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I must tax you sometimes for advice. We must have your name, if you will in any case permit us to use it. There will be more efficiency in it than in many an army." Four days afterward, M'Henry, the secretary of war, wrote: "You see how the storm thickens, and that our vessel will soon require its ancient pilot.
M'Henry had prepared a series of thirteen questions for their consideration, and Washington propounded fourteen more, all bearing upon the construction and disposition of the army.
The senate confirmed the nomination, by unanimous vote, on the same day; and Secretary M'Henry was despatched to Mount Vernon a few days afterward, to bear the commission to Washington. He also bore a letter from the president, and open instructions concerning his interview with the new commander-in-chief. "Mr.
Washington soon became wearied with the continual visits of strangers, to which he alluded in his letter to Mr. M'Henry, and he resolved to adopt some plan of relief that should be consistent with the most genuine hospitality. He had an accomplished and favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, son of his sister Elizabeth.
Washington said his prayers again, and ate two chickens for breakfast. On the return from this conference, when approaching the house of General Benedict Arnold, opposite West Point, where they were invited for breakfast, Washington suddenly decided to accompany Lafayette, who wished to inspect some earthworks. "You need not come," he said to Hamilton and M'Henry.
He drove Pickering and M'Henry from his Cabinet with contumely, as the only immediate retaliation he could think of, and Wolcott would have followed, had there been anyone to take his place. Franklin once said of Adams that he was always honest, sometimes great, and often mad. Probably so large an amount of truth has never again been condensed into an epigram.
The following extract from a letter of James M'Henry, Lafayette's former aide, and a member of the Congress, is interesting as a commentary on the difficulties of our hero's position while a member of that body. DEAR HAMILTON: The homilies you delivered in Congress are still remembered with pleasure.
Maryland James M'Henry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, John Francis Mercer, and Luther Martin. North Carolina Richard Caswell, Alexander Martin, William Richardson Davie, Richard Dobbs Spaight, and Willie Jones: Caswell and Jones having declined to serve, William Blount and Hugh Williamson were chosen in their places.
After considerable delay, Colonel Pickering was transferred to the department of state, and James M'Henry, of Maryland, was appointed secretary of war. At the close of November, Charles Lee, of Virginia, accepted the office of attorney-general, as the successor of Bradford, and at the opening of Congress the cabinet was in working order, with apparently harmonious elements.
Hamilton had a vague idea that Betsey could manage somehow, and was far too absorbed to give the matter a thought. Betsey, it would seem, had her own little reputation, for it was about this time that M'Henry finished a letter to Hamilton, as follows: Pray present me to Mrs. Hamilton.
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