By an Associate.

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Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter XI.—Washington’s private life.—Failings of the Articles of Confederation.—Constitutional Convention called.—Seating difficulties.—One dollar, one vote rejected.—Question of apportioning representation.—The Three-Fifths Compromise.—Constitution adopted.

Over the next few years Susanna and I saw Washington frequently, but we were not in constant attendance as before. We took up residence in my house on Prince-street in Alexandria, and about a year afterward Susanna gave birth to our son Crispus Attucks Gist, named for her martyred friend in Boston. A year later, our daughter Jane Adams Gist arrived, whom we named for Mrs. Adams because she and Susanna had conceived a warm friendship. After that, although we certainly did everything in our power to encourage them, no more children arrived, and we assumed—mistakenly, as we were to discover much later—that, for whatever reason, Susanna was incapable of bearing any more.

Parson Weems had retired to Georgetown across the river to work on his tracts, of which he issued a steady stream: “On the Falsity of All Human Traditions, Saving Certain Exceptions Herein Enumerated”; “On the Poor Fashion Sense of the Romish Hierarchy”; “An Inquiry into the Scandalously Immoral Behavior of Certain Orders of Nuns, with Numerous Woodcuts”; “Whether the Pope Possesses a Hidden Tail, with a Commentary on the Seventeenth Chapter of Revelation”; and other similar titles, most of which sold very well, assuring their author a comfortable living. He had them printed at the Gazette office in Alexandria, and would generally stop for dinner with us after a day at the printer’s; I was always glad to see him, and Susanna was at least polite to him, though she was not as fond of him as I was.

Of course we were frequent guests at Mount Vernon. Washington was not a man to forget loyal friends, and I believe Susanna, Parson Weems, and I saw more of him than did all the great men of the age who stopped to pay tribute to the greatest of them all, and to seek his advice, an experience that usually left them more baffled than they had been before they arrived.

In short, I will say that my own life was very pleasant in the few years after our victory in the War of Independence; and so, I believe, was Washington’s. Our country, however, was suffering.

The difficulty, as all agreed, lay in the Articles of Confederation. That agreement, hastily put together when the states were in the throes of their war for independence, gave us a national government that existed only at the whim of the states; and we soon discovered that the states could be quite whimsical. The Congress depended on the contributions of the states for its budget, and there were no consequences for states that failed to make the agreed-on contributions. Moreover, the Empire of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation showed a distressing tendency to bully the other states, which the Articles of Confederation provided no means of counteracting. Clearly some revisions were necessary, and it must be soon, preferably before Connecticut declared war on Rhode Island.

Thus the Congress voted to call a convention in Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and naturally Virginia chose Washington as one of her delegates.

“I should like to have you and Phillips with me,” Washington said when he told me about the convention. “Your steadying influence, and his incisive mind, will be of great use to me in Philadelphia. We ought to have Parson Weems as well, if he can spare the time, for a bit of spiritual advice would not come amiss at this important juncture.”

“I’ll have to ask Su— Phillips, but for my part I should be glad to offer whatever assistance I can give.”

Susanna was reluctant to leave the children for so long, though we had a capable and intelligent nurse whom they loved, and who would be more than adequate to the task of caring for them. “But on the other hand, if Virginia has chosen Washington, the other states have probably chosen the usual lot of imbeciles; and if I can be there to speak for sanity— Very well; we’ll go, and the children will come with us.”

“Is that wise?” I asked.

“Crispus is already speaking in complete sentences,” said Susanna. “Perhaps he can draft some of the articles.”

So it was done. We made slow progress to Philadelphia with Jane and Crispus, but they enjoyed the new sights along the way, and certainly Susanna and I were happier for not worrying about what might be happening to them at home.

When we arrived in Philadelphia, we found the preparations for the convention already in progress, and already encountering their first difficulty. Washington had grown considerably since the successful conclusion of the war. He was now a little over thirteen feet tall, and while this height presented no architectural problem in the ample chamber chosen for the convention, it was clear that none of the furniture was at all adequate to Washington’s current dimensions.

Here was a problem the convention would have to solve before it could even begin to address the perceived weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. It was imperative that at least one chair be made in Washington’s size. Yet no one wished to be the one who drew attention to Washington’s unusual height. We all preferred not to mention it, and I was never quite sure how much Washington himself was aware of his own size. Furthermore, the pride of some of the other delegates would hardly admit of one delegate’s having an obviously larger seat than the rest. The representatives from Rhode Island, where size has often been a sensitive question, threatened to withdraw from the union altogether and form an independent and potentially hostile Empire if any Virginian sat in a chair whose dimensions exceeded those of the chairs occupied by Rhode Island by so much as a single inch.

In the end it was decided by the Standing Committee on Seating that all furniture in the hall should be so made as to accommodate any delegate up to fourteen feet tall. Thus the problem was addressed without any specific reference to Washington himself, and the feelings of smaller delegates were spared. Most of the delegates required stepladders, or for some of the more infirm hoisting tackle, to make the ascent into their seats; but the important thing was that harmony was preserved, and the convention was not irreparably split over questions of protocol before any of the more important issues had been dealt with.

Susanna and I did not attend the sessions with Washington, so we heard about the actual debates second-hand; but we heard them in great detail, for Washington loved to talk about them. The first debate, of course, was over the presidency of the convention, and as far as Washington was concerned there could be only one reasonable choice. Fortunately, he was able to make the other delegates see reason, or see how difficult it would be if they did not see things his way. The first day he came back to the inn where we were staying (a house with comfortably high fifteen-foot ceilings, and a large back parlor where we accommodated Washington by laying four beds side by side) to announce that he had been chosen president of the convention. Furthermore, he was quite pleased to find that his old friend Alexander Hamilton had come to the convention as the delegate from New-York state. “The men of New-York sent only one delegate,” said Washington, “and in this I believe they have shown wisdom; for one Hamilton is worth half a dozen of the rest. I believe his ‘one-dollar-one-vote’ proposal has a very good chance of acceptance.”

“One-dollar-one-vote?” I repeated.

“Hamilton explained it to me. It seems very clever. Each man would have a voting power proportional to his wealth, so that the burden of government falls most heavily upon those who most naturally have an interest in the stability of the Union.”

“I’d like to talk to Hamilton about that personally,” said Susanna. I did not like the way the fingers of her right hand were closing into a fist.

“The thing that worries me,” Washington continued, “is that the delegates from the Empire of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation have gone home and refused to have anything further to do with the convention. I hope that troublesome state is not bent on causing us more difficulties. We need the cooperation of all the states, for a civil war between Rhode Island and the other states would be destructive and unpleasant. However, we can only trust in our own wisdom to erect a government that will, by its obvious utility, recommend itself even to the mobs in Newport and Providence.”

“Perhaps,” Susanna suggested, “we ought to trust in God instead.”

We did in fact see quite a bit of Mr. Hamilton as the days went on. He often dined with us, and he spoke of his plans for a government “of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy” with great enthusiasm. I kept one eye on Susanna’s right fist, for there was something about Mr. Hamilton that unsettled her.

Eventually, however, it became clear that Hamilton’s most audacious proposals would not gain the support of most of the states. Many of the delegates, indeed, were insisting that every man should have a vote.

“Why every man?” Susanna asked when Washington brought us this news.

“That is indeed the question Hamilton has been asking. He believes that at least a property requirement—”

“No, I mean, why should the franchise be limited to men?”

“What do you mean? Would you have horses and mules vote as well?”

“Why should women not vote for their elected representatives? In all matters with which this government is concerned, they are equally affected. It is their homes that will be taxed, their husbands and sons who will be sent to war; it is they who will suffer most from bad government and benefit most from good.”

“Yes, Phillips,” replied Washington, “but women have not the analytical capacity which you and I enjoy. Surely you, of all people, with your exceptionally keen mind, can appreciate that difference. Your suggestion of extending the franchise to horses and mules may, however, be worthy of consideration.”

