No one responded, but still he gathered the transports; at first a few, then more, and finally, after many delays, enough to move his army to Yorktown.

The spectacle of such a struggle, so heroically made, one would think, might have inspired every soul on the continent with enthusiasm; but at this very moment, while Washington was breaking camp and marching southward, Congress was considering the reduction of the army!--which was as appropriate as it would have been for the English Parliament to have reduced the navy on the eve of Trafalgar, or for Lincoln to have advised the restoration of the army to a peace footing while Grant was fighting in the Wilderness.

The fact was that the Continental Congress was weakened in ability and very tired in point of nerve and will-power.

They saw that peace was coming, and naturally thought that the sooner they could get it the better.

They entirely failed to see, as Washington saw, that in a too sudden peace lurked the danger of the _uti possidetis_, and that the mere fact of peace by no means implied necessarily complete success.