The choice was doubly wise. To the Adamses it had been plain that, though Hancock was desirous of the post, it should not be given to a New Englander. The New England army would be knit together, and its provincial jealousies appeased, by the appointment of a general from another section. Further, in all the continent there was not another man of Washington's experience, ability, and steadfastness. Washington was then in the prime of life, forty-three years of age, and of such physique as was needed for the bearer of the greatest burden that had ever been put upon an American. He was tall, finely built, majestic in carriage and impressive of feature, and accustomed from his youth to exposure, hardship, and constant exertion. He had long been used to depending upon himself, and had acquired an independent judgment that was almost unerring. Further, that judgment had been exercised on military matters. While Hancock had been at best the captain of a militia company in time of peace, Washington had from his nineteenth year been commissioned with higher commands, and had seen much active service. More than one campaign owed its success against the Indians largely to him, and it was he and his Virginians who saved the remnant at Braddock's defeat. He had a strong temper under almost perfect control, patience and persistence in equal amounts, and, with a wonderful reserve, the quality of winning the confidence of all honest men. Besides all this, he was heart and soul in the cause. While others had discussed and hesitated, he had long ago made up his mind, not only that the quarrel with the king would come to violence, but that all Americans should resist to the utmost. "Shall we," he asked in a letter to a friend, after enumerating Gage's despotic acts, "shall we after this whine and cry for relief, when we have already tried it in vain? Or shall we supinely sit and see one province after another fall a sacrifice to despotism?" In a letter to a British officer at Boston, he says, "Permit me with the freedom of a friend (for you know I always esteemed you), to express my sorrow that fortune should place you in a service that must fix curses to the latest posterity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which, by the by, is impossible) accompanies it, execrations upon all those who have been instrumental in the execution.... Give me leave to add as my opinion that more blood will be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity, than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America, and such a vital wound will be given to the peace of this great country, as time itself cannot cure or eradicate the remembrance of." Few in those days had such certainty of the result of an outbreak, and few were so ready to participate in one. In the Virginia convention he said, "I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march them to the relief of Boston." No wonder