Susanna was about to say something in reply, but clearly thought better of it, and merely sat with her head down and her fingers on her temples. Many of her conversations with Washington seemed to end the same way.

The apportionment of representation in Congress was another difficulty that much concerned Washington. Susanna suggested an elegant compromise in which there would be two houses of Congress, like the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the one apportioned by population, and the other with equal representation from each state. This was eagerly adopted when Washington brought it up the next day, but then the question of how to determine the population of a state came up. The states of the South wished to have their slaves included; the states of the North, naturally, did not wish to concede so much influence to the South.

“They are still debating it—the representation question,” Washington told us one evening.

“They seem to be unable to face the real question of slavery,” said Susanna.

“And they have spent days debating,” Washington continued, “with no result that I can see other than frayed tempers and a considerable diminution of the Madeira stock.”

“It is because no one is bold enough to ask the real question,” said Susanna. “Instead they will talk themselves in circles, never touching on the one thing no one dares mention, until they are so weary of talking that they will make some absurd compromise and decide that a slave counts as, oh, three-fifths of a person, and then call it a job well done and hope no one ever reads the text.”

“Three-fifths of a person,” Washington repeated quietly. And then he suddenly brightened. “My word, Phillips, what a mind you have! Yes, that’s the answer!”

Susanna began to protest: “But I was just⁠—”

“Yes, yes, it solves the problem perfectly—an almost mathematical balance between the regions!”

“But it’s abs—”

“I must tell Hamilton at once!” He had risen and was already headed for the door, with that odd hunching walk he had developed in unconscious adaptation to the usual dimensions of interior doorways. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Phillips! This is the best idea you’ve had since that Electoral College thing.” He ducked out the door.

“What? Wait—they adopted that too? But that was⁠⁠—”

The door closed.

“But that was a joke!” she almost wailed to the closed door. Then she turned to me. “Christopher, can we stop him?”

“I don’t think anything can stop the General once he has an idea stuck in his head.”

“But they’re making a hash of my country, and it’s all my fault!”

I stood and took her hand. “My dearest, the greatest minds of these United States are gathered here in Philadelphia. Every point in this new form of government is accepted only after mature deliberation.”

“Yes, but…” She laid her head on my shoulder. “But the greatest minds in these United States are all a bunch of imbeciles.”

Susanna was not well pleased when, the next day, Washington came back from the day’s session with the news that the “three-fifths” compromise had been accepted with minimal debate. She had to endure Washington’s congratulations over dinner, which she did with silent mortification; and Washington kept bringing up the subject for the rest of the evening, so that Susanna found it necessary to retire early on the excuse of a headache.

She was still awake when I joined her in bed, and she was still feeling gloomy. “I’ve made a mess of the Constitution,” she said as we lay in the dark (speaking quietly, so as not to wake the children), “and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

“The Constitution need not be perfect,” I assured her. “It will still be better than the fraying fabric of Confederation.”

“But I’ve just increased the power of the slaveholders by an enormous amount. Slavery will simply wither away, you keep saying. Do you see it withering now?”

“With a strong federal government, the men of the North and East who oppose slavery will find partners in the South, and the institution will be ended peacefully, with minimal disruption. The alternative is disunion and bloodshed. You may have been responsible for saving the Union, Susanna, and averting a bloody civil war. In a few decades at most, slavery will be extinct, and⁠⁠—”

“And all the men and women and little helpless children who died as slaves will look down from heaven and say, ‘Thank you, Susanna Gist—thank you for letting us die without tasting freedom. Thank you for making sure⁠⁠—’ ”

She stopped. There was a loud whooping coming from downstairs, accompanied by rhythmic pounding. Washington was laughing.

“Someone must have told him a joke this afternoon,” I remarked.

The whooping continued, and then we very distinctly heard him shouting, “Three-fifths of a person!” Then more pounding, as of heels kicking on the floor.

Susanna turned over and pulled the coverlet over her head.

There were times, indeed, when it seemed to all of us that the convention must end in failure, and that no agreement could ever be reached among the states. Nature, however, proved our ally. The insupportable heat of a Philadelphia summer was now fully upon us. Curiously, the children seemed to grow more cheerful as the heat grew more oppressive; but Washington reported that the delegates were withering. More and more provisions were accepted in this new constitution simply because it was easier to say “yes” than to debate in the sweltering furnace where the convention was meeting. Washington told us that the delegates from Massachusetts had nearly got a constitutional prohibition of red chowder written into the document before Mr. Hamilton woke from his afternoon somnolence and vetoed it.

When at last the Constitution of the United States had been accepted by the convention, we returned home and awaited the verdict of the states. It took a year and a half, but at last the Constitution was ratified by the state conventions. Now there was much to be done. A whole national government had to be built from the very foundation. But in Washington’s mind there was really only one interesting question: who was to take on the exalted and onerous duties reserved in the Constitution for the President of the United States?

To be continued in Chapter XII.

By an Associate.

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Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter X.—New-York or Virginia?—Susanna presents the case for Virginia.—Plans for surrounding Cornwallis.—Susanna suggests amending the plans.—Surrender of Cornwallis.—Army discontented.—Plot to make Washington king.—Washington’s retirement.

We were now presented with a dilemma. Part of the British force was bottled up in New-York, where it might be possible, with the aid of the French fleet, to lay siege to them. The greater part, however, was in Virginia, where Cornwallis was perhaps planning a blow against Richmond, and thus might at a stroke cut off the South.

“To retake New-York,” I pointed out, “would be a great boost to American spirits.”

“But the army in Virginia,” Susanna said, “may do us more damage than the loss of New-York ever did, or even the loss of Philadelphia, which after all was only temporary. I think—begging your pardon, Chr— Mr. Gist—that we ought to strike boldly against Cornwallis; we may at least prevent him from cutting off the Carolinas and Georgia, and if we are bold enough, and fortunate enough, we might defeat Cornwallis altogether. Such a victory would, in effect, win the war, as without Cornwallis’ army the British could have no hope of success.”

“It sounds very well,” said Washington, “but how are we to be sure of victory against so great an army? Cornwallis has greater numbers on his side.”

“The French fleet, sir, will be essential,” replied Susanna. “Cornwallis, we hear, has taken a position on the peninsula. If the French can prevent his escape by water, and prevent his being reinforced or resupplied, then we need only block the land routes, and we have him.”

This seemed like good advice to Washington, and so Admiral de Grasse was summoned to a meeting with the General, at which La Fayette was also present, along with Susanna and me. We unrolled a large map of the peninsula between the York and James rivers, and the three great leaders studied it in intense silence for a while. At last Washington spoke.

“If we dispose our soldiers here, on the north and east, with Fayette’s French army on the south, then you, Admiral, should be able to cut off Cornwallis completely by water to the west.”

“Yes,” de Grasse agreed, “the plan, it is excellent. He shall not escape us, by blue.”

Susanna looked down at the map. “I believe, sirs, that you have mistaken the water for the land, and the land for the water. These wavy lines here, you see, indicate the water; the land is this area behind them, here.”

“Ah!” said Washington. “Thank you, Phillips. Well spotted. That is important information, and complicates the strategy considerably. We cannot expect the men to stand very long in water that is possibly up to their necks, or even over their heads. We shall need to make some adaptations; perhaps some sort of bridge or pier assembly, or better yet a series of floating wooden platforms with which we can surround the peninsula on three sides, and on which the men can stand dryshod for an indefinite period of time. It will require a good bit of wood, which will require a good bit of labor; although the labor will be hastened considerably if we can find any large stands of wild cherry. That will do for the army; but, unless I am very much mistaken, the disposition of the fleet will require at least as much thought and labor, if not more.”

“Very assuredly,” the Admiral agreed. “I believe that a construction of the rollers, made perhaps of the trunks of the trees, will be necessary for the placing of the ships in position, if indeed suitable trees find themselves nearby.”

