treasury, where a very slight inspection was sufficient to show the injustice, extravagance and fraud by which they had been prepared.

The general relied on his military character rather than on the accuracy of his vouchers. He could not indeed, like Brennus, throw his sword into the scale, but he was desirous that his professional reputation should give equal efficacy to his wishes. The chairman of the board of treasury was acquainted with no arithmetic, which permitted fraud or extortion to state an account current in their favour, and the general's demands were no sooner examined than rejected.

Angry and impetuous, he immediately made his appeal, not in a very parliamentary way, to congress, and in no measured terms attributed his disappointment to the improper interference and the unjustifiable influence of the chairman.

The reply of Mr. Gerry to this abuse, as impolitic as it was gratuitous, calmly and dispassionately stated the reasons of his decision, but having disposed of the matter in controversy, he turned with fierceness on his aggressor, whom he did not fail to chastise as well for the extravagance of his accounts, as for the folly of the attack, under cover of which he had expected to carry them.

"If," said he, "the faithful discharge of official duty, unpleasant enough in itself, is to bring with it the liability of personal attack from men who have neither honesty in their public dealings nor

courtesy in private life, it might be well to abolish all guards upon the treasury, and admit rapacity and crime to help themselves at pleasure."

The further progress of this dispute was arrested by the interference of friends who had influence with the parties. The accounts of general Arnold were reduced within a reasonable amount. Congress omitted those expressions of its displeasure, which a regard for its own authority, violated by disrespect to one of its members, would ordinarily have required; and the general, obliged unwillingly to put up with the severe remarks, which his conduct had elicited without gratifying his revenge, left Philadelphia for that station, which will perpetuate his infamy to all future time.

The commencement of this year relieved Mr. Gerry from that part of his duty in congress, which had for so long time placed him at the head of the treasury. A new arrangement was adopted, which established distinct boards of admiralty, war and treasury, on each of which were two members of congress and three persons selected at large; and on this organization being made, Mr. Gerry, preferring his duties within the hall of congress to the confinement, which this department required, declined to retain his former situation.

CHAPTER XXII.

Remonstrates against a Decision of Congress.........Leaves Congress and prefers a Complaint to the General Court of Massachusetts........Resolve of the General Court........Remonstrance........ The Decision of Congress considered........Pay of a Member of Congress.........State of the Currency.........Letter from John Adams........Mode of Living at Congress..........American Mail captured........Mr. Lovell's Letter to Mr. Gerry published by the Enemy........Correspondence with General Washington.

CIRCUMSTANCES now occurred, which terminated for a time Mr. Gerry's services in the congress of the United States, and induced him to appear in person with an appeal from their proceedings, to his immediate constituents.

These circumstances, so singular in themselves, and so inconsistent with the present better established notions of parliamentary practice, we proceed to relate.

On February 19, 1780, congress had under consideration the report of a committee for estimating the supplies to be furnished by the several states for the current year, and the prices at which the several articles should be credited to the states which procured them.

This subject was fruitful in vexation as often as it occurred. Its adjustment determined the contingent required of a state. It was in the nature

of a levy or tax. It was to be assessed if justice was consulted on principles of equality, and that equality was to be deduced not merely from the wealth and population of the several states, but also by a reference to their former contributions, so that anterior inequalities of apportionment might be promptly adjusted. With no statistical tables every thing depended on the opinions of members, formed loosely indeed, with insufficient materials, but influenced, whether they believed it or not, by a common wish of each to shift the unwelcome burthen from himself to his neighbour.

Massachusetts had by some means become jealous of an attempt on the part of the other members of the confederacy to load her with an unreasonable weight, and had frequently complained of being treated like a willing horse whom its drivers were compelling to a fatal exertion. On this occasion the delegates from Massachusetts determined to oppose the assessment; and when the clause relative to the prices to be allowed was under consideration, Mr. Gerry moved a recommitment for the purpose of conforming the prices to those agreed upon by a convention of states from New-Hampshire to Pennsylvania inclusive, held at New-Haven in January 1778.

This motion was objected to as being out of order; an appeal was made to the house who sustained the objection, and the ayes and noes being

required by Mr. Gerry, the house refused to record them.

This refusal gave great offence to Mr. Gerry, not, as he said, as an individual or in his private capacity, but in his public character as a delegate from a sovereign state, and as affecting in his person the rights of that state.

Unable to obtain a record of votes on the question proposed by him, Mr. Gerry the next day addressed a note to the president, in which he very formally set forth his rights, and insisted" that the sense of the house be now taken by yeas and nays, whether the motion he made yesterday was in order."

Congress, on the receiving of this letter, "Voted, that any member thinking his privilege infringed by any thing said or done in the house, ought of right to be heard in his place."*

On the discussion of this resolve, it was moved to amend it by adding, "and not otherwise;" but the amendment on a division of the house was rejected.

This rejection left it obvious, that a hearing of the aggrieved member in his place was not the only mode permitted; and the resolve was, therefore, no answer to the demand made by Mr. Gerry in his letter of 21st February.

Having waited a month without hearing that

* Journals of Congress, February 22, 1780.