THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 73 



and his other sources of income, amounting in all to 

 about ^1000 yearly, confiscated. It was right that he 

 should be indemnified for the loss, and Congress did 

 not for a moment call in question the reasonableness 

 of his request. Nevertheless, when we remember how 

 Lee was afterward fond of prating about his rare dis- 

 interestedness and the sacrifices he had made in the 

 cause of American freedom, when we consider espe- 

 cially how he liked to bring himself into comparison 

 with Washington, to the disadvantage of the latter, we 

 cannot help feeling the strong contrast between all 

 this careful bargaining and the conduct of the high- 

 minded man who, at that same moment, in accepting 

 the chief command of the Revolutionary army, refused 

 to take a penny for his services. 



To this matter of Lee's indemnification our atten- 

 tion will again be directed. Meanwhile, having thus 

 entered the American service, the soldier of fortune 

 accompanied Washington in his journey to Cam- 

 bridge, and at every town through which they passed 

 he seemed to be quite as much an object of curiosity 

 and admiration as the commander-in-chief. Accord- 

 ing to Lee's own theory of the relationship between 

 the two, his was the controlling mind. He was the 

 trained and scientific European soldier to whose care 

 had been in a measure intrusted this raw American 

 general, who for political reasons had been placed in 

 command over him. In point of fact, Lee's military 

 experience, as we have here passed it in review, had 

 been scarcely more extensive than Washington's ; and 

 of actual responsibility he had wielded much less. 

 Such little reputation as he had in Europe was not 

 that of a soldier, but of a caustic pamphleteer. Yet if 