“Well, there fortune favors us,” said Washington. “Tidewater Virginia has many stands of pine that grow straight and tall, with few branches until very near the top; such trees would, it seems to me, make admirable rollers for our purposes.”

Susanna was sitting with her head down, her eyes closed, and her fingers on her temples; but now she spoke again. “If I may be so bold, sirs, it might be better to reverse the positions of the army and the fleet.”

The General and the Admiral both looked at her blankly for a moment; then Washington spoke slowly and cautiously. “Do you mean, the army on the land, and the navy in the water?”

“Yes, sir,” Susanna said with care and patience. “Each force deployed in its native element, so to speak.”

“My word, Phillips! How much simpler that makes everything! You see, Admiral, why I insist on having Captain Phillips present whenever we discuss strategy. Captain Phillips? No, sir—Phillips, you are promoted to colonel as of this instant. We’ll skip lieutenant colonel—no point in lingering there, eh, Phillips? Well done.”

Later, as the meeting adjourned, I heard Admiral de Grasse ask Washington in a lowered voice, “That so brilliant young officer, the Colonel Phillips—is it that he perhaps appears pale to you?”

“I have often worried about that myself,” Washington replied, “but it seems to be his natural complexion. If he were not so valuable to me, I should insist that he take a few weeks’ rest; but, between us, Admiral, there are days when I do verily believe that our success in this war depends upon young Phillips.”

“It can be that you there have reason, General,” said the Admiral. “The army on the land and the navy in the water! Sacred blue! It is brilliant in its simplicity.”

As soon as it was practical, therefore, the French fleet set off for the Chesapeake; meanwhile the combined American and French armies marched southward. Everything went according to plan. Admiral de Grasse was in position with his fleet; the combined armies blocked the land route on the peninsula. Cornwallis was surrounded, and unless he fought his way up the peninsula, or unless a large British fleet defeated the French, he was helpless.

“And now what shall we do?” Washington asked at the council of war he had called.

“Nothing,” Susanna suggested.

“Nothing? But it seems to me that the ‘nothing’ strategy was ineffective at New-York, and I thought we had given it up.”

“There are times when nothing is effective, and times when it is not effective,” Susanna explained with all the patience in her power. “When something has to be done, then nothing will not do. But there are times when circumstances favor patience, and at such times waiting is preferable to action, which may risk an undesirable result. I believe this is one of those times. Provoking a battle risks defeat; keeping Cornwallis bottled up in the peninsula must deplete his resources and eventually induce him to surrender.”

“My word!” said Washington, “who would have thought that nothing would be so much more complicated than something?”

Hamilton spoke up. “It’s all very well to do nothing when nothing can be done, Su— uh, Colonel Phillips. But at any moment a British fleet may arrive in the bay, and then everything depends on the French ships, which may not be able to hold off a sufficiently powerful attack. Cornwallis knows this, and therefore Cornwallis will never surrender. It seems to me, therefore, that an immediate attack—”

“Excuse me, General,” said a young lieutenant who had appeared behind Washington.

“Just a moment, Hamilton,” said Washington, and he turned to the lieutenant. “What have you to report?”

“Lord Cornwallis is here, sir. He says he would like to surrender, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Tell him it’s really no trouble at all,” said Washington. “I’ll be with him directly, as soon as I’ve heard what Hamilton has to say.” The lieutenant went off to deliver Washington’s reply, and Washington turned back to face Hamilton. “Now, Hamilton,” Washington said, “please continue what you were saying, and forgive the interruption.”

“As I say,” Hamilton resumed, “I believe Cornwallis, in his present circumstances, will never surrender; and it behooves us, therefore—”

“But, Hamilton,” Parson Weems interrupted him, “Cornwallis is surrendering right now.”

“But that is a mere fact,” Hamilton replied. “My argument is founded upon reason.”

“Then, since the facts demand our attention now,” said Susanna, “let us attend to them, and we may reserve reason for our leisure.”

“Well said, Phillips,” Washington concurred. “For there is a wise old saying—” He produced the copybook, and we waited for him to find the page, which had become more and more difficult for him to do as his fingers increased in size. “Here it is: ‘Do not jog the desk on which another is writing.’ I find it useful to have a fund of these proverbs ready to hand, so to speak, for they distill the wisdom of our elders to its essence. Let us now receive Lord Cornwallis as gentlemen.”

The men had helpfully found Cornwallis a barrel to stand on, so that he and Washington could see eye to eye. He was waiting there, and Washington immediately engulfed Cornwallis’ hand in his own.

“General,” said Washington, “welcome to our camp.”

“General Washington, sir,” replied Cornwallis, “it is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance at last.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for ages. One never really gets to know a man when one is only firing cannonballs at him. I hope you don’t take it too personally, by the way—the cannonballs, I mean, and the defeat and such.”

“Certainly not. I have long since learned to expect that I shall often suffer such reverses, which I attribute entirely to the machinations of Willoughby.”

“Willoughby?” asked Washington.

“My mortal enemy—the most fiendishly devious and diabolically wicked stoat ever born. Of course he is not—

“—not visible in the strict sense! Ah, Cornwallis, I know exactly what you mean!”

“Of course you do, sir! I know that a man of your talents must have the same experience. It is the very mark of a commander’s greatness that he is pursued throughout his career—”

“—by the forces of envy and malice—”

“—personified in a malevolent invisible animal!” they both finished together.

“Mine is a mule named Irving,” Washington said.

“General Washington, it is a positive honor to surrender to a soldier of your caliber. I hope we can settle on gentlemanly terms.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I think it will be sufficient if you give me your word not to have anything more to do with fighting against the United States, and then you can be on your way.”

“My word as a gentleman,” said Cornwallis, extending his hand.

“I accept your word,” said Washington, taking the offered hand.

“But—” Hamilton sputtered, but Susanna and I both gestured to him to keep quiet.

“But how,” he continued quietly to us, “I mean—what guarantee do we have that he’ll keep his word?”

“He’ll keep his word,” Susanna insisted.

“But how do you know that?” Hamilton demanded in a hoarse whisper.

“I know it because he’s just as much of an imbecile as Washington is,” she replied. “And I sometimes wish the world were filled with such imbeciles.”

As Susanna had expected, the victory over Cornwallis virtually ended the war. It was true that no treaty of peace had been signed, and Sir Henry Clinton in New-York refused to recognize the de-facto victory of the American side, continuing to occupy the city with such forces as he had; but the United States could get along very well without the city of New-York, and did so for the next two years. Nor did Clinton ever admit defeat: he is still there, in a small house on Wall-street, with two aged captains for company, and occasionally issues orders to occupy Hartford or Albany or whatnot, which his captains receive with deference and alacrity, without, however, setting foot out the front door.

The army now had nothing to do, and idle men began to consider more carefully the question of their payment. Once again the Congress attempted to pay them in paper money, which the men rejected as not worth so much as the same paper without any printing on it. So discontented were the men that they began to speak openly of marching to Annapolis (where the Congress was meeting at the time) to have Washington made king: for they imagined that, once granted royal power, Washington would not be long in finding the means to pay them in specie. This plot came to the ears of Washington himself, who mentioned it over the Madeira one evening after supper in the old brick church he had made his headquarters, it being the only nearby building where his ten-foot figure could be comfortably accommodated. We had made a special table for him, with a chair his own height and a set of benches with stepladders so that we could all sit at the same table with him.

“Of course we do have the Articles of Confederation,” Washington said, “but I believe those must be regarded as a temporary measure. If we are to have a single nation rather than a rabble of thirteen unrelated States, we must adopt a form of government conducive to unity. A monarchy would, obviously, serve that purpose, and a careful choice of monarch is vital to the viability of our union. It ought to be—”

“Yes, we have been over this ground before,” said Susanna, “and we know that it ends at the conclusion that our ideal monarch would look very much like you, General Washington. But of course one doesn’t put oneself forward as seeking the kingship.”

“One doesn’t?”

“Modesty and diffidence are considered greatly desirable qualities in monarchs. Indeed, a monarch’s impassivity is precisely what makes him look like a monarch. It is essential to show that you do not desire the position of king, and that you would accept it only with extreme reluctance.”

“Do you think so? Yes, I can see how that might be true.”

“If you would like, I could draft you a few remarks, which you might use when the occasion presents itself.”

“Oh, would you, Phillips? That would be very kind of you.”

Later, as Susanna sat at the desk in our chamber writing some remarks for Washington to deliver extemporaneously, I asked her, “What exactly are you up to?”

“Kiss my neck and don’t ask questions,” she replied.

It was not long before the expected occasion did present itself. A gathering of junior officers and enlisted men formed in front of Washington’s church headquarters, and when Washington appeared at the door, they presented him with a set of resolutions calling upon him to lead the army to Annapolis and declare himself king.

Fortunately, Washington had laboriously memorized Susanna’s response. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I am sensible of the honor you do me in making this request, but at the same time I find it impossible to acquiesce. Are you not aware that we have spent seven years fighting a war not only against George III, but against the very institution of monarchy? Why, every man I see before me is a king on a throne of gold; for in our republic, gentlemen, the power rests with the people themselves, and not with some class of arbitrarily distinguished men who have no more natural parts than you have, and perhaps a great deal less good sense. Would you have me elevate myself above you, when we have fought so long and so hard for the principle that all men are created equal? No, gentlemen, so reluctant am I to abandon our shared republican principles that I could never desire the position of king, and only the direst circumstances would induce me to accept such an honor.”

At the conclusion of this speech, the men gave a mighty cheer, which pleased Washington very much; but what did not please him nearly so much was that they took him at his word, and did not make him king.

“Well,” said Susanna, “we tried our best.”

“We did,” Washington agreed; “the principle was inarguably sound, and our lack of success can only be attributed to the malice of Irving, who would not wish to see me crowned king if he could prevent it. Irving will yet be the death of me, you may be certain of that. But though he may prevent my elevation to the throne, I hope he will not be able to prevent my enjoying the fruits of our hard-won victory. The time has come for me to retire from public life, and to give my full attention to the development of my estate at Mount Vernon.”

With this surprising announcement, Washington abandoned all hope of becoming King of the United States. Shortly afterward, a formal peace was concluded, and Washington traveled to Annapolis to resign his commission before the Congress. He was able to witness personally the evacuation of New-York by the British, with the exception of Clinton and the two captains aforesaid; and then he retired to Mount Vernon, fully intending to remain there for the rest of his life.

To be continued in Chapter XI.

By an Associate.

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Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter IX.—Washington and La Fayette meet.—They compare invisible animals.—Colonel de Trop reappears.—Baron von Steuben disciplines our army.—Washington’s tale of the three wine merchants, the innkeeper, the lady with the carbuncle pendant, the cursed sailor, the talking monkey, the ruined temple, and the cask of the best wine in the world.

“Général Washington, sir!—the hero of the American independence! I have great honor to meet you at last!”

“The honor is mine, General Fayette. I have heard much of your accomplishments in France.”

“Have you truly?” asked General La Fayette.

“Well, no. But I thought it would be a thing to say. Did it not sound well? We have arranged for you to make your headquarters in a small house nearby; not a palace, but commodious in its way.”

“Your consideration is very appreciated,” said La Fayette. “But tell me—is it that you have heard a sound, which one might describe as ‘yapping’?”

“Yapping? No, I don’t believe so.”

“Ah! It is good. I have fear that Sophie might have followed me from the France. One must be careful, you know.”

“A lady friend?” asked Washington.

“No! Sophie, she is caniche, yes? Poodle. My mortal enemy, though one sees her not.”

“And she lives to deepen your sorrows, to blast your victories, and to hound you to an early grave?”

“Yes! By blue, Washington, how is it that you knew?”

“My word, Fayette! I knew you were a great general the moment I saw you. All great military commanders (as I learned, sir, from one of the greatest of them all) are pursued throughout their careers by the forces of envy and malice, personified in malevolent invisible animals. I myself have been relentlessly dogged by the mule Irving.” Washington stooped down and shook General La Fayette’s hand warmly, and from that moment the two were the best of friends.

And then there appeared another officer from the clot of French soldiers, and it seemed that were was something familiar about him. But it was Washington who recognized him first.

“Lieutenant de Trop!” he called out in delight.

“It’s Colonel de Trop now,” the officer replied with a smile. “And my heavens, you are the same Washington I met at Fort Le Boeuf! But I believe you have grown somewhat taller.”

“I may have done, Colonel, but I have not outgrown my gratitude to you. You remember Mr. Gist, of course.”

I shook the colonel’s hand and exchanged polite greetings with him. Much later, when Washington and La Fayette had gone off together, I asked the colonel, “Is your name really de Trop?”

“General Washington,” he replied, “is a hero to every true Frenchman, and my name, sir, is whatever he wants it to be. And who is this very charming officer?” he asked, turning to Susanna.

“My wife Susanna,” I replied. “Susanna, this is Colonel, uh, de Trop, who was very courteous to us when Washington and I visited Fort Le Boeuf years ago.”

“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” Susanna said, offering her hand.

Instead of shaking her hand, the colonel raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Upon my faith, Mr. Gist, I should never have believed it if one had told it to me, but you Americans have made an improvement in gallantry of which we French had not even dreamed. What man would not beg to join your army if he might serve under such delightful officers?”

“Susanna is…unique,” I said.

“General Washington believes I am a man named Phillips,” Susanna explained. “And, as you say, my name is whatever he wants it to be.”

“And why, if I may be forgiven for asking, did you come into the army in the first place?” the colonel asked.

“It seemed to me, sir, that the military life would afford me more opportunities for indulging in my favorite pastime.”

“What is that, dear lady?” the colonel asked with a smile.

“Killing Redcoats,” she replied with a sweet smile of her own.

Before the colonel could make any answer to that, a loud voice came from behind him, rapidly approaching: “Mine God! This is what they an army call? It is not possible!”

“Oh,” said the colonel. “Mr. Gist, and, uh, Captain Phillips, this is a friend of General La Fayette’s, Baron von Steuben. Baron von Steuben, Captain Phillips and Mr. Gist.”

Ignoring the introduction, the Baron continued, “No uniforms of which to speak of, tents will he und also nill he distributed, no military exercises I see anywhere—this is the most ragged und tagged mess which I ever have seen! Und look you—negresses for officers!”

Susanna’s right hand was involuntarily closing into a fist. I gave her a warning glance, which was like giving a gentle word of admonition to an earthquake.

Fortunately Colonel de Trop intervened, desperately working to keep the conversation pleasant. “Baron von Steuben is a Prussian, and a great believer in military discipline.”

“Until today!” the Baron barked. “Now, mine God! I know not. Believe I even that military discipline exists? But yes, if my way I have, your American army disciplined shall be!”

“Oh,” I said. “Well…thank you.”

“Good luck,” Susanna added quietly.

In the morning Washington, Susanna, and I rose early and walked over to La Fayette’s headquarters, where we found him busy nailing a brass plaque to the door, a plaque on which was engraved,

ici dormit le marquis de la fayette

“Ah! Washington, my friend!” he said as he continued hammering. “You will forgive me for completing this task, but I wished to lose no time. Gratitude is like the concombre, yes?”

“I know precisely what you mean!” Washington exclaimed in delight. “Ah, Fayette, we shall get along famously.”

Meanwhile Baron von Steuben had gone around the camp and roused a large number of sergeants at dawn, and was now drilling them in an open field, shouting insults that they only half-comprehended.

“That will not end well for Steuben,” Susanna remarked.

I told her to give the man a chance.

“I am giving him a chance,” she replied. “I am giving him a chance to get a blackened eye from them instead of me.”

