SUFFERINGS OF THE PEOPLE.

219

been sent to St. Augustine, and others are to follow. The enemy have hanged many people, who, from fear, or the impracticability of removing, had received protections or given paroles and from attachment to, had afterwards taken part with us. They have burnt a great number of houses, and turned many women, formerly of good fortune, with their children (whom their husbands or parents, from an unwillingness to join the enemy, had left) almost naked into the woods. Their cruelty and the distresses of the people are indeed beyond description. I entreat your Excellency, therefore, seriously to consider the unhappy state of South Carolina and Georgia; and I rely on your humanity and your knowledge of their importance to the Union, for such speedy and effectual support, as may compel the enemy to evac uate every part of these countries.” 1

1 Correspondence of the Revolution, iii. 188.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hostile Embarkations to the South.

Arnold in Command. - Necessitous State of the Country. — Washington urges a Foreign Loan. - Mission of Colonel Laurens to France to seek Aid in Men and Money. - Grievances of the Pennsylvania Line. Mutiny. - Negotiations with the Mutineers. - Articles of Accommodation.

- Policy doubted by Washington. Rigorous Course adopted by him with other Malcontents. Successful. Ratification of the Articles of Confederation of the States.

HE occurrences recorded in the last few chapters made Washington apprehend a design on the part of the enemy to carry the stress of war into the Southern States. Conscious that he was the man to whom all looked in time of emergency, and who was, in a manner, responsible for the general course of military affairs, he deeply felt the actual impotency of his position.

66

In a letter to Franklin, who was ministerplenipotentiary at the court of Versailles, he strongly expresses his chagrin. Disappointed of the second division of French troops, but more especially in the expected naval superiority, which was the pivot upon which everything turned, we have been compelled to spend an inactive campaign, after a flattering prospect at the opening of it, and vigorous struggles to make it a decisive one

HOSTILE EMBARKATIONS SOUTH. 221

on our part. Latterly, we have been obliged to become spectators of a succession of detachments from the army at New York in aid of Lord Cornwallis, while our naval weakness, and the political dissolution of a great part of our army, put it out of our power to counteract them at the southward or to take advantage of them here."

The last of these detachments to the South took place on the 20th of December, but was not destined, as Washington had supposed, for Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton had received information that the troops already mentioned as being under Gen eral Leslie in the Chespeake, had, by orders from Cornwallis, sailed for Charleston, to reinforce his lordship; and this detachment was to take their place in Virginia. It was composed of British, German, and refugee troops, about seventeen hundred strong, and was commanded by Benedict Arnold, now a brigadier-general in His Majesty's service. Sir Henry Clinton, who distrusted the fidelity of the man he had corrupted, sent with him colonels Dundas and Simcoe, experienced officers, by whose advice he was to be guided in every important measure. He was to make an incursion into Virginia, destroy the public magazines, assemble and arm the loyalists, and hold himself ready to coöperate with Lord Cornwallis. He embarked his troops in a fleet of small vessels, and departed on his enterprise animated by the rancorous spirit of a renegade, and prepared, as ho vaunted, to give the Americans a blow "that would make the whole continent shake." shall speak of his expedition hereafter.

We

As Washington beheld one hostile armament after another winging its way to the South, and received applications from that quarter for assistance, which he had not the means to furnish, it became painfully apparent to him, that the efforts to carry on the war had exceeded the natural capabilities of the country. Its widely diffused population and the composition and temper of some of its people, rendered it difficult to draw together its resources. Commerce was almost extinct; there was not sufficient natural wealth on which to found a revenue; paper currency had depreciated through want of funds for its redemption, until it was nearly worthless. The mode of supplying the army by assessing a proportion of the productions of the earth, had proved ineffectual, oppressive, and productive of an alarming opposition. Domestic loans yielded but trifling assistance. The patience of the army was nearly exhausted; the people were dissatisfied with the mode of supporting the war, and there was reason to apprehend, that, under the pressure of impositions of a new and odious kind, they might imagine they had only exchanged one kind of tyranny for another.

We give but a few of many considerations which Washington was continually urging upon the attention of Congress in his full and perspicuous manner; the end of which was to enforce his opinion that a foreign loan was indispensably necessary to a continuance of the war.

His earnest counsels and entreaties were at length successful in determining Congress to seek

MISSION OF COLONEL LAURENS.

223

Ac

aid both in men and money from abroad. cordingly, on the 28th of December they commissioned Lieutenant-colonel John Laurens, special minister at the court of Versailles, to apply for such aid. The situation he had held, as aide-decamp to the commander-in-chief, had given him an opportunity of observing the course of affairs, and acquainting himself with the wants and resources of the country; and he was instructed to confer with Washington, previous to his departure, as to the objects of his mission. Not content with impressing him verbally with his policy, Washington gave him a letter of instructions for his government, and to be used as occasion might require. In this he advised him to solicit a loan sufficiently large to be a foundation for substantial arrangements of finance, to revive public credit, and give vigor to future operations; rxt to a loan of money, a naval force was to be desired, sufficient to maintain a constant superiority on the American coast; also additional succor in troops. In a word, a means of coöperation by sea and land, with purse and sword, competent by a decided effort to attain, once for all, the great objects of the alliance, the liberty and independence of the United States.

He was to show, at the same time, the ample means possessed by the nation to repay the loan, from its comparative freedom from debt, and its vast and valuable tracts of unsettled lands, the variety and fertility of its climates and soils, and its advantages of every kind for a lucrative commerce, and rapid increase of population and prosperity.