transportation were closed, and a failure of provisions brought great distress upon the troops. Once more it became imperative to levy supplies on the inhabitants; but in procuring these contributions the aid of the civil magistrates was sought, and the owner of the commodities taken was allowed to fix the price by a fair valuation, or to receive the market-price when the certificates were paid. The people showed so much good-will in the matter that it was not found necessary to proceed to violent measures. This was the more remarkable, and the more praiseworthy, as the rapid and unexampled depreciation of the Continental paper-money made the offers of purchase little more than illusory. After awhile, indeed, each State was required to furnish a certain quantity of beef, pork, flour, corn, forage, &c., to the Federal army. The States were

to be credited for the amount at a fixed valuation in specie; and it was hoped that the arrangement would avoid the difficulties attaching to payment in notes. But the system was found impracticable, owing to the want of central authority, the distance of several of the States from the army, and the difficulties of conveyance; and after a trial it was abandoned. The embarrassments of a non-metallic currency, however, continued, and laws were enacted for making paper-money a legal tender, at its nominal value, in the discharge of debts contracted on the understanding that they were to be paid in gold or silver. Many debtors took advantage of these laws; but it was regarded by the more scrupulous as a dishonourable evasion. Washington, in particular, felt very strongly on the subject.*

This great financial trouble engaged much of the attention of Congress in the autumn of 1779. On the 1st of September it was resolved that the Legislature would on no account exceed two hundred millions of dollars in Continental bills of credit; and in November the whole of that large sum was both issued and expended. On the 13th of September, the members addressed to their constituents a long letter on the financial state of the country. From this it appeared that the taxes had brought in very little to the treasury, and that the issues of had thus been rendered necessary. paper-money It was argued, however, that at the close of the war the United States would easily be able to pay the whole of their national debt in twenty years—a sanguine anticipation which was very far from realised; and paper-money was even represented as a blessing, being the only kind of money which could not "make unto itself wings, and fly away," -which remained with them, would not forsake

* Sparks's Life of Washington, chap. 12.

them, and was always at hand for the purposes of commerce and taxation. The question was asked, whether there was any reason to apprehend a wanton violation of the public faith. "It is with great regret and reluctance," said the writers of the letter, answering this query, "that we can prevail upon ourselves to take the least notice of a question which involves in it a doubt so injurious to the honour and dignity of America. We should pay an ill compliment to the understanding and honour of every true American, were we to adduce many arguments to show the baseness or bad policy of violating our national faith, or omitting to pursue the measures necessary to preserve it. A bankrupt, faithless Republic would be a novelty in the political world. We are convinced that the efforts and arts of our enemies will not be wanting to draw us into this humiliating and contemptible situation. Impelled by malice, and the suggestions of chagrin and disappointment at not being able to bend our necks to their yoke, they will endeavour to force or seduce us to commit this unpardonable sin, in order to subject us to the punishment due to it, and that we may thenceforth be a reproach and a by-word among the nations. Apprised of these consequences, knowing the value of national charac ter, and impressed with a due sense of the immutable laws of justice and honour, it is impossible that America should think without horror of such an execrable deed. Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent; or that her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith, in the very hour when all the nations of the earth were admiring, and almost adoring, the splendour of her rising."

These confident assurances have a strange aspect when contemplated by the light of subsequent facts. In less than two years, the States were compelled to declare themselves insolvent, and the paper currency was never redeemed. There were those who, long before it came to this, looked with great distrust on such vast emissions of notes; but the Government had really no choice in the matter, owing to the prevalence among the people of what a modern English statesman has called an ignorant impatiense of taxation. Each State was left to furnish its own quota of taxes, and frugality was the rule, because it was known that the people did not like par ing with their money, even in support of national independence. The issue of notes was a ready re source for meeting the expenses of the war, and at first it answered very well, for the credit of the

1779.]

