I must tax you, sometimes, for advice.

We must have your name, if you will in any case permit us to use it.

There will be more efficacy in it than in many an army." A letter from the secretary of war, written four days afterwards, concludes with asking, "May we flatter ourselves that, in a crisis so awful and important, you will accept the command of all our armies?
I hope you will, because you alone can unite all hearts and all hands, if it is possible that they can be united." These letters reached General Washington on the same day.

The following extract from his reply to the President will exhibit the course of his reflections relative to his appearance once more at the head of the American armies.
"At the epoch of my retirement, an invasion of these states by any European power, or even the probability of such an event in my days, was so far from being contemplated by me, that I had no conception either that or any other occurrence would arise in so short a period which could turn my eyes from the shades of Mount Vernon.

But this seems to be the age of wonders.