But we should remember that he was dealing with a Continental Congress of the latter years of the war, and if you search history for a thousand years you will not be able to find an aggregation of political castros equal to this same Continental Congress. The men who had made the primal congresses great had set themselves to serve the nation in other ways, and Congress had fallen to those who had some money without brains or brains without principle, or lacking both, were like our modern ones in that they loved " graft " and knew how to get it. Sullivan was not a liar, and he himself says that his health was failing. If we care to plow t^hrough the many diaries kept by officers under him we can well believe that he told the truth, for with the spoiling of the provisions sent to the expedition most of the

CHARACTER OF GEN. SULLIVAN. 21

soldiers did suffer from chronic intestinal troubles, and it would be strange if the commander who takes the same fare as his subordinates should not suffer in the same manner. And to back up this we must remember that even after he retired he never lost the confidence or the love of the greatest of them all, General Washington. Much has been written of General Sullivan's fallibilities, and fallibilities the greatest have. We should remember that Sullivan was a Kelt, And through the centuries the Kelts have given us the lordliest orators and golden artists, but for tenacity of purpose no one has celebrated them. General Sullivan when he was taken prisoner and fell under the influence of the British military power, and contrasting them with the meagerness that he had been accustomed to, for once his heart failed him and his soul sank within him, and it is no sorrow to his name to say that for the moment he thought the liberty of mankind in the Western continent was doomed.