Now let the nation buckle on its armor, and look forward to peace won only in blood. The Declaration of Independence is an easy thing compared with what is to come. We shall see this man's work in war. Washington is at the head of the army; John Adams, whose head is a perfect battery of war forces, is at the head of the board of war. Upon this man's office depends more than any other in the nation, for he is _Secretary of War_. Mr. Paine has no office, no power of position, not known to the nation, nor to the world, for Common Sense was thought to be the production of Franklin or John Adams. Thomas Paine had great faith in Washington, not so much in Lee. John Adams distrusted Washington, and called him "a dolt," but put great confidence in Lee, an English deserter, and more than an American traitor. Paine never misjudged a man; John Adams never judged a man rightly. As colonies, this country has done much for independence; as a nation, nothing. She is now to be tried. Paine enlists as a soldier with the "Flying Camp." The British fleet is repulsed from Charleston, S.C., and can not land her army of English, Scotch, and Hessians; but now, in August, she effects a landing on Long Island. Washington is there with twenty thousand men with guns, but no soldiers in arms. He loses a battle on Long Island, and retreats therefrom. In October, he loses the battle of White Plains. In November, Fort Washington, with two thousand six hundred men, and our best cannon and arms are taken by the British command, and Fort Lee falls, leaving commissary and quartermasters' stores and cannon in the hands of the British. Washington now retreats through the Jerseys, the British hard after. As they retreat, Paine writes at night on a drum-head. In nineteen days, "often in sight and within cannon-shot of each other, the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up," Washington effected a march of ninety miles. The weather was severe, the roads bad, and his army without blankets, tents, or provisions. In four months his army dwindles from twenty thousand down to less than three thousand. In the meantime, the Indians have been committing ravages on the frontier, and in the heart of the country a great party demand absolute submission. The Quakers oppose the war. There is no money to pay soldiers, nor clothing to put on them; they are poorly armed, and there is but little powder to put in the guns. Congress has only _voted_ for battalions, and there is an enemy "in the nation's bowels" that votes can not resist. After Congress had voted for battalions, it took its flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore, destroying public credit and throwing upon Washington the responsibility of directing all things relative to the operations of the war. The fate of the nation rests in the balance; the beam is not equally poised, the nation is going down. Washington is beyond the Delaware; the Hessians are at Trenton. He makes