The object of this address was to reconcile men to themselves; and it therefore ceded as much as was possible in its expression to the predominant feelings of the moment; but its principle was not to be mistaken: and the unqualified and decided declaration which it contained, of attachment and of implicit obedience to Government, must have had the certain effect of separating all those by whom this address was subscribed, from persons who cherished contrary sentiments. But the great object of this measure was to concentrate and embody the good feelings of the army; to hoist a standard to which men could repair, whose minds revolted at the proceedings then in progress, but who were deterred by shame, fear of reproach, and want of union, from expressing an open difference of opinion from the more violent. I was assured at the moment that I suggested this measure, of its partial success, and not without some hopes that it would be general; but I perfectly knew, that if the senior and more reflecting part of the officers of the army signed an address that pledged them to an active discharge of their duty to Government, all danger of the remainder having recourse to desperate extremes, was at an end; for the influence of the senior part of the army over the native troops was decided; and this open declaration would at once have drawn a line of separation betwixt the moderate and reasonable, and the turbulent, which would have deprived the leaders of the latter of their chief source of strength, which obviously lay in their being able to deceive the multitude they guided, by persuading them that the cause was general[40], and that many, whom prudence made reserved, would join them the moment they ventured on a bolder line of action.