CHAPTER XVIII.

Members of Congress constantly employed........ Further Letters........ Supposed hostility to Massachusetts on the part of some of the Leaders of the Revolution.........Massachusetts defended.........Dissentions in the Delegation.

THE business, which devolved on the members of congress, continued to increase in its burthens with the progress of the war. They had not only to provide for the future, but to revise the past. Every thing relating to the military or financial department had extended and increased. The foreign relations of the country assumed a more interesting character, and the honour of a seat among the illustrious leaders of the people was severely paid for by the labour it exacted.

Under date of 14th January 1778, Mr. Gerry, writing to a friend in Massachusetts, says, "Mr. Dana has been ordered by congress on a committee to camp. He will probably be absent a month. I am alone of our delegation, and the state will lose its vote. It will be very injurious to the interests of the government to be in this situation, as will often be the case while the presence of three delegates is required to give a vote.* I am

* The state of Massachusetts gave the right of a vote for the state to three delegates. For the state's vote to be counted on

worn down with fatigue, and have been waiting with some impatience to return to Massachusetts; but I have wished to see certain measures accomplished before I left congress; when those were finished, others presented themselves equally important and I waited for them, and so on; but this mode of travelling will never get me home. I must therefore determine at all events to leave this place in the spring."

But the spring came and the summer followed, and still found him at his post. On the 24th April he says, "I wish to see a return of some of my colleagues, in order to obtain such relaxation from business as at length has become indispensably necessary for preserving my health. Two years' constant attention to the business of congress and the board of treasury, the members of which have ever been unequal in number to the duties required, with opportunity for very little exercise, is rather hazardous to the constitution, and I feel the effects of it."

Writing to the same gentleman on 26th May, he says, "I had hoped before this to have set off

a division, three delegates must have been present, although a major part of that number voting would cast the vote. Seldom more than three or four of its delegates attended at the seat of government, and the various duties of the members rendered the constant presence of three in the hall a very painful inconvenience. Some states intrusted the power to two, others to a single member. On Mr. G.'s communicating these facts to the Massachusetts legislature, the rule was amended and the power given to add two.

for Massachusetts, but have not been able to break away from the incessant labours which occupy me day and night."

"I congratulate you on the late events in Europe. What a miraculous change in the political world! The ministry of England advocates for despotism, and endeavouring to enslave those who might have remained loyal subjects of the king. The government of France an advocate for liberty, espousing the cause of protestants and risking a war to secure their independence. The king of England considered by every whig in the nation as a tyrant, and the king of France applauded by every whig in America as the protector of the rights of man! The king of Great Britain aiding the advancement of popery, and the king of France endeavouring to free his people from ecclesiastical power! Britain at war with America, France in alliance with her! These, my friend, are astonishing changes. Perhaps one principle, self interest, may account for all."

"Our friend Mr. Adams arrived here last week, and is pleased with the appearance of things. The currency is getting better, and I hope I may get away."

The hope was fallacious. Public measures rose in interest as clouds gathered in the political sky. The danger from abroad was not powerful enough to preserve tranquillity at home, and dissentions divided those who were engaged in the common

cause of the country. Parties had arisen on the conduct of the American ministers on foreign service, and jealousies were excited concerning domestic affairs. The latter were exceedingly galling to Mr. Gerry, because it displayed itself in a desire to undervalue the exertions, the services, the sacrifices and the patriotism of New-England.

"There are some persons," he says in a letter to a member of the assembly of Massachusetts, "of weight and influence in this (Pennsylvania) and some other states, who have discovered a disposition on all occasions to traduce the eastern states, and to represent the officers and soldiers there as deficient in discipline and valour. In every action where their own troops are concerned, they are held forth in the public prints and public speeches in such high terms of approbation, that a person not knowing the contrary would consider them the sole props of American independence. The assemblies, I think, are not chargeable with this, but the frequent publication of such private letters will have the effect of gathering upon some particular corps all the reputation, which is the common property of the whole army; at any rate, it will excite jealousy and retaliation, and injure the general cause.

It is much to be regretted that such local attachments take place, and that Americans can conceive that honour may be really obtained not by actual merit, but by clandestine means; but since this is the case, there is due to our country

and its brave defenders so much justice as to send down to posterity a true relation of their conduct. Let their feats and their misfortunes be narrated together. They have as many of the first to boast of as any in the union, and as few of the latter which have been attended with disgrace.

Let the assembly take this in hand. If the praise due to our hardy and brave men is attributed to others, they may lose in time that spirit of gallantry, of the reward of which they are defrauded, and begin to think they are what they have been called, inferiour and pusillanimous.

I am afraid there is some system to depreciate them, which must be met by a care to publish the truth. If they are robbed of their just fame, what in God's name have they to fight for? As to silver and gold, our country is like the apostle, we have none to give; but what we have, let us give unto them; just praise for valour, courage and discipline."*

It was unfortunate that while this illiberal spirit existed towards the Massachusetts forces, there was not perfect harmony among the delegates of the state. The arts of popularity, it was supposed, were too ostentatiously resorted to by one of

*A member from Pennsylvania boasted that he represented the heart of the union. We admit it, said a New-England member in conversation with him, and we know from the bible that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."