Later, as we were pulling Baron von Steuben out of the barrel of sauerkraut into which he had been thrust upside-down, Parson Weems suggested a small wager: which would kill the Baron first—the enlisted men or Susanna? I told him I did not believe in gambling, at which he reminded me that he wore the collar, not I. I in turn reminded him that Steuben would also have me to deal with if he offered any insult to Susanna, and therefore his wager did not take all the possibilities into account; but Weems replied, “No, Gist; for we both know, begging your pardon, that no insult to Susanna goes unavenged long enough for you to intervene.” To all this the Baron said nothing; but as soon as he was cleaned up, he was out drilling some enlisted men again, which I thought showed admirable patience.

Our supper that evening was delayed until Baron von Steuben had cleaned himself up after being pulled out of the latrine; but once we were all seated, we ate better than we had done in quite some time. The French had brought not only soldiers, but money as well, and it was remarkable how quickly supplies appeared for sale when it was known that there were golden louis to be had, as well as the Spanish milled dollars we had brought from Virginia. La Fayette, whose disposition was naturally generous, made sure the American soldiers ate as well as the French did. Cries of “Long live Fayette!” could be heard all over the camp. I was glad to see the men so happy, and I was also glad to share in the excellent claret which La Fayette had brought with him. Washington made sure, for his part, to bring out his finest Madeira. Soon a friendly dispute arose, with La Fayette contending for the superiority of French claret, and Washington taking the part of Madeira, while Steuben advanced the claims of the hock from the valley of the Moselle. After much discussion among the three of them, Washington proposed a toast to “Germany, France, and Madeira, which have labored so fruitfully to give us pleasure.” And then he continued:

“If it will not offend you, gentlemen, I should like to tell you a story, which was related to me by my late brother Lawrence; for it has no little bearing on the matter under discussion. Once, so it is said, there were three merchants: a seller of hock, a seller of claret, and a seller of Madeira; and as they traveled they happened to meet along the road. As their businesses were so similar, they naturally conceived friendly feelings one for another; and when evening came, they stopped together at the same inn.

“In this inn, they naturally fell to discussing the relative merits of their merchandise; and the innkeeper overhearing their conversation, that worthy gentleman approached them, saying, ‘Sirs, I have heard your dispute over which wine is the best, and I would have you know, gentlemen, that it is a question to which I alone possess the answer; for in that cask in the corner of the room, sirs, is the best wine in the world.’

“ ‘By all means,’ said the claret merchant, ‘let us try a sample of this wine; if it is truly the best in the world, we will not stick at the price.’

“ ‘I may not open the cask,’ the innkeeper replied, ‘for I have given my solemn word; nor have I ever tasted the wine myself.’

“ ‘But, good heavens, man, how can you say it is the best wine in the world,’ asked the merchant of Madeira, ‘if you have never even tasted it?’

“ ‘Ah,’ said the innkeeper, ‘it is because of the circumstances under which I received the cask; and when I have once narrated them to you, I am so certain that you will agree that this is the best wine in the world, that I will wager you your night’s accommodations on it. These circumstances, sirs, I will now relate.

“ ‘When I was some years younger, my father left me this inn, which to speak in very truth was not so much of an inheritance; for it was not as much frequented in those days, and many nights would pass when nary a traveler appeared. It was on one of those nights, when I had gone to bed already—for it was a night of intermittent but ferocious storms, and such a night as no wise traveler would choose for his journey,—it was on such a night, I say, that I was awakened by a pounding on the front door. Dressing hastily, I took a candle in my hand and descended the stairs, where the pounding still continued. As soon as I opened the door, a hooded figure dashed in past me and took a position in the parlor by the last dying embers of the fire. I closed the door and followed; but you may well imagine my surprise when the hood was thrown back to reveal the most beautiful face I have ever beheld in my life. It was a young woman, no more than one-and-twenty, with an ivory complexion brought into relief by cheeks flushed with carmine, and a cascade of loose hair as red as flame.

“ ‘ “Madam,” said I, “how may I be of assistance?”

“ ‘ “If you would be so good as to start the fire again, I should be most grateful,” she replied; “and then, sir, I have great need of a worthy man to whom I can entrust the priceless treasure that sits on the wagon outside.”

“ ‘ “If it be within my power to assist you,” I assured her, “you shall be assisted.”

“ ‘ “But I must first determine whether it is in your power,” said she. “When you have made the fire, I shall tell you my conditions.”

“ ‘It was the work of a moment to lay more logs and kindling on the fire and fan it into a roaring flame. As soon as the heat filled the room, the lady let her cloak fall; and if my eyes had been ravished before, you may be sure that I could barely speak now: for the lady was dressed, not for traveling, but for a grand ball, with innumerable jewels, the chief of which was a pendant that hung into her bosom and terminated in the most prodigious carbuncle I have ever seen, or ever heard tell of.

“ ‘ “And now, sir,” said she, “you have the right to know who I am, and why I must demand that you be worthy of my trust; for the favor I have to ask of you may seem a slight thing, but I had rather lose my life than entrust my treasure to anyone unworthy. When you know the facts of the case, sir, you will understand what I mean.

“ ‘ “My father, sir, was a gentleman who, if he was not worthy to be denominated rich, was at least comfortable in life, save that he had lost the one comfort for which he would have exchanged all the others; that is, his wife, my mother, who died when I was but an infant. He always showed the most tender regard for me, and (you will pardon a tear or two) he made sure that I lacked nothing which could tend to my happiness.

“ ‘ “Nevertheless, as his only daughter, I was perforce much alone, and as I grew into a young woman, I was much addicted to long walks in the country round about our house. On one of those perambulations I met a young man walking the other way; we talked; we parted with the intention of meeting again on the morrow; and that night, sir, I thought of nothing but Christian (for Christian was the name of this young man), and in the morning counted the hours till I should meet him again. I shall be brief: we met each day after that, and the more I saw of him, the more my heart yearned for him. Nor did he appear to be without feeling for me; a thousand times he seemed on the verge of speaking his heart, and a thousand times stopped himself, until at last I could forbear no longer, and spoke to him boldly:

“ ‘ “ ‘If you have somewhat to say to me, Christian,’ said I, ‘let not doubt stand in your way; for believe me, my disposition is such that I would hear whatever you would say most willingly.’

“ ‘ “At this he sighed piteously and replied, ‘Alas, dear Eleanor, would that I could speak what is in my heart; but if I were to do so, it would mean death to one who in no wise deserves to die.’

“ ‘ “ ‘What can you mean by that?’ I asked. ‘Have you a wife already? For if you have, I conjure you to return to her at once and—’

“ ‘ “ ‘I have no wife,’ he said, interrupting me, ‘but what I have is far more of an impediment: indeed, I should not scruple to call it a curse.’

“ ‘ “ ‘No curse,’ said I, ‘is without hope, so long as we trust in God and despair not.’

“ ‘ “ ‘My curse, however,’ said he, ‘is so nearly hopeless that despair is but reason; for it can be broken in only one way, and that a very unlikely one. Yet until the curse is broken, the very night I take a wife, an innocent man must die the most ignominious of deaths.’

“ ‘ “I own that my heart sank at these words, but I persisted in believing that no curse could be without its remedy. ‘How can this be?’ I asked. ‘Is there nothing within your power,—or—or mine,—which would lift this terrible curse from your head?’

“ ‘ “ ‘Whether it be within your power I shall leave you to judge,’ said he, ‘when you have heard my tale, which is one of the most marvelous, and yet one of the most tragic, ever told by mortal lips.

“ ‘ “ ‘I was the youngest son of a gentleman who, though he possessed many virtues, had a weakness for cards, so that he had squandered most of his fortune by the time I reached my majority. Having no other prospects, I determined to go to sea, and found a place aboard a ship owned by a prosperous wine-merchant. The duties were hard, but I was capable, and had fate not made other plans for me, I might still be a sailor today.

