mond of New York, Delancy "the outlaw of the Bronx," Sir John Johnson the feudal lord of the valley of the Mohawk, Ruggles of Massachusetts, De Peyster, the hero of King's Mountain, whose New York "Tories" seven times repelled the furious charge of the "rebels," Thomas and Hovenden and James, whose provincials and refugees were invaluable as light troops while the British lay at Philadelphia — these and many more who might be added prove that even in the tory ranks we have so long been taught to despise there lived the valor, the bravery and the self-sacrifice that have ever been the peculiar pride of the American Soldier.

The smoke of conflict died away when at Yorktown the charge on the British redoubt led by Hamilton and Lafayette showed to Cornwallis the absolute impracticability of longer continuing his defense. The allied troops of America and France-republicanism and absolutism fighting side by side. made the United States a nation.

The seven years of war were ended. A strife that had been. of slow but certain growth ever since the days when the first colonists from across the sea set foot on the wild shores of the New World had come to its logical conclusion and a nation of freemen was born. On many a stubborn field, in many a bloody fight the sturdy arm and the valiant heart had proved the moral strength that lay behind them. The first endeavors of the real American Soldier had brought from dependence independence and through patriotism freedom. Henceforth the troops of America were to be the Army of the People.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TROOPS OF DISCONTENT.

Ο

Na certain memorable October morning in the year 1781 a British drummer boy climbed to the parapet of an English redoubt at Yorktown. There, vigorously plying his drumsticks, he sounded the parley. Hostilities ceased. Two days afterward, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the nineteenth of October, the British troops marched out of their works, with colors cased and the soldiers of King George laid down their arms in surrender.

Appropriately enough their drums rattled. out the quickstep "The World turned Upside Down." The world was indeed turned upside down so far as all the traditions of power were concerned, for, with that surrender at Yorktown, the American Revolution practically came to an end. Tyranny acknowledged itself defeated and a "parcel of rebels" became a nation of freemen.

But, though the war closed with the surrender of Cornwallis, not for two full years did the troops of England finally leave the land they had so confidently come to conquer. On the twenty-fifth of November, 1783, Sir Guy Carleton evacuated the

city of New York. As the British rear guard pushed off from the Battery the advance guard of the Americans— a troop of horse, a regiment of infantry and a company of artillery — filed into the deserted fort. Through the streets of the city that for fully seven years had lain in possession of the soldiers of the English king, sounded the joyful roll of the drums. Escorted by Captain Delavan's "West Chester Light Horse," Washington marched into the city with a veteran following of the Continental troops and the last vestige of England's authority in her former colonies disappeared forever.

But before that day of evacuation and possession arrived the army of the United States had practically been disbanded. When it became evident that no further hostility on the part of England was to be feared the greater portion of the Continental troops was dismissed upon long or indefinite furloughs. On the nineteenth of April, 1783, just eight years to a day from the time of the historic conflict at Lexington, a cessation of hostilities was publicly announced to the American army, and on the eighteenth of October in the same year that army was, by proclamation of the Congress, officially disbanded. This final act took effect on the second of November following and when, on the twenty-fifth of the month, the city of New York was evacuated by the British troops only a small body of veteran soldiers under the command of General Knox represented the American army.

Peace brought respite from war, but it by no means brought satisfaction to those by whom it had been secured. The inspiration of victory is haloed all about with exultation and exciteThe after-happenings of victory are sometimes singularly lacking in enthusiasm. Patriotism is broad and self-sacrificing,

ment.

even patriotism needs to be kept alive by such homely

necessities as bread and butter. The laborer is worthy of his hire; and when long-promised wages were not forthcoming even the Soldiers of Liberty began to grumble.

The Congress of the United States at a cost of one hundred and forty millions of dollars had waged the war of revolu

tion to a successful termination. But the cost of this war, small as it may appear in these days of vast expenditures, had loaded the States with a burden of debt greater than they seemed willing or able to carry. The Congress, straining every nerve to force out its plans to success and keep its armies in

the field, was scarcely able to meet even the bare necessities of war and when Cornwallis laid down his arms at Yorktown the United States of America found themselves largely in arrears to the very men by whose valor their existence had been rendered possible.

The two years that intervened between the surrender at Yorktown and the evacuation of New York were full of discontent and grumbling. Brave men who had sacrificed so much. for the cause they had enlisted to defend felt that the people in whose interests they had fought should at least pay to them the wages that were their due. But even justice seemed to halt. There were exasperating delays on the part of Congress, punctuated only by unfulfilled promises; there was discontent on the part of the army interspersed with frequent mutterings that threatened to break into absolute rebellion. And so the months went slowly by.

With doubts, not only as to the ability but as to the gratitude, even, of the American people the army that had made them a people disbanded. Already in this very year of 1783 the growing discontent among the soldiers had threatened to develop into serious action. The half-rebellious Newburg address which voiced this discontent of the veteran fighters had in it, looked at from their standpoint, a certain amount of justice and excuse. But the very circulation of such an address argued a condition approaching to mutiny; and even injustice. is no excuse for insubordination. Washington was not the sort of man to tolerate insurrection. He speedily frowned down an attempt which had the approval even of certain of his colleagues and, by his wisdom, his tact and his firmness, prevented a movement on the part of the army which, if carried out, would have made the Soldiers of Liberty but little better than