It is not easy to say just how or when this cabal first showed itself. Conway was a young brigadier-general, very conceited and impudent. Mifflin had been Quartermaster-general, but had resigned. He had been early in the service and was in Cambridge with Washington, but had long been secretly hostile to him. Gates, who had been Washington's companion in Virginia, was an ambitious man who never lost an opportunity of looking after his own interest, and had been especially fortunate in being appointed to the command of the northern army just as it achieved the famous victory over Burgoyne. The defeat at Brandywine, the failure to make Germantown a great success, and the occupation of Philadelphia by the British troops, while the American army was suffering at Valley Forge--all this seemed to many a sorry story compared with the brilliant victory at Saratoga. There had always been those who thought Washington slow and cautious. John Adams was one of these, and he expressed himself as heartily glad "that the glory of turning the tide of arms was not immediately due to the commander-in-chief." Others shook their heads and said that the people of America had been guilty of idolatry by making a man their god; and that, besides, the army would become dangerous to the liberties of the people if it were allowed to be so influenced by one man. Conway was the foremost of these critics. "No man was more a gentleman than General Washington, or appeared to more advantage at his table, or in the usual intercourse of life," he would say; then he would give his shoulders a shrug, and look around and add, "but as to his talents for the command of an army, they were miserable indeed." "Gates was the general!" Conway said. "There was a man who could fight, and win victories!" Gates himself was in a mood to believe it. He had been so intoxicated by his success against Burgoyne that he thought himself the man of the day, and quite forgot to send a report of the action to his commander-in-chief. Washington rebuked him in a letter which was severe in its quiet tone. He congratulated Gates on his great success, and added, "At the same time, I can not but regret that a matter of such magnitude, and so interesting to our general operations, should have reached me by report only; or through the channel of letters not bearing that authenticity which the importance of it required, and which it would have received by a line over your signature stating the simple fact."