It was very much as if Congress had said: "Good General, bring in the Atlantic tides and drown the enemy; or pluck the moon from the sky and give it to us, as a mark of your loyalty." Such requests are not soothing to any man struggling his best with great anxieties, and with a host of petty cares.

Washington, nevertheless, kept his temper, and replied only by setting down a few hard facts which answered the demands of Congress in a final manner, and with all the sting of truth.

Thus a little irritation had been generated in Congress against the general, and there were some members who developed a good deal of pronounced hostility.

Sam Adams, a born agitator and a trained politician, unequaled almost in our history as an organizer and manager of men, able, narrow, coldly fierce, the man of the town meeting and the caucus, had no possibility of intellectual sympathy with the silent, patient, hard-gripping soldier, hemmed with difficulties, but ever moving straight forward to his object, with occasional wild gusts of reckless fighting passion.

John Adams, too, brilliant of speech and pen, ardent, patriotic, and high-minded, was, in his way, out of touch with Washington.