Young people sometimes forget that the patriots’ cause had many friends among the wiser statesmen of England. William Pitt was brave enough to say: _We are told that the Americans are obstinate, that they are in almost open rebellion against us. I rejoice that America has resisted. I rejoice that they are not so dead to all feelings of liberty as to be willing to submit like slaves!_ GEORGE WASHINGTON The winter at Valley Forge was a time of bitter discouragement for Washington and his cause. Tradition has preserved a touching picture of the great man in his lonely hour of trial. A Quaker farmer, Isaac Potts, one day returned home joyful and confident in the ultimate success of the Americans: _George Washington will succeed! George Washington will succeed!_ he told his wife. _What makes thee think so, Isaac?_ was her reply. _I have heard him pray, Hannah, alone out in the woods to-day. The Generals horse was tied to a sapling in a thicket. He himself was on his knees, praying most fervently. The Lord will surely hear his prayer. He will, Hannah; thee may rest assured, he will._ * * * * * Washington’s soldiers were often exasperated by the pettiness and tedious delays of Congress. On one occasion a group of them proposed to improve matters by making their leader King. His downright reply to the man who finally summoned sufficient courage to broach the matter to him is too little known: _I am at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which seems to me big with the greatest mischief that can befall any country.... Let me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature!_ ETHAN ALLEN When Ethan Allen, the Green Mountain Boy, broke into Fort Ticonderoga at the head of a handful of followers and demanded its surrender, its bewildered and still sleepy Commandant began to stutter out a very natural inquiry as to the authority in whose name Allen acted. History has recorded Allen’s grandiloquent reply: _In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!_ (But certain old Vermonters will have it that his actual words were, _Here, come out of that, you old rascal and give us the fort, quick, or we’ll smoke you out like rats!_) ANTHONY WAYNE Mad Anthony Wayne was wounded in the head by a musket-ball during his famous assault on Stony Point. He fell to the ground with blood streaming over his face, and for a moment supposed himself to be mortally wounded. His order to his aids was eminently characteristic, _Carry me into the fort and let me die at the head of the column_. JOHN STARK