XXIII.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
"Now we must follow up this grand victory with harder blows," remarked Washington to Lafayette.
"Then you do not believe the war is ended yet?" Lafayette replied inquiringly.
"Of course not. The king will not yield to 'rebels' so willingly as that. We must concentrate our entire force upon New York now."
"Every lover of his country ought to be stimulated to greater deeds now," added Lafayette.
"And Congress ought to respond promptly and liberally to the demands of the hour," said Washington. "The legislatures of the several Colonies ought to be prompt and liberal, also, in providing men and means. Give us men and supplies equal to the emergency, and our independence can be permanently established."
Washington waited upon Congress personally, and he wrote letters to the governors of the several Colonies, pleading for more liberal aid than ever, that the war might be successfully prosecuted to the bitter end.
While these negotiations were progressing, the king superseded Sir Henry Clinton by the appointment of Sir Guy Carleton as commander-in-chief of the British army. The latter commander was in favor of peace, and he appealed to the British Parliament for conciliatory action; nor was his plea in vain. After a long and acrimonious struggle, Parliament adopted a resolution advising reconciliation. From that moment, peace negotiations were commenced, but were not fully consummated until Nov. 30, 1782, at Paris. It was the nineteenth day of April, 1783, when the welcome news, received in this country, was announced to the army.
The surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, contrary to the expectations of Washington, thus proved to be the end of the war. In just eight years from the time the first battle of the Revolution was fought at Lexington, April 19, 1775, the proclamation of peace was made to the army. "Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great Britain expended near a hundred millions of money, with a hundred thousand lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and distress, lost many lives and much treasure, but delivered herself from a foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations of the earth."