symbol of wickedness.’ It was to some extent as though Cavaliers and Roundheads had come to life again, and were jostling one another, while fighting under the same flag and for the same cause, as a prelude to once more springing at each other’s throats. At this time and place a man of the type of Lord Howe was an almost priceless asset to the cause of Imperial Unity—a cause which can never stand still, but either declines or goes forward, and goes forward only through intelligent appreciation of existing conditions and active sympathy with living men. Of high social standing in England, and acknowledged military reputation, he set himself, by precept and still more by personal example, to the work of assimilation. ‘This gallant man,’ says the Annual Register for 1758, ‘from the moment he landed in America, had wisely conformed and made his regiment conform to the kind of service which the country required. He did not suffer any under him to encumber themselves with superfluous baggage; he himself set the example and fared like a common soldier. The first to encounter danger, to endure hunger, to support fatigue; rigid in his discipline but easy in his manners, his officers and soldiers readily obeyed the commander, because they loved the man.’ Wolfe wrote of him as a man ‘whom nature has formed for the war of this country,’ and Mrs. Grant, that he was ‘above the pedantry of holding up standards of military rules, where it was impossible to enforce them, and the narrow spirit of preferring the modes of his own country to those proved by experience to suit that in which he was to act.’ She christens him ‘This young Lycurgus of the camp.’ Under Howe everything was literally cut down to meet the exigencies of American warfare. Gold and scarlet was laid aside: baggage was reduced to a minimum: the muskets were shortened: their barrels were darkened: the skirts of the long regimental coats were cut off: Indian leggings were brought into use. Wolfe writes in May 1758, ‘Our clothes, our arms, our accoutrements, nay even our shoes and stockings are all improper for this country. Lord Howe is so well convinced of it that he has taken away all the men’s breeches.’ A French writer tells us that the officers and men were only allowed one shirt apiece. ‘Lord H. set the example, by himself washing his own dirty shirt, and drying it in the sun, while he in the meantime wore nothing but his coat.’ And here is the unkindest cut of all—in Mrs. Grant’s words: ‘The greatest privation to the young and vain yet remained. Hair well dressed, and in great quantity, was then considered as the greatest possible ornament, which those who had it took the utmost care to display to advantage, and to wear in a bag or queue, whichever they fancied. Lord Howe’s was fine and very abundant; he, however, cropped it and ordered every one else to do the same.’