mix no more in political or public worries; but he soon found that he
had deceived himself. The army, until it officially disbanded at the
end of 1783, caused him constant anxiety interspersed with fits of
indignation over the indifference and inertia of the Congress, which
showed no intention of being just to the soldiers. The reason for its
attitude seems hard to state positively. May it be that the Congress,
jealous since the war began of being ruled by the man on horseback,
feared at its close to grant Washington's demands for it lest they
should bring about the very thing they had feared and avoided--the
creation of a military dictatorship under Washington? When Vergennes
proposed to entrust to Washington a new subsidy from France, the
Congress had taken umbrage and regarded such a proposal as an insult
to the American Government. Should they admit that the Government
itself was not sufficiently sound and trustworthy, and that,
therefore, a private individual, even though he had been a leader of
the Revolution, must be called into service?

From among persons pestered by this obsession, it was not surprising
that the idea should spring up that Washington was at heart a believer
in monarchy and that he might, when the opportunity favored, allow
himself to be proclaimed king. Several years later he wrote to his
trusted friend, John Jay:

I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical
form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds
speaking; thence to acting is often but a single step. But how
irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to
verify their predictions! What a triumph for the advocates of
despotism to find, that we are incapable of governing ourselves,
and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely