he country, and earnestly exhorted them
to a continuance of those sacrifices and exertions which he still
deemed essential to the happy termination of the war. The dissensions
in congress; the removal of individuals of the highest influence and
character from the councils of the nation to offices in the respective
states; the depreciation of the currency; the destructive spirit of
speculation which the imaginary gain produced by this depreciation had
diffused throughout the Union; a general laxity of principles; and an
unwillingness to encounter personal inconvenience for the attainment
of the great object, in pursuit of which so much blood and treasure
had been expended; were the rocks on which, he apprehended, the state
vessel might yet split, and to which he endeavoured, incessantly, to
point the attention of those whose weight of political character
enable them to guide the helm.

[Sidenote: Letters from General Washington on the state of public
affairs.]

"I am particularly desirous of a free communication of sentiments with
you at this time," says the General in a letter written to a gentleman
of splendid political talents, "because I view things very
differently, I fear, from what people in general do, who seem to think
the contest at an end, and that to make money, and get places, are the
only things now remaining to be done. I have seen without despondency,
even for a moment, the hours which America has styled her gloomy ones;
but I have beheld no day since the commencement of hostilities, when I
have thought her liberties in such imminent danger as at present.
Friends and foes seem now to combine to pull down the goodly fabric we
have hitherto been raising at the expense of so much time, blood, and
treasure."

After censuring with some freedom the prevailing opinions of the day,
he added, "To me it appears no unjust simile to compare the affairs
of this great continent to the mechanism of a clock, each state
representing some one or other of the smaller parts of it, which they
are endeavouring to put in fine order, without considering how useless
and unavailing their labour is, unless the great wheel, or spring,
which is to set the whole in motion, is also well attended to, and
kept in good order. I allude to no particular state, nor do I mean to
cast reflections upon any one of them, nor ought I, it may be said, to
do so on their representatives; but, as it is a fact too notorious to
be concealed, that co