“I revere the cause of my country far beyond all my powers of description. I am charmed with its honorable and dignified proceedings relatively to foreign nations, under the former and present administrations of the supreme executive; and I shall be proud of an honorable opportunity of sealing the truth of these opinions with my blood. It will be to me a malignant shaft of fate, indeed, if I am to be excluded from active service by a constant sense of public insult and injury.
“It would be absurd in me,” he said, “to complain of an arrangement already made, with any view to a change.” He then took a general survey of the whole matter, in an expostulary tone; expressed his belief that there had been some “management,” of which Washington was not apprized; and that, if there should be an invasion of the South, Mr. Pinckney might submit to the arrangement for a time. “But, if no such pressure should exist,” he continued, “I have mistaken his character greatly if he will accept.” After many remarks respecting the probable course of events in connection with the French, he said:—
“If such a train of events should occur (and events infinitely less probable have occurred in thick succession for the last seven years), all the military energy of America will be required. Then an opportunity may be afforded in which a better value may be set upon my services than at the present, and I may be permitted to exert myself unshackled by any degradation of character.
“I have received no other notification of an appointment than what the newspapers announce. When it shall please the secretary of war to give me the information, I shall endeavor to make him a suitable answer. At present, I do not perceive how it can possibly be to any other purport than in the negative.... In whatever situation I shall be,” he said in conclusion, “I shall always remember with pleasure and gratitude the friendship and confidence with which you have heretofore honored me.”
This letter gave Washington great pain. He loved Knox very sincerely, and would not, without good cause, say or do anything to wound his feelings. He always spoke of him with the warmth of the most disinterested friendship. “There is no man in the United States,” he wrote to President Adams a few weeks later, “with whom I have been in habits of greater intimacy, no one whom I have loved more sincerely, nor any for whom I have had a greater friendship. But esteem, love, and friendship, can have no influence on my mind, when I conceive that the subjugation of our government and independence are the objects aimed at by the enemies of our peace, and where possibly our all is at stake.”
Washington made an early reply to Knox's epistle. “Your letter,” he said, “has filled my mind with disquietude and perplexity in the extreme; but I will say nothing in reply, intentionally, that shall give you a moment's pain.” He then entered into an elaborate history of the circumstances under which the appointments were made, showing that such haste had been exercised, that the first intimation he had of his own appointment was from a newspaper paragraph and a private note from the secretary of war; and that it was impossible for him to consult General Knox, who was then in Boston, previous to the nomination of the general officers.
Feeling that his statements in a former letter ought to have been sufficiently explanatory to General Knox, Washington continued: “I do not know that these explanations will afford you any satisfaction, or produce any change in your determination, but it was just to myself to make them. If there has been any management in the business, it has been concealed from me. I have had no agency therein, nor have I conceived a thought on the subject that has not been disclosed to you with the utmost sincerity and frankness of heart. And now, notwithstanding the insinuations, which are implied in your letter, of the vicissitudes of friendship and the inconstancy of mine, I will pronounce with decision that it ever has been, and, notwithstanding the unkindness of the charge, ever will be, for aught I know to the contrary, warm and sincere.
“I earnestly wished, on account of that friendship, as well as on the score of military talents, to have had the assistance of you and Colonel Hamilton in the arduous scenes with which we are threatened. I wish it still devoutly, as well on public as on private accounts; for dissentions of this sort will have an unhappy effect among the friends of government, while it will be sweet consolation to the French partisans, and food for their pride.”
Washington's letter touched the heart of Knox, and soothed his wounded spirit. “In your welcome and much-esteemed favor,” he wrote in reply, “I recognize fully all the substantial friendship and kindness which I have always so invariably experienced from you.” His former letter was written, he said, “under a pressure of various ideas, all sharpened by a strong sense of the comparison which had been publicly made between others” and himself. But, he said, in conclusion, “it is certainly far from my intention to embarrass, or to force myself unbidden into a station designed for another. It is neither my nature nor practice to excite dissention. I shall, therefore, submit to any proper authority. But, if an invasion shall take place, I shall deeply regret all circumstances which would insuperably bar my having an active command in the field. But, if such a measure should be my destiny, I shall fervently petition to serve as one of your aides-de-camp, which, with permission, I shall do with all the cordial devotion and attachment of which my soul is capable.”
During the autumn of 1798, Washington's time was alternately devoted to the business of his estate, and the duties of his responsible office. The latter occupied much the larger portion of his thoughts and exertions. Difficulties, which gave him much trouble in the old war, now appeared—namely, questions of rank, and tardiness in the recruiting-service. The friends of Knox, lacking that officer's love and veneration for Washington, importuned the president, in whose hands resided the power to make military appointments, to reverse the order in which the lieutenant-general had named the major-generals. Adams was secretly hostile to Hamilton at that time, and was not favorable to his promotion; and he was strongly inclined to place Knox at the head of the military staff, Pinckney second, and Hamilton third. This inclination produced some dissentions in his cabinet, when the jealous irritability of his temper, and his egotistical reliance upon his own judgment, made him resolve to change the order of the major-generals. When this subject, and the fact that the president intended to appoint an adjutant-general without the chief's concurrence, came before Washington in official form, he wrote a decided letter to Adams, giving him to understand that he should consider a refusal to place Hamilton in the front rank, a breach of an agreement, not formally made, but fully implied, by the terms upon which the commander-in-chief accepted the appointment—a breach sufficient to justify his own resignation. This settled the matter, and the arrangement of the major-generals made by Washington was not changed.