Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/252

 record is a part of American history. He passed from membership in the Confederation Congress of 1783 to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and finally became Secretary of War, 1796–1801. Fort McHenry, imperishably connected with the “Star-Spangled Banner,” was named for him. A more typically American career can scarcely be imagined, although Dr. Church could have little foreseen the results of his appointment.

Unluckily, Church was too much of a politician for his own safety. He was one of that large class in the community who looked for an early reconciliation with the mother country, and he was anxious to stand well with both sides. But his methods were crude and the results disastrous. He had been in office scarcely a couple of months, when—betrayed (as usual) by a woman—one of his cipher letters to the British fell into the hands of Washington. The game was up. His brilliant reputation burst like an iridescent soap-bubble. The cipher was so childish that it was immediately decoded; it proved to be singularly harmless—mostly an impassioned plea for pacifying the Colonies; but the very fact that their idolized leader had written and sent it (and he