“ ‘ “ ‘On my very first voyage, however, a tempest arose from the west, and buffeted our poor ship so severely that we were constrained to toss our cargo over the rail. When it came to the last cask, however, the merchant was so reluctant to part with it that he and the captain began a struggle that might had terminated with the death of one of them, had Nature herself not intervened by giving the boat such a toss at that moment that the barrel flew overboard on its own. At this the merchant was so wildly distraught that he began tearing his hair and shouting at the sailors to leap after the cask; and, finding no one willing to do so, he rushed against me, and, before I knew what he was about, had thrust me overboard. I struggled in the water and called for help, but in vain; the ship and I were so rapidly parted that no one could even contemplate my rescue. The cask, however, was floating close at hand, and I was able to haul myself up on it and ride out the tempest in that manner.

“ ‘ “ ‘For two days I floated on that cask, which I dared not pierce for fear of sinking it. A merciful Providence, after the tempest, sent me occasional light rains, which, forming puddles on the top of the cask, gave me sufficient fresh water to drink. On the third day, I spotted an island, and to my inexpressible joy the wind and current carried me straight to the sandy shore, where I was deposited gently by the lapping waves.

“ ‘ “ ‘Having thanked the Almighty for delivering me from the grasp of the sea, I took a look at my surroundings. The beach was bordered by a forest of palms and tropical trees, which I hoped might yield some sort of fruit; and indeed so it proved. So delighted was I by my discovery that I must have spent half an hour picking the grape-like berries of a species of palm before I noticed that, in the distance, I could hear the sound of rushing water—not the sea, but a steady sound from the interior of the island. Following the sound, I made my way through the verdant forest, until I came upon a scene that took my breath away; for there was a cascade of water at least a hundred feet high, and beside it a ruined temple festooned with barbarous but skillful carvings. Having drunk my fill of the clear water, I turned my attention to the exotic beauty of the temple, which was somewhat overgrown with vines, but still intact enough that the artistic taste of the architect and sculptors was evident. Monkeys chattered at me from the roof, and birds called from the trees, but there was no evidence that any man had set foot here within recent memory.

“ ‘ “ ‘Enough of the roof was left that it seemed to me the temple would make an admirable shelter for the night. I entered, and found myself between two rows of columns, each column covered with intricate reliefs, and the whole interior drawing the eye to a statue of a woman or goddess at the other end. The woman was represented as seated, and even in that position the statue was at least fifteen feet high; it was of remarkable beauty; but what captivated me most was the way the eyes appeared to glow with a deep red light. As I approached more nearly, I perceived that the apparent glow was the glinting of two prodigious carbuncles which served the statue for eyes.

“ ‘ “ ‘I am not by nature a greedy man, but it seemed to me that two such jewels in a temple long abandoned were doing no one any good, and therefore might as well belong to me as to anyone else. I approached the statue, scattering a troop of monkeys, and began to climb it; and I was just stretching forth my hand to grasp the carbuncle in the left eye when a voice right beside me spoke:

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ’Tis not for mortal hands to touch the eye of the goddess!”

“ ‘ “ ‘I looked, but saw only a monkey sitting on the shoulder of the statue. “Who spoke?” I asked, and you may be sure that I was quite astonished when the monkey replied,

“ ‘ “ ‘ “I spoke—I, the guardian of the temple.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “But you are a monkey,” said I, lowering myself to sit on the knee of the statue. “How is it that you speak, and in my own tongue?”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “That,” replied the monkey, “is my curse, and my blessing, and I cannot explain more, unless I tell you my history.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Nothing would delight me more,” said I; “for until now I believed myself alone on this island.”

“ ‘ “ ‘ “Then I shall be happy to tell you,” said the monkey, sitting on the other knee of the statue. “I was not always a monkey. I was born a man like you, and in the course of time became the priest of this temple. I performed my duties, I believe, most assiduously; and the temple prospered under my care, until one day three men came to the island from far away, and stopped at my temple, evidently with the intention of persuading me to purchase something from them.

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘I,’ said the first, ‘am a seller of hock, which is without a doubt the finest wine in the world.’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said the second, ‘but I contend that the claret of the blessed land of Bordeaux, which I have the honor to sell, surpasses all other wines whatsoever.’

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ ‘Neither of them,’ said the third, ‘can hold a candle to my Madeira.’ ” ’ ” ’

“And that, gentlemen, is the story my brother Lawrence told me,” Washington concluded.

There was silence in the room for half a minute, and then Parson Weems demanded, “What? Where is the rest of it? What of the priest who turned into a monkey?”

“And the curse of the man who must die an ignominious death?” added Susanna.

“And the beautiful red-haired lady?”

“With the prodigious carbuncle pendant?”

“And the ball gown on a stormy night?”

“And her love for the cursed young man?”

“And the innkeeper who must prove himself worthy?”

“And the cask of the best wine in the world?”

“Which he can know is the best without tasting it?”

“And the three men who wagered their night’s lodging?”

“That was the way the story always ended when Lawrence told it,” said Washington. “I remember specifically because that was always where his wife came in and said, ‘Lawrence! Are you filling little Georgie’s head with that nonsense again? You know what my Uncle Henry said about those stories. He said, “I met a man once who started to tell a story that went like this: ‘Once there—’ ” ’ ”

“No!” cried Susanna. Then, seeing that all eyes had turned to her, she added, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

The arrival of the French changed the balance of the war considerably. The British evacuated Philadelphia almost immediately, and French fleets gave the British navy no end of trouble on the seas. Furthermore, the discipline introduced by Baron von Steuben had a salutary effect on our army. By coordinating their efforts to drop the Baron down wells, tar and feather him, &c., the men learned to work together as a unit.

For three more years the fortunes of war favored first one side and then the other, but it was becoming more and more difficult for the British to hold any temporary gains they had made. Eventually, when the news came that Cornwallis had landed his army in Virginia, it seemed that the time had come for a decisive stroke.

To be continued in Chapter X. Or you can order the whole book now and spare yourself the wait.

By an Associate.

---

Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter VIII.—Difficulties maintaining the army.—Philadelphia lost; Congress removes to York.—Mr. Hamilton’s plan for a new form of money.—Disappointing results in first trial of Hamilton’s money.—A visit to Ferry Farm.—Washington’s lost treasure.

The campaign in New-Jersey was a resounding success for Washington, but the success was not as lasting as we had hoped. At first, indeed, its effects were nearly miraculous. Our struggling army was reinforced by thousands of new recruits who were keen to serve under the great Washington, who, being now just an inch short of eight feet tall, more truly deserved the epithet “great” than any other general of his era. But with the new recruits came the difficult problem of paying them, a problem that would haunt us for some time until Washington himself hit on an ingenious solution, as will be narrated in its proper place. The discipline of the army was chronically lax as well, for most of the officers were themselves new recruits, and they refused to adopt such extreme measures as sending men to bed without supper, or, what they dreaded most, making them write “I will not desert the continental army” one hundred times, a punishment Washington reserved for repeat offenders.

Meanwhile Howe was not inactive. New-York being securely occupied, Howe was able to land an enormous army just below Philadelphia. Washington attempted to oppose Howe in a straightforward manner, but while he was giving Howe an honest and straightforward battle, and not without some success, Lord Cornwallis marched deviously around to our right flank and surprised us, which Washington regarded as simple cheating. The result, which even to this day I blush to relate, was that we lost Philadelphia. The Congress managed to escape just before Howe’s army marched into the city, and removed to York, where some of the members indulged a simmering resentment against Washington. Our army settled in at Valley Forge, and there we spent a miserable winter, in which, however, some of the qualities of true greatness manifested themselves in the General.

One afternoon Washington was in an unusually cheerful state as he came back to his headquarters after his daily rounds in the camp. Susanna and I, along with Parson Weems, were put up in the house with Washington (a luxury that gave me occasional pangs of guilt when I thought of the soldiers in their icy tents), so we were sitting by the fire when Washington came in with Hamilton in tow and announced that the pay problem was solved.

