Part 34

Perhaps the most difficult question, however, was the appointment of a commander-in-chief; and on no other subject did the Congress exhibit more conspicuous wisdom. When only twenty-three, Washington had been appointed commander of the Virginian forces against the French; and in the late war, though he had met with one serious disaster, and had no opportunity of obtaining any very brilliant military reputation, he had always shown himself an eminently brave and skillful soldier. His great modesty and taciturnity kept him in the background, both in the provincial legislature and in the Continental Congress; but though his voice was scarcely ever heard in debate, his superiority was soon felt in the practical work of the committees. “If you speak of solid information or sound judgment,” said Patrick Henry about this time, “Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man in the Congress.” He appeared in the assembly in uniform, and in military matters his voice had an almost decisive weight. Several circumstances distinguished him from other officers, who in military service might have been his rivals.

He was of an old American family. He was a planter of wealth and social position, and being a Virginian, his appointment was a great step toward enlisting that important colony cordially in the cause. The capital question now pending in America was, how far the other colonies would support New England in the struggle. In the preceding March, Patrick Henry had carried a resolution for embodying and reorganizing the Virginia militia, and had openly proclaimed that an appeal to arms was inevitable; but as yet New England had borne almost the whole burden.

The army at Cambridge was a New England army, and General Ward, who commanded it, had been appointed by Massachusetts. Even if Ward were superseded, there were many New England competitors for the post of commander; the army naturally desired a chief of their own province, and there were divisions and hostilities among the New England deputies. The great personal merit of Washington and the great political importance of securing Virginia, determined the issue; and the New England deputies ultimately took a leading part in the appointment. The second place was given to General Ward, and the third to Charles Lee, an English soldier of fortune who had lately purchased land in Virginia and embraced the American cause with great passion. Lee had probably a wider military experience than any other officer in America, but he was a man of no settled principles, and his great talents were marred by a very irritable and capricious temper.

To the appointment of Washington, far more than to any other single circumstance, is due the ultimate success of the American Revolution, though in purely intellectual powers Washington was certainly inferior to Franklin, and perhaps to two or three others of his colleagues. There is a theory which once received the countenance of some considerable physiologists, though it is now, I believe, completely discarded, that one of the great lines of division among men may be traced to the comparative development of the cerebrum and the cerebellum. To the first organ it was supposed belong those special gifts or powers which make men poets, orators, thinkers, artists, conquerors, or wits. To the second belong the superintending, restraining, discerning, and directing faculties which enable men to employ their several talents with sanity and wisdom, which maintain the balance and the proportion of intellect and character, and make sound judgments and well-regulated lives. The theory, however untrue in its physiological aspect, corresponds to a real distinction in human minds and characters, and it was especially in the second order of faculties that Washington excelled. His mind was not quick or remarkably original. His conversation had no brilliancy or wit. He was entirely without the gift of eloquence, and he had very few accomplishments. He knew no language but his own, and except for a rather strong turn for mathematics, he had no taste which can be called purely intellectual. There was nothing in him of the meteor or the cataract, nothing that either dazzled or overpowered. A courteous and hospitable country gentleman, a skillful farmer, a very keen sportsman, he probably differed little in tastes and habits from the better members of the class to which he belonged; and it was in a great degree in the administration of a large estate and in assiduous attention to county and provincial business that he acquired his rare skill in reading and managing men.

As a soldier the circumstances of his career brought him into the blaze not only of domestic, but of foreign criticism, and it was only very gradually that his superiority was fully recognized. Lee, who of all American soldiers had seen most service in the English army, and Conway, who had risen to great repute in the French army, were both accustomed to speak of his military talents with extreme disparagement; but personal jealousy and animosity undoubtedly colored their judgments. Kalb, who had been trained in the best military schools of the Continent, at first pronounced him to be very deficient in the strength, decision, and promptitude of a general; and, although he soon learned to form the highest estimate of his military capacity, he continued to lament that an excessive modesty led him too frequently to act upon the opinion of inferior men, rather than upon his own most excellent judgment. In the army and the Congress more than one rival was opposed to him. He had his full share of disaster; the operations which he conducted, if compared with great European wars, were on a very small scale; and he had the immense advantage of encountering in most cases generals of singular incapacity.

It may, however, be truly said of him that his military reputation steadily rose through many successive campaigns, and before the end of the struggle he had outlived all rivalry, and almost all envy. He had a thorough knowledge of the technical part of his profession, a good eye for military combinations, and an extraordinary gift of military administration. Punctual, methodical, and exact in the highest degree, he excelled in managing those minute details which are so essential to the efficiency of an army, and he possessed to an eminent degree not only the common courage of a soldier, but also that much rarer form of courage which can endure long-continued suspense, bear the weight of great responsibility, and encounter the risks of misrepresentation and unpopularity. For several years, and usually in the neighborhood of superior forces, he commanded a perpetually fluctuating army, almost wholly destitute of discipline and respect for authority, torn by the most violent personal and provincial jealousies, wretchedly armed, wretchedly clothed, and sometimes in imminent danger of starvation. Unsupported for the most part by the population among whom he was quartered, and incessantly thwarted by the jealousy of Congress, he kept his army together by a combination of skill, firmness, patience, and judgment which has rarely been surpassed, and he led it at last to a signal triumph.

In civil as in military life, he was pre-eminent among his contemporaries for the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the indomitable firmness with which he pursued every path which he had deliberately chosen. Of all the great men in history he was the most invariably judicious, and there is scarcely a rash word or action or judgment recorded of him. Those who knew him well, noticed that he had keen sensibilities and strong passions; but his power of self-command never failed him, and no act of his public life can be traced to personal caprice, ambition, or resentment. In the despondency of long-continued failure, in the elation of sudden success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds and when malignant plots were formed against his reputation, amid the constant quarrels, rivalries, and jealousies of his subordinates, in the dark hour of national ingratitude, and in the midst of the most universal and intoxicating flattery, he was always the same calm, wise, just, and single-minded man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right, without fear or favor or fanaticism; equally free from the passions that spring from interest and from the passions that spring from imagination. He never acted on the impulse of an absorbing or uncalculating enthusiasm, and he valued very highly fortune, position, and reputation; but at the command of duty he was ready to risk and sacrifice them all.

He was in the highest sense of the words a gentleman and a man of honor, and he carried into public life the severest standard of private morals. It was at first the constant dread of large sections of the American people that if the old government were overthrown, they would fall into the hands of military adventurers, and undergo the yoke of military despotism. It was mainly the transparent integrity of the character of Washington that dispelled the fear. It was always known by his friends, and it was soon acknowledged by the whole nation and by the English themselves, that in Washington America had found a leader who could be induced by no earthly motive to tell a falsehood, or to break an engagement, or to commit any dishonorable act. Men of this moral type are happily not rare, and we have all met them in our experience; but there is scarcely another instance in history of such a man having reached and maintained the highest position in the convulsions of civil war and of a great popular agitation.

It is one of the great advantages of the long practice of free institutions, that it diffuses through the community a knowledge of character and a soundness of judgment which save it from the enormous mistakes that are almost always made by enslaved nations when suddenly called upon to choose their rulers. No fact shows so eminently the high intelligence of the men who managed the American Revolution as their selection of a leader whose qualities were so much more solid than brilliant, and who was so entirely free from all the characteristics of a demagogue. It was only slowly and very deliberately that Washington identified himself with the revolutionary cause.

No man had a deeper admiration for the British constitution, or a more sincere wish to preserve the connection and to put an end to the disputes between the two countries. In Virginia the revolutionary movement was preceded and prepared by a democratic movement of the yeomanry of the province, led by Patrick Henry, against the planter aristocracy, and Washington was a conspicuous member of the latter. In tastes, manners, instincts, and sympathies he might have been taken as an admirable specimen of the better type of English country gentleman, and he had a great deal of the strong conservative feeling which is natural to the class. From the first promulgation of the Stamp Act, however, he adopted a conviction that a recognition of the sole right of the colonies to tax themselves was essential to their freedom, and as soon as it became evident that Parliament was resolved at all hazards to assert and exercise its authority of taxing America, he no longer hesitated. An interesting letter to his wife, however, shows clearly that he accepted the proffered command of the American forces with extreme diffidence and reluctance, and solely because he believed that it was impossible for him honorably to refuse it. He declined to accept from Congress any emoluments for his service beyond the simple payment of his expenses, of which he was accustomed to draw up most exact and methodical accounts.

MIRABEAU.

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

[Count Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, born 1749, died 1791; distinguished as statesman and orator in the days preceding the French Revolution. The heir of a noble name, his early life was one of wild excess and eccentric adventure, but already marked by the intellectual daring and brilliancy which afterward made his name famous. In 1789 he was elected to the States-General from Aix as representative, however, of the Third Estate (the Commons), not of the nobility to which he belonged. Already strongly infected by liberal theories, his energy, intellectual power and eloquence soon made him the foremost figure in the great legislative body. At first antagonistic to royal pretension, he finally recognized the dangers of the coming revolution at an early stage, and attempted to stem the current. His efforts to reconcile clashing interests from 1789 to 1791 were characterized by the most splendid powers of the orator and statesman. His premature death removed the only barrier to the rising revolutionary tide. He was the idol of the populace, and it is believed by many historians that, had he lived, the French Revolution would have flowed in a different channel.]

Which of these six hundred individuals, in plain white cravat, that have come up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their _king_? For a king or leader they, as all bodies of men, must have; be their work what it may, there is one man there who, by character, faculty, position, is fittest of all to do it; that man, as future not yet elected king, walks there among the rest. He with the thick black locks, will it be? With the _hure_, as himself calls it, or black _boar’s-head_, fit to be “shaken” as a senatorial portent? Through whose shaggy beetle-brows, and rough-hewed, seamed, carbuncled face, there look natural ugliness, small-pox, incontinence, bankruptcy--and burning fire of genius; like comet-fire glaring fuliginous through murkiest confusions? It is _Gabriel Honoré Riquetti Mirabeau_, the world-compeller; man-ruling deputy of Aix! According to the Baroness de Staël, he steps proudly along, though looked at askance here; and shakes his black _chevelure_, or lion’s-mane, as if prophetic of great deeds.

Yes, reader, that is the type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was of the last. He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his virtues, in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man--and intrinsically such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well. The National Assembly were all different without that one; nay, he might say with the old despot: “The National Assembly? I am that.”

Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood; for the Riquettis, or Arrighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries ago, and settled in Provence, where from generation to generation they have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred; irascible, indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an intensity and activity that sometimes verged toward madness, yet did not reach it. One ancient Riquetti, in mad fulfillment of a mad vow, chains two mountains together; and the chain, with its “iron star of five rays,” is still to be seen. May not a modern Riquetti _un_chain so much, and set it drifting--which also shall be seen?

Destiny has work for that swart burly-headed Mirabeau; Destiny has watched over him, prepared him from afar. Did not his grandfather, stout _Col-d’Argent_ (Silver-Stock, so they named him), shattered and slashed by seven-and-twenty wounds in one fell day, lie sunk together on the bridge at Casano; while Prince Eugene’s cavalry galloped and regalloped over him--only the flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle over that loved head; and Vendôme, dropping his spy-glass, moaned out, “Mirabeau is _dead_, then!” Nevertheless he was not dead: he awoke to breath, and miraculous surgery--for Gabriel was yet to be. With his _silver-stock_ he kept his scarred head erect, through long years; and wedded; and produced tough Marquis Victor, the _Friend of Men_. Whereby at last in the appointed year, 1749, this long-expected rough-hewed Gabriel Honoré did likewise see the light; roughest lion’s whelp ever littered of that rough breed. How the old lion (for our old marquis too was lion-like, most unconquerable, kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wondering on his offspring; and determined to train him as no lion had yet been! It is in vain, oh Marquis! This cub, though thou slay him and flay him, will not learn to draw in dogcart of political economy, and be a _Friend of Men_; he will not be thou, but must and will be himself, another than thou. Divorce lawsuits, “whole family save one in prison, and three-score _Lettres-de-Cachet_” for thy own sole use, do but astonish the world.

Our luckless Gabriel, sinned against and sinning, has been in the Isle of Rhé and heard the Atlantic from his tower; in the castle of If, and heard the Mediterranean at Marseilles. He has been in the fortress of Joux, and forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the dungeon of Vincennes--all by _Lettre-de-Cachet_ from his lion father. He has been in Pontarlier jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed fording estuaries of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of men. He has pleaded before Aix parliaments (to get back his wife); the public gathering on roofs, to see since they could not hear; “the clatter-teeth (_claque-dents_)!” snarls singular old Mirabeau, discerning in such admired forensic eloquence nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.

But as for Gabriel Honoré, in these strange wayfarings, what has he not seen and tried! From drill-sergeants to prime-ministers, to foreign and domestic booksellers, all manner of men he has seen. All manner of men he has gained; for, at bottom, it is a social, loving heart, that wild, unconquerable one--more especially all manner of women. From the archer’s daughter at Saintes to that fair young Sophie Madame Monnier, whom he could not but “steal,” and be beheaded for--in effigy! For, indeed, hardly since the Arabian prophet lay dead to Ali’s admiration was there seen such a love-hero, with the strength of thirty men. In war, again, he has helped to conquer Corsica; fought duels, irregular brawls; horsewhipped calumnious barons. In literature, he has written on “Despotism,” on “Lettres-de-Cachet”; Erotics Sapphic-Werterean, Obscenities, Profanities; books on the “Prussian Monarchy,” on “Cagliostro,” on “Calonne,” on “The Water-Companies of Paris”--each book comparable, we will say, to a bituminous alarm-fire; huge, smoky, sudden! The fire-pan, the kindling, the bitumen were his own; but the lumber, of rags, old wood and nameless combustible rubbish (for all is fuel to him), was gathered from hucksters and ass-panniers of every description under heaven. Whereby, indeed, hucksters enough have been heard to exclaim: Out upon it, the fire is _mine_!

Nay, consider it more generally, seldom had man such a talent for borrowing. The idea, the faculty of another man he can make his; the man himself he can make his. “All reflex and echo (_tout de reflet et de réverbère_)!” snarls old Mirabeau, who can see, but will not. Crabbed old Friend of Men! it is his sociality, his aggregative nature; and will now be the quality of qualities for him. In that forty years’ “struggle against despotism” he has gained the glorious faculty of _self-help_, and yet not lost the glorious natural gift of _fellowship_, of being helped. Rare union; this man can live self-sufficing--yet lives also in the life of other men; can make men love him, work with him; a born king of men!

But consider further how, as the old marquis still snarls, he has “made away with (_humé_, swallowed, snuffed-up) all _formulas_”--a fact, which, if we meditate it, will in these days mean much. This is no man of system, then; he is only a man of instincts and insights. A man, nevertheless, who will glare fiercely on any object, and see through it and conquer it; for he has intellect, he has will, force beyond other men. A man not with _logic-spectacles_, but with an _eye_! Unhappily without decalogue, moral code, or theorem of any fixed sort, yet not without a strong living soul in him, and sincerity there; a reality, not an artificiality, not a sham! And so he, having struggled “forty years against despotism,” and “made away with all formulas,” shall now become the spokesman of a nation bent to do the same. For is it not precisely the struggle of France also to cast off despotism; to make away with _her_ old formulas--having found them naught, worn out, far from the reality? She will make away with _such_ formulas--and even go _bare_, if need be, till she have found new ones.

Toward such work, in such manner, marches he, this singular Riquetti Mirabeau. In fiery rough figure, with black Samson-locks under the slouch-hat, he steps along there. A fiery fuliginous mass, which could not be choked and smothered, but would fill all France with smoke. And now it has got _air_; it will burn its whole substance, its whole smoke-atmosphere, too, and fill all France with flame. Strange lot! Forty years of that smoldering, with foul fire-damp and vapor enough; then victory over that--and like a burning mountain he blazes heaven-high; and for twenty-three resplendent months pours out in flame and molten fire-torrents all that is in him, the Pharos and wonder-sign of an amazed Europe--and then lies hollow, cold forever! Pass on, thou questionable Gabriel Honoré, the greatest of them all; in the whole national deputies, in the whole nation, there is none like and none second to thee.

CHARLES JAMES FOX.

BY WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY.

[An eminent orator and statesman, born 1749, died 1806. Fox was noted as being the greatest man of his age in parliamentary debate. He was the son of Sir Henry Fox, afterward Lord Holland, and was elected to Parliament while scarcely yet of age. Fox was identified with the Whig party, and contributed greatly to the success and firm establishment of liberal and reform principles in politics, though his private life was careless and dissolute. Though peerless as a debater, Fox was unsuccessful in commanding public respect and confidence during his short experiment as premier, and was for the most of his career a leader of the opposition. The memory of Fox is endeared to Americans by his sympathy with our revolutionary struggle, his persistent efforts to prevent the war before it began, and to secure an early concession of American independence after the beginning of hostilities.]