When Gen. Kniphausen engaged the American army at Springfield Mr. Gerry took his station by the side of Washington who invested him with a volunteer command during his stay. The second year after his retirement he again took his seat in Congress. The business of the nation was then more perplexing than in the heat of the war. An empty treasury, a prostrate credit, an enormous debt presented a fearful aspect. To aid in bringing order out of chaos he was of great service. Committee labors were piled upon his shoulders as if he was an Atlas to carry the world or an Atalanta in the celerity of business. The local feelings and interests of the states had become effervescent. The half pay for life guaranteed to all officers who remained in the army during the war was satisfactory to but a few. This was settled by compounding the annuity for five years full pay. In 1784 he was on the important Committee of Foreign Relations--on the one to revise the Treasury Department. The same session he presented a resolution for the compensation of Baron Steuben who had rendered immense services by introducing a system of military tactics and discipline into the American army by which it was governed and which was strictly adhered to long after the Revolution. It was warmly supported by Mr. Jefferson and others but was lost, charity would suggest, in consequence of the embarrassed state of the finances. In 1785 Mr. Gerry closed his services in Congress and retired to Cambridge near Boston, with all the honors of a pure patriot crowned with the sincere gratitude of a nation of freemen. Time soon developed to the sages of the Revolution that the Articles of Confederation that bound the colonies together when impending dangers and one common interest created a natural cement--were not sufficient to secure the liberty they had achieved. Local interests engendered jealousies, these produced dissatisfaction and this threatened to involve the government in anarchy. To remedy these evils Mr. Madison made a proposition that each state send delegates to a convention which convened in May 1781 at Philadelphia and framed the Federal Constitution in which Mr. Gerry took a very active part. He was amongst those who did not sanction or sign that instrument. For this act, dictated by his conscience, he was liberally abused by out door cynical partisans--not by the noble minded statesmen who differed with him in opinion--all honest in their views and patriotic in their motives. They soared above the acrimonious scurrility of venal party spirit. After the constitution was adopted no one adhered to it more strictly than Mr. Gerry--always holding sacred the great republican principle--_the majority must rule and be obeyed_. He was a member of the first Congress under it and did much toward raising the beautiful superstructure now towering sublimely upon its broad basis. He served four years and again sought retirement. This was transient.