“That’s very good news indeed,” I said. “How did we get the money?”

“Oh, we haven’t got it yet. But Hamilton has figured out a way to get the money from the Congress.”

“I thought,” said Susanna, “that the last time we asked for money, the Congress replied that, owing to Mr. Hamilton’s program of spending more and taxing less, all they could come up with was two shillings, four pence, and three brass buttons.”

“Yes,’ replied Washington, “but the beauty of Mr. Hamilton’s new plan is that the Congress need not actually have the money to give it to us.”

“You mean they’ll steal it from somebody else?” asked Susanna.

“Of course not. Explain it to them, Hamilton.”

“My thought,” Hamilton explained, “is that we can simply instruct the Congress to have the money we need printed.”

“Printed?” I think Weems, Susanna, and I all repeated the word together.

“Precisely. You see the beauty of it, don’t you? Instead of coins, the soldiers will simply receive small slips of paper with the words ‘One Dollar,’ ‘Five Dollars,’ ‘Ten Dollars,’ or what have you, printed on them, and will use them the same way they would use coins in the same denominations.”

“But why would they think a piece of paper was worth ten dollars?” Weems asked.

“Why do we think a piece of gold is worth ten dollars?” Hamilton returned.

“Well, because,” Weems began, “because it’s—well, because it’s gold.”

“Precisely,” said Hamilton. “We think gold is valuable because we agree to think gold is valuable. Why? We cannot eat gold; we cannot build shelter with it; we cannot burn it to keep ourselves warm. We can only exchange it for the things we really need, because we agree that a very small quantity of gold is worth a very large quantity of food. Its value depends entirely on our agreement: it is not in any way intrinsic. Now, my very simple plan is this: that, in the same way we have agreed to regard gold as valuable, so we shall now agree to regard money on paper as valuable. Once again, our simple agreement will suffice to create the value.”

“Isn’t it a remarkable thought?” asked Washington.

“Remarkable,” Susanna agreed, although her tone suggested that there was room for more than one kind of remark on the subject.

“I’m sending Hamilton to York to speak to the Congress about it,” said Washington. “Just imagine—in our new North American empire, no one need ever be poor again. We can provide all the money every citizen of these United States will ever need for any purpose whatsoever.—Come along, Hamilton: I’ll write a letter for you to take with you detailing the successes of our current campaign; for I trust, sir, that you understand the value of a good dispatch.”

With those words, Washington led Hamilton into the back room he used as his office.

“One of them is an imbecile and the other one is mad,” Parson Weems remarked.

“It seems to me,” said Susanna, “that there is no reason why they could not both be imbeciles.”

I must own that I had not expected much result from Hamilton’s expedition, but a few weeks later he was back with stacks of freshly printed money, which was distributed forthwith to the puzzled soldiers. I say “puzzled,” though in many cases “mutinous” might have been a more nearly accurate description.

Hamilton, however, was full of optimism; and Susanna and I went with him to demonstrate the utility of his new form of money by using it to buy some sorely needed potatoes from a nearby farm.

“Dollar a bushel,” the farmer replied when asked the price of his potatoes. I might have spent some time negotiating with the man, but Hamilton was eager to present his new creation, and therefore simply asked for ten bushels, and handed the man a ten-dollar note.

“What’s this?” the farmer asked.

“It’s ten dollars,” replied Hamilton.

“No it isn’t,” said the farmer. “It’s a piece of paper that says ‘Ten Dollars’ on it.”

“But it is in fact ten dollars,” Hamilton told him. “You see here where it says, ‘By act of Congress, this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.’ ”

“I don’t need a tender,” the farmer insisted. “I need ten dollars.”

“Precisely,” said Hamilton, undaunted. “I’m giving you this piece of paper with ‘Ten Dollars’ printed on it. And because we agree that it is worth ten dollars, it is in fact worth ten dollars.”

“Tell you what,” said the farmer. “You give me that piece of paper with ‘Ten Dollars’ written on it, and I’ll give you a piece of paper with ‘Ten Bushels of Potatoes’ written on it.”

“But a piece of paper won’t feed the men,” Hamilton objected.

“It will if they agree that it is in fact ten bushels of potatoes,” the farmer replied. “Won’t it?”

In the end we did not succeed in procuring our ten bushels of potatoes, and for the most part the men were similarly unsuccessful in exchanging their paper money for useful goods. Hamilton himself refused to be entirely discouraged, but the men were cold and hungry. To make matters worse, not only could we not persuade the Congress to do anything for us, but in fact we could not even find the Congress. Fearing a surprise attack, the men of the Congress had turned peripatetic. From York they moved to Lancaster, and then to Annapolis, and then to Baltimore, to Winchester, to Cumberland, to Pittsburgh, and briefly (owing to the gentlemen’s refusal to stop and ask directions) to Mexico City. We were left to our own devices, and it seemed as though we should eventually lose our army altogether without some means of procuring money in the form of coins rather than paper.

“Of course there is much to be hoped for from the French,” said Washington when we were discussing the situation one bitter morning in late winter. “I have every confidence in our diplomats. Dr. Franklin reports that the French women are particularly susceptible. I have no doubt that he has spent every evening explaining to the court ladies that it is to France’s advantage to have a strong American empire that is well disposed toward France and capable of defending their remaining North American interests.

“You mean St.-Pierre and Miquelon?” asked Parson Weems.

“Exactly. Surely the French will see the wisdom of balancing British power in the north with a great independent empire to the south.”

“The French may or may not come to our aid,” said Susanna, “but for the present we need money. We need to be candid and admit to ourselves that the paper-money project has been a failure.”

“The fault is not on our side,” Hamilton insisted. “We have maintained from the beginning that the money is in fact worth exactly the value printed on it. It is the ill-bred and uneducated bumpkins who inhabit these parts who are to blame: they refuse to see the logic of the notion, and to be absolutely frank I suspect them of Tory sympathies.”

“At the moment we must be practical,” I said. “For reasons we may or may not know, our suppliers refuse to accept our paper money, whereas we know they would accept money in specie. It is vital to our cause that we obtain money they will accept. Can anyone think of any possibilities?”

“I think we’ve run out of possibilities,” Weems remarked grimly.

“Gentlemen,” said Washington, “we certainly cannot allow ourselves to lose hope: for, as the old proverb has it,⁠—” (he brought out the tattered copybook, and we waited patiently for him to find his page)—“ ‘Do not chew your nails in the sight of others.’ The wisdom of our fathers, gentlemen, when understood metaphorically, is an ever-present help in managing our affairs. For my own part, I am convinced that our current difficulties all spring from the evil machinations of Irving, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction of letting him see me despair.”

“Irving?” asked Hamilton.

“The wicked invisible mule who bedevils him throughout his life,” Weems explained.

Hamilton looked helpless: his question had been answered, but not in a way that satisfied him intellectually.

“I cannot believe,” said Susanna, “that there are no possibilities left to us.”

“In fact I can think of one possibility,” Washington said.

“What’s that?” asked Weems. “And don’t tell me it involves any more invisible livestock.”

“When I was a boy, I used to spend hours at Ferry Farm throwing Spanish milled dollars across the Rappahannock. It became, as you know, a lifelong habit, but I have never since had so much leisure to indulge in the sport. There were times when I went to the riverbank day after day to spend all afternoon throwing dollars. That was how I developed the accuracy for which, I may say without boasting, I am still noted.”

“And how will that help us right now?” I asked.

“Well, I never brought any of them back.”

We looked at him in stunned silence.

“There were always more, you see. We seem to have had a good many Spanish milled dollars. It was never necessary to retrieve them, because there were always more to throw.”

“Do you mean you think that, in all these years, no one has picked up the dollars you threw across the Rappahannock?” Susanna asked, trying not to sound too incredulous.

