worn the King's uniform was now his deadliest enemy; and it is
probably true that after this step nothing could have restored
the old relations and reunited the British Empire. The broken
vessel could not be made whole.

Washington spent only a few days in getting ready to take over
his new command. On the 21st of June, four days after Bunker
Hill, he set out from Philadelphia. The colonies were in truth
very remote from each other. The journey to Boston was tedious.
In the previous year John Adams had traveled in the other
direction to the Congress at Philadelphia and, in his journal, he
notes, as if he were traveling in foreign lands, the strange
manners and customs of the other colonies. The journey, so
momentous to Adams, was not new to Washington. Some twenty years
earlier the young Virginian officer had traveled as far as Boston
in the service of King George II. Now he was leader in the war
against King George III. In New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut
he was received impressively. In the warm summer weather the
roads were good enough but many of the rivers were not bridged
and could be crossed only by ferries or at fords. It took nearly
a fortnight to reach Boston.

Washington had ridden only twenty miles on his long journey when
the news reached him of the fight at Bunker Hill. The question
which he asked anxiously shows what was in his mind: "Did the
militia fight?" When the answer was "Yes," he said with relief,
"The liberties of the country are safe." He reached Cambridge on
the 2d of July and on the following day was the chief figure in a
striking ceremony. In the presence of a vast crowd and of the
motley army of volunteers, which was now to be called the