Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-01-17
THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY.
How He Received the Proposition to Make Him
King.

William II. Cozzens, in abiding to the
celebration of the Tooth anniversary of
the day on which Washington surren-
dered his commission to Congress, re-
marked that his'great-grand-father Col
onel Louis Nicola. was present with
Washington. having accompanied him
from New Yorkto Annapolis and thence
TO Mount Vernon. On June %, 1875,
when Washington, who had just been
appointed commander of the American
army, set out for Cambridge with Lee
and Schuyler, they were accompanied
some distance out by old John Adams
and other members of Congress. on
horseback, also by Major Mifflin, Wash
ington's first aide-de-camp, and bv the
troop OF Light Horse, commanded by
Colonel Nicola, who escorted the dis
tingnished officers to New York CITY.
But Colonel Nicola stands out couspic-
uous in one of the closing events of the
revolution, the attempt made to make
Washington King of America.
In May, 1882, when the headquarters
OF the army were at Newburgh, the dis
content among the officers and soldiers
respecting the arrearages for pay and
future prospects, which had been in
creasing for some time, became alarm
ingly manifest. 1t was during the Pc
Rod OF general gloom that Colonel Louis
Nicola was made the medium of address,
ing letter to General Washington, the
tenor of which struck harshly on the
great mans feelings. Colonel Nicola,
after some general remarks on the de-
plorable condition of the army, and the
little hope of being properly rewarded
by Congress, came to the conclusion
that republics, of all forms of Govern
ment. are the least susceptible of stabil-
ity, and that the English Government
was nearer to perfection than any other.
He therefore winds up by asserting his
belief that King would be attended
with national advantages, and proffer-
ing to Washington the scepter of roy
atty. How amazingly the character of
Washington was Inexperienced by
this offer of bride brought forth an
immortal letter, as all the world knows,
from General Washington, in which he
promptly and severely rebuked the au-
thor and the officer.
Nicola represented Washington as
saying, 81 am at a loss to conceive
what part of my conduct could have
given encouragement to an address
which to me seems big with the great
est mischief that can befall the country"
and he conjurs the writer, if he has any
regard for his country, concern for him.
selforposterity, to Danish these thoughts
from his mind anal never communicate
them as coming from himself or anyone
else. The same circumstances of the
present hardship and gloomy prospects
that disturbed to-. army when Nicola
addressed Washington, not only con-
tiuued to exist and daily increase when
the famous anonymous letter, since
known to have been written by General
John Armstrong. who was Secretary of
War in 1872, which nearly stirred up the
maicontents of the army into sudden
mutiny, and urging the soldiers to car
ry their appeal from the justice to the
fears of the Government.
Colonel Nicola settled down at Alex
andria, in the ueighborhood of Mount
Vernon, where he died in 1908 at the
age of SO.-&. Ls'ssts Republican.