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HistRevolV2_383-400.indd 3 3/16/12 11:57 AM C H A P T E R X V I I Distressed Situation of the Army and the Country, from vanous Causes • General Gates sent to the Southward-Surprised and defeated at Camden by Lord Cornwallis-Superseded • General Greene appointed to the Command in the Carolinas • Major Ferguson's Defeat • Sir Henry Clinton makes a Diversion in the Chesapeake, in favor of Lord Cornwallis • General Arnold sent there • His Defection and Character • Detection, Trial, and Death of Major Andre • Disposition of the Dutch Republic with regard to America • Governor Trumbull's Character, and Correspondence with the Baron Van der Capellen • Mr. Laurens appointed to negociate with the Dutch Republic [227] The year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, was a year CHAP. xvn of incident, expectation, and event; a period pregnant with future 1 7 s o consequences, interesting in the highest degree to the political happiness of the nations, and perhaps ultimately to the civil institutions of a great part of mankind. We left England in the preceding chapter, in a very perturbed state, arising both from their own internal dissensions, and the dread of foreign combinations, relative to their own island and its former dependencies. At the same time, neither the pen of the historian, or the imagination of the poet, can fully [228] describe the embarrassments suffered by congress, by the commander in chief, and by men of firmness and principle in the several legislative bodies, through this and the beginning of the next year. The scarcity of specie, the rapid depreciation of paper, which at once sunk the property and corrupted the morals of the people; which destroyed all confidence in public bodies, reduced the old army to the extremes of misery, and seemed to preclude all possibility of raising a new one, sufficient for all the departments; were evils, which neither the wisdom or vigilance of congress could remedy. 385 HistRevolV2_383-400.indd 4 3/16/12 11:57 AM 386 W A R R F N ' S H I S T 0 R Y 0 F T II E R E V 0 L U T I 0 :--1 CHAP. xvn At such a crisis, more penetration and firmness, more judgment, 1 7 so impartiality, and moderation, were requisite in the commander in chief of the American armies, than usually fall within the compass of the genius or ability of man. In the neighbourhood of a potent army, general Washington had to guard with a very inadequate force, not only against the arms of his enemies, but the machinations of British emissaries, continually attempting to corrupt the fidelity both of his officers and his troops. Perhaps no one but himself can describe the complicated sources of anxiety, that at this period pervaded the breast of the first military officer, whose honor, whose life, whose country, hung suspended, not on a single point only, but [229] on many events that quivered in the winds of fortune, chance, or the more uncertain determinations of men. Happy is it to reflect, that these are all under the destination of an unerring hand, that works in secret, ultimately to complete the beneficent designs of Providence. Some extracts from his own pen, very naturally express the agitations of the mind of general Washington, in the preceding as well as the present year. In one of his letters to a friend* he observed, Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will-or-what may be the issue of the contest. Speculation-peculation-engrossing-forestalling-with all their concomitants , afford too many melancholy proofs of the decay of public virtue; and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would wish to be thought friends, to continue the war. [230] Nothing, I am convinced, but the depreciation of our currency, proceeding in a great measure from the foregoing causes, aided by stockjobbing and party dissensions, has fed the hopes of the enemy, and kept the arms of Britain in America until now. They do not scruple to declare this themselves; and add, that we shall be our own conquerors. Cannot our common country (America) possess virtue enough to disappoint them? With you, sir, I...

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