d, and so irregularly put in execution, that the
terms of service of different portions of the army expired almost
every month in the year; and raw troops, ignorant of the first
rudiments of military duty, were introduced in the most critical
moments of a campaign. Had timely and correspondent measures been
taken by the states to raise their respective quotas by a specified
time in the depth of winter, the recruits would have received the
advantage of a few months training before they were brought into
actual service, and the General, that of a certain uninterrupted force
for each campaign. This course of proceeding had been continually
recommended, and the recommendation had been as continually neglected.

[Sidenote: Letter from General Washington to Congress.]

"In the more early stages of the contest," said the Commander-in-chief
to congress, in a letter of the 8th of November, "when men might have
been enlisted for the war, no man, as my whole conduct, and the
uniform tenor of my letters will evince, was ever more opposed to
short enlistments than I was; and while there remained a prospect of
obtaining recruits on a permanent footing in the first instance, as
far as duty and a regard to my station would permit, I urged my
sentiments in favour of it. But the prospect of keeping up an army by
voluntary enlistments being changed, or at least standing on too
precarious and uncertain a footing to depend on for the exigency of
our affairs, I took the liberty in February, 1778, in a particular
manner, to lay before the committee of arrangement then with the army
at Valley Forge, a plan for an annual draught, as the surest and most
certain, if not the only means left us, of maintaining the army on a
proper and respectable ground. And, more and more confirmed in the
propriety of this opinion by the intervention of a variety of
circumstances, unnecessary to detail, I again took the freedom of
urging the plan to the committee of conference in January last; and,
having reviewed it in every point of light, and found it right, at
least the best that has occurred to me, I hope I shall be excused by
