Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/237

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FORTY YEARS SINCE.
225

that the structure of mind, which enables a man to philosophize, did not naturally dispose him to the performance of difficult and daring deeds. But he, whom Heaven raised up for its own great purpose, seemed to combine, without contradiction, opposing qualities."

"I shall never forget," said Colonel ———, "that mixture of noble feeling with urbanity, with which, in the early stage of the contest, he refused to treat with the commissioners from Lord and Admiral Howe, because they studiously avoided the acknowledgment of those titles, which the independence of his country demanded. To his expanded mind, those titles were less than nothing and vanity. But he would not dispense with the respect, which was due to his nation through her representative. How firm and dignified was his demeanour when, in the winter of 1776, the despondence of the people appeared in every imaginable form, when the enlistments of his insufficent army were expiring every month, and they could be induced neither to remain, nor to contend. How bright was the glance of his eye when, after performing prodigies of valour at Monmouth, and enduring without complaint the excessive heat of that terrible day, he lay down upon the earth in his cloak for a short repose that night, expecting to renew the battle ere the dawn of morning. But his countenance has, at no period, made a more indelible impression upon my mind, than at the passage of the Delaware; when by a brilliant stratagem, he revived the hopes of a dejected nation. I think I again see the banks covered with snow, as they were during the in-