country was as yet unimpaired, and the number of notes originally put forth was not large. But when the experiment was repeated again and again, the natural consequences ensued. People doubted the ability of the Federal Government to redeem such a sum as two hundred millions of dollars. The paper got a bad name. Forty dollars in notes came to be worth only one in specie. In some cases, the note sank to less than one-hundredth of its nominal value. At the latter end of 1779, in the State of Maryland, an English officer paid an innkeeper's bill, amounting in paper-money to £732 and some odd shillings, with four guineas and a half in gold. The mischief was augmented by a still further issue of notes on the part of the several States individually. Prices rose, as in the case of the innkeeper's bill, to a preposterous degree, in order to cover the loss entailed by the depreciation of the paper. Even in 1778, when the evil had not reached its highest, Washington told his friend, Gouverneur Morris, that a bad horse was not to be bought for less than £200, nor a saddle for under £30 or £40; that boots cost £20; that flour was selling at different places from £5 to £15 per hundredweight, hay from £10 to £30, and beef and other essentials in the like proportions. In April, 1779, according to the same authority, a waggon-load of money would scarcely purchase a waggon-load of provisions. The more far-seeing politicians were alarmed; and at the very time when the members of Congress were proclaiming that a bankrupt Republic would be an anomaly, the citizens of Philadelphia were holding a meeting to protest against any further emissions of Continental paper, and to express an apprehension that the ease with which money was thus procured had produced a remissness of inquiries as to the reality of its application. It would appear, according to Jefferson, that the actual value received by Congress for the nominal two hundred millions was not more than about thirty-six millions of silver dollars. The issues, in fact, did not come into circulation, after the early days of the war, at their nominal value, but at the rate at which the currency stood in the market. Yet that these notes answered their purpose for awhile, cannot be denied; and a writer of the time has recorded that the circulation of the paper was never more brisk than when its exchange was five hundred to one.*

Now that Spain had entered into the war with England, her scruples about recognising the in

* Gordon's History of the Independence of the United States; Earl Stanhope's History of England; Sparks's Life of Washington; North American Review, July, 1852.

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dependence of the United States were overcome. She had but recently declared that the cause of the King of England as against his rebel subjects was the cause of all Kings; and, with so large a colonial empire as her own in America, it is obvious that she had every interest in discouraging the attempt of a dependency to shake off the control of the parent State. But she had also many old grounds of quarrel with England, and she was at length dragged, by her own resentments and by the solicitations of France, into a position of hostility which may have helped in some slight degree to secure the final success of the Anglo-Americans, but which, if so, was followed, several years after, by a tremendous Nemesis, in the shape of a universal revolt of those colonies which Spain then held upon the Western Continent, but which she holds no longer. The recognition of the independence of the English possessions followed on the belligerent state. Don Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, collected the whole force of his province at New Orleans immediately on hearing of the declaration of war, and on the 19th of August, 1779, publicly recognised the separate existence of the States by beat of drum. He then marched against the British settlements on the Mississippi, which he speedily reduced. Only a small force had been stationed there, and it was found impossible to resist for many days. But the triumph was a very small one, and did not produce any remarkable effects.

The desirability of bringing the war to a termination was at this time more strongly felt in America than in England. The exhaustion of the States was alarmingly visible in many ways; the alternation of victory and defeat was wearisome and disheartening; it was a moot point on which side the balance of advantages lay; and it was still more doubtful whether the future would not bring with it a striking reversal of some of the successes which had been gained. Congress, apparently moved by these considerations, resolved on the 14th of August to appoint a Commissioner to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain, and to send certain instructions to that agent, and also to their Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of France. They specially enjoined on the former that he was to insist on a recognition of the United States as sovereign, free, and independent, before entering into any negotiation; and that he was not to assent to any treaty or treaties unless that independence was thereby secured and confirmed. Although the cession of the provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia was spoken of in these instructions as "of the utmost importance to the peace and commerce of

the United States," and although it was held to be more particularly advisable that the equal common right of the States to the fisheries should be guaranteed them, the desire of terminating the war induced Congress not to make the acquisition of those objects an ultimatum on that occasion. Their Commissioner was empowered to agree to a cessation of hostilities during any negotiation that might ensue, provided France should assent to such a step, and provided likewise that all the forces of the enemy should be immediately withdrawn from the United States.

