of the bourbon monarchy. Politics bring strange bedfellows and they have rarely brought stranger ones than the democracy of young America and the political despotism linked with idealism of the ancient monarchy of France. The British did not evacuate New York until Carleton had gathered there the loyalists who claimed his protection. These unhappy people made their way to the seaports often after long and distressing journeys overland. Charleston was the chief rallying place in the South and from there many sad hearted people sailed away, never to see again their former homes. The British had captured New York in September 1776 and it was more than seven years later on November 25, 1783 that the last of the British fleet put to sea. Britain and America had broken forever their political time and for many years to come, embittered memories kept up the alienation. He was fitting that Washington should bid farewell to his army at New York, the center of his hopes and anxieties during the greater part of the long struggle. On December 4, 1783 his officers met at a tavern to bid him farewell. The tears ran down his cheeks as he parted with his brave and tried men. He shook their hands in silence and in a fashion still preserved in France, kissed each of them. Then they watched him as he was rode away in his barge to the New Jersey shore. Congress was now sitting at Annapolis in Maryland and there on December 23, 1783 Washington appeared and gave up finally his command. We are told that the members sat covered to show the sovereignty of the union, a quaint touch of the thought of the time. The little town made a brave show and that gallery was filled with a beautiful group of elegant ladies. With solemn sincerity, Washington commended the country to the protection of Almighty God and the army through the special care of Congress. Passion had already subsided for the president of Congress in his reply, praise the magnanimous king and nation of Great Britain. By the end of the year, Washington was at Mount Vernon, hoping now to be able as he said simply to make and sell a little flower annually and to repair houses fast going to ruin. He did not foresee the troubled years and the vexing problems which still lay before him. Nor could he in his modest estimate of himself know that for a distant posterity, his character and his words would have compelling authority. But Washington's countryman Motley said of William of Orange is true of Washington himself. As long as he lived, he was the guiding star of a brave nation and when he died, the little children cried in the streets. But this is not all to this day in the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States. The words of Washington, the policies which he favored, have a living and almost binding force. This attitude of mind is not without its dangers. A nation is required to make new adjustments of policy and the past is only in part the master of the present. But it is the tribute of a grateful nation to the noble character of its chief founder. End of chapter 11. End of Washington and his comrades in arms by George Rong.