“The other side of the river is Washington land, too. Why would anyone be looking for dollars there?”

“So you mean,” I said, “that if we went down there right now, we’d find some of the money you threw?”

“It’s worth trying,” said Washington. “Gist, why don’t you head down there now? See what you can find, and then we’ll have something to pay the soldiers.”

It sounded very dubious to me. “Well, I’m, uh, not sure—”

“Take Phillips with you. You may need more than one man to carry the money back.”

“I’m, uh, not—”

“We’ll go right away, General,” Susanna declared.

Why was Susanna suddenly interested in this unlikely prospect? I had learned not to discount any idea of hers, but it did not seem reasonable to expect that Washington’s idly flung dollars should still be waiting for him after so many years.

“I think we should take Mr. Hamilton with us as well,” Susanna added. And now I was certain she had some notion in her mind, but what it was I could not guess. When Washington seemed to hesitate, she added, “He’s very good at finding money.”

“That is true. Very well then,” Washington agreed. “Take Hamilton with you, find the dollars, and you should have enough to pay the soldiers, with a little left over for Madeira. Best set off at once: for, as they say” (and here he produced his copybook, and we waited for him to find the appropriate citation): “ ‘If others talk at dinner, be attentive, but do not speak with your mouth full.’ ”

We had to go by land, as the British made the sea route unreliable. Susanna has always been an excellent rider. I at least can stay on the horse, and Hamilton was not entirely hopeless; our progress, therefore was fairly rapid.

At our first stop, Hamilton took the opportunity to ask the obvious questions about Susanna.

“She is my wife,” I explained in a tone that I hoped would answer all unexpressed questions.

But Hamilton persisted.

“Why, then, is she also a man called Phillips?”

Susanna replied, “We find it best not to contradict the general too often. It confuses him.”

“Is that why we’ve come looking for lost treasure?” Hamilton asked. “Are we making a useless journey of several days and unknown dangers because no one wants to contradict General Washington?”

“No,” Susanna replied, and I listened attentively myself to hear her explanation. “Your mission to the Congress showed that you have an aptitude for parting rich fools from their money. Virginia is stuffed with rich fools, and such a man as you ought to be able to extract enough from them for our purposes.”

“But what shall I tell them?”

“Just draw another picture of the Liberty Bell,” Susanna replied, “and tell them the same nonsense you told us.”

Hamilton was not convinced that the same nonsense would apply, and was worried that he might have to come up with different nonsense in order to persuade the Virginia planters to come up with the back pay of an entire army. Nevertheless, in broad outline, Susanna’s plan seemed a reasonable one.

We agreed, however, that it would be necessary at least to pay a quick visit to Ferry Farm, so as to be able to assure the General (for he himself was so naturally honest that we should have been ashamed to lie to him) that we had done our best to retrieve his long-lost dollars. Accordingly we found the old plantation, which had, by various curiosities of wills and inheritance laws, passed into the hands of Washington’s elderly Uncle Cedric, who answered the door and received our awkward greetings.

“Little Georgie,” he said when we had told him of our errand. “How many years have passed since I saw him! Is he out of short pants yet?”

“I can assure you that his pants are quite long,” I replied. “In fact he is general of the continental army.”

“Always loved to play soldiers, our little Georgie, especially when his father took away his hatchet. He needs money, you say? I might be able to find a few shillings in my coat pocket.”

“We thought we might borrow your boat, if you would be so kind,” Susanna said. “General Washington suggested there might be a few coins across the river.”

“Might be. Or pine cones. If you can use pine cones, I’m sure it’s the place to look.”

Susanna thanked him and headed toward the shore; I was beginning to follow her when Uncle Cedric took my arm and said in a confidential undertone, “That young man” (pointing to Susanna)—“does it strike you that there’s something odd about him?”

“Well,…” I began hesitantly.

“I think he looks pale,” said Uncle Cedric. “I hope he’s not ill.”

I assured him that I would look after the pale young man, and then Hamilton and I joined her at the boat. Before I could say anything, Susanna took the oars, which I suppose was her prerogative as the only military man among us, and with energetic strokes she took us across the Rappahannock in good time.

The other side of the river was a forest of tall pines, and our footsteps seemed preternaturally silent in the thick carpet of needles that made the ground a rich uniform sable color.

“Nothing but pine needles and a few cones,” Hamilton remarked, and his voice was jarringly loud in the silence of the winter forest.

I looked around, idly scraping my foot through the needles. “I’m afraid you’re right, But at least we can tell the General—”

“Look!” cried Susanna, pointing toward my feet.

I looked down. Where I had scraped the ground, something metallic was glinting through the needles. Quickly I stooped and started brushing away the needles with my hands. Under them was a layer on the ground made up entirely of Spanish milled dollars.

Susanna knelt down where she stood and swept away the needles, and there, too, she found a carpet of dollars.

I stood and took half a dozen strides and stooped again. And Susanna did the same, and Hamilton joined us; and for quite some time wherever we brushed away the needles, we found a uniform layer of dollars below. It took us at least half an hour to delineate the limits of the field of dollars, and most of it was done by Susanna and me, for a strange lassitude had overcome Hamilton. He lay on his back, his fingers slowly gripping and releasing the coins beneath him.

“Are you feeling ill, Mr. Hamilton?” Susanna finally asked him.

“I want to live here,” replied Hamilton. “No—I want to die here. Nothing will ever equal this. My life has reached its peak, and no experience will ever bring joy to me again. I have lived as much as I care to live, and it would be fitting now that I should be taken directly to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the only greater joy I can ever hope to experience.”

“Mr. Hamilton,” said Susanna, “you are still a young man, and life has many joys waiting for you. You will find love, and—”

“I have found love, Captain, uh, Phillips! I am passionately in love with money, money in all its forms, beautiful gold, ravishing silver, charming copper, neatly printed slips of paper;—I desire money as other men desire their mistresses! And here is a forest made of money! If you were suddenly placed among the seventy-two willing virgins of the Mohammedan heaven, would you have any desire to leave that spot? Well, not you personally, captain—forgive me—the uniform, you see, makes me forget the lady—but I have found my seventy-two virgins! I have found the earthly paradise, and now it must be broken up and taken away. I must be cast out of Eden, and cherubim with a flaming sword must keep me from the tree of life. What reason have I to live any longer?”

“We are founding a new government,” said Susanna, “with all the problems of government to be solved—including the question of money.”

“Yes,” I added, “you will be present at the birth of a new pecuniary system. Is that not something to live for?”

He sat up with a start. “A new kind of money?”

“Yes, Mr. Hamilton,” said Susanna. “The coin of the United States of America.”

“Why, yes! That is true,” said Hamilton. “It will be only fitting that I should be present at the birth of an entirely new species of specie. How many true lovers of money are afforded that opportunity?”

“But first,” Susanna continued, “we must win the war, and to do that we must pay the army.”

This argument was enough to bring Hamilton out of his lethargy; and, with a last wistful look at the forest of dollars, he began helping us gather the coins into large piles. Then he and Susanna went back to find a large number of sacks, while I sat in the silent forest to guard the piles of coins from no one except a ragged-looking fish crow, which took enough of an interest in the shiny dollars to make it worth my while to chase the bird away.

It took many trips with the boat to bring the hoard across the river, and then we had to arrange for what amounted to a caravan to transport it all back to Pennsylvania; but of course we had all the funds we could possibly need to pay for the wagons, drivers, and escorts. We finally reached Valley Forge in the spring—only to find an enormous army marching in just as we arrived.

At first all of us presumed the worst; but then we spotted the fleur-de-lis flag and realized that the French had arrived at last, and in numbers we had not dared hope for.

Just as we reached Washington with the good news that we had found his trove of dollars, the French commander made his appearance.

“La Fayette, I am here, yes?” he announced. “Which one is the général Washington?”

To be continued in Chapter IX. Or you can order the whole book now and spare yourself the wait.