The instructions to Dr. Franklin, the Minister at Paris, were in one respect in signal contradiction of those to the Commissioner who was to negotiate with the British Government. The latter was instructed to waive the question of the fisheries, for the sake of obtaining the much-desired treaty of peace. The former was told that the common right of fishing was in no case to be given up, and that if, after a treaty of peace with Great Britain, she should molest the citizens of the United States in this respect, such molestation would be regarded as a breach of the peace, and would be made a common cause by the said States. Franklin was furthermore instructed to request of the French Government a series of explanatory articles, in addition to those of the Treaty of Alliance, binding France, in case of Great Britain acting in the manner supposed, to join with the United States, and aid them with her good offices, her councils, and her forces. It is difficult to see how Congress can be acquitted of a charge of bad faith in this matter. If Governments are to consider nothing but the advancement of their own interests, irrespective of the means by which that result is brought about, the method here adopted may be quite beyond impeachment; but if morals have anything to do with politics-and a new State founded on abstract right is particularly interested in maintaining the affirmative of that proposition-the wisdom as much as the justice of such dealings may be fairly questioned.

The nomination of a proper person to manage the proposed treaty of peace had next to be considered. John Adams and John Jay were proposed on the 25th of September, and a few days afterwards the former was elected. Jay was appointed to negotiate a treaty of alliance, and of amity and commerce, with the Court of Madrid. To conciliate that Government, it was determined that, if the King of Spain should give warlike assistance to the United States, he should not be precluded from securing to himself the Floridas: indeed, the United States were prepared to guarantee the Floridas to Spain, if they should be obtained by conquest, pro

vided the former Power should be allowed the free navigation of the Mississippi into and from the sea. "The distressed state of our finances, and the great depreciation of our paper-money," said the instructions to Jay, "incline Congress to hope that his Catholic Majesty, if he shall conclude a treaty with the States, will be induced to lend them money." The Minister was therefore first to endeavour to obtain from the Spanish Government a subsidy in consideration of the proposed guarantee of the Floridas; and then to solicit a loan of five millions of dollars on the best terms obtainable. With these instructions, Jay sailed for Europe before the end of October, and was succeeded in the Presi dential chair by Samuel Huntington. On the 21st of October, Henry Laurens was elected to negotiate a loan in Holland; and on the 1st of November he was chosen to solicit a treaty of amity and commerce with that country. About the same time, M. Gérard, the French Minister at Philadelphia, was succeeded by the Chevalier de la Luzerne.

Sir Henry Clinton was resolved not to let the winter season be entirely one of rest. In the North, the extreme cold prevented active operations; but the same period of the year was peculiarly favourable to a campaign in the South, where the heat of summer was very distressing to English troops. The Commander-in-Chief desired to gain possession of Charleston, which would give him a hold over all that part of the Union. He sailed from New York on the 26th of December, but did not reach Savannah, which was to be his base of operations, until the end of January, 1780, owing to the stormy weather which prevailed, and the interruption of the American cruisers, which managed to capture some of the transports and victuallers. In this tempestuous voyage, most of the cavalry and draught horses perished, and the armament was in an unfit condition to take the field on its arrival at Savannah. Fortunately for the enterprise, the Americans themselves were not in a state to profit by this fact. Lincoln had but a small and ill-regulated force at his disposal, and, to increase its weakness, the several divisions were scattered in various places. Congress thought so gravely of the position of affairs in the South that it recommended the slaveholders to adopt the dangerous course of arming their negroes; but the plan could not be carried out, for want of weapons, and it is very probable that people on the spot were not sorry for the Yet the House of Assembly determined, disadvantageously as they were circumstanced, to defend Charleston to the utmost. They had the aid of four American frigates, two French ships of

excuse.

General