of those sentiments; sowing suspicions, fostering doubts, and not shrinking, there is strong reason to suppose, from gross exaggeration and deliberate falsehood. The discussion of articles, like all such discussions, was protracted by the efforts of each party to make the best terms, and the concealing of real intentions in the hope of extorting greater concessions. But England was really prepared to yield all that America was really prepared to claim. France, in spite of the suspicions of Adams and Jay, was really sincere; and on the 30th of November, 1782, the preliminary articles were signed. Franklin's position was difficult and delicate. He knew the importance of peace. He knew that the instructions of Congress required perfect openness towards the French Minister. He believed that the Minister deserved, both by his past kindness and present good intentions, to be treated with perfect openness. But both his colleagues were against him. What should he do? Refer the difference to Congress, and meanwhile hold the country in painful and expensive suspense ? What could he do but submit, as he had done through life, to the circumstances which he could not control, and give the appearance of unanimity to an act which the good of his country required to be unanimous ? He signed the preliminaries, and submitted to the reproach of personal and public ingratitude as he had submitted to the taunts of Wedderburn. History has justified his confidence; the most careful research having failed to bring to light any confirmation of the suspicions of his colleagues. And Vergennes, though nettled for the moment, understood Franklin's position too well to lay the act at his door as an expression of a real opinion. Much time and long discussions were still required to convert the preliminaries into a final treaty; for the complicated interests of England, France, and Spain were to be taken into the account. But each party longed for peace; each party needed it; and on the 3d of September, 1783, another treaty of Paris gave once more the short-lived though precious boon to Europe and America. During Franklin's residence at the court of France, and mainly through his influence, that court had advanced to Congress three millions of livres a year as a loan, had increased it to four millions in 1781, had the same year added six millions as a free gift to the three millions with which she began, and become their security for the regular payment of the interest upon a loan of ten nillions to be raised in Holland.* Nor will it be inappropriate to add that before he sailed upon his mission to France, he called in all the money he could command in specie (between three and four thousand pounds in all), and put it into the public treasury as a loan; and that *In all, eighteen millions as a loan, and nine millions as a free gift. while the young men, Adams and Jay, were provided with competent secretaries of legation, he, though bowed down by age and disease, and with ten times their work to do, was left to his own resources, and, but for the assistance of his grandson, would have been compelled to do it all with his own hand. 66 It has been said that a soldier accustomed to conquer with Claverhouse, when, under a new leader, he saw victory wavering at the decisive moment, exclaimed in his indignation, “O for one hour of Dundee ! " Might not we, as we look at the clouds which lower so ominously on our eastern horizon, exclaim with equal reason, O for one hour of Franklin! N LECTURE VII. THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. of the Revolution! brances this name awakens! What remem What fireside tales, charms of childhood, stimulants of youth, fanning the flame of young ambition, kindling the glow of early patriotism, come crowding upon our memories as we utter these words. Many of us grew up in the midst of men who could tell us all about that army; who could tell us how the redcoats looked as they marched with measured tread, to the note of bugle and drum, up the grassy slope of Bunker Hill, and what a gleam of exultation flashed along the American line, when, through the veil of smoke, the broken ranks were seen rushing madly towards the shore, to the sharp, quick ring of the American guns; who remembered the sad march through the Jerseys; who had felt the keen December blasts of Trenton, and the keener tooth of hunger on the bleak hillside of Valley Forge; who had looked upon the face of Washington in gloom, and peril, and triumph. These, for many of us, were the old men of our youth, men with a wooden leg, or a single arm, or a single eye; some of them with a deep scar on their faces; all with something about them that gave them a mysterious power over our young imaginations, and bore witness to their tales of hardship and danger. But now that questions crowd upon us there are none left to answer them. Now, when often a single word would solve perplexing doubts and set a whole controversy at rest, the thousand lips that once might have uttered it are sealed forever. Gone, nearly all gone! the few that remain, eight or ten at the utmost, already more than half hidden by the deepening shadows of the grave. Temper the chilling darkness of those shadows while yet you may, those of you, if any there be, who live where kind offices can do it; temper it with soothing words, and gentle acts, and that reverence which is so grateful to age; for generation after generation may pass away before the world shall look upon such men again. One of the most pernicious errors concerning America into which the English government was led by its ill-informed informers, was, that there was no material there out of which an army could be made. A Colonel Grant, forgetting how the regulars had run at the Monongahela, while a Virginia volunteer was vainly endeavoring to rally them and Virginia militiamen were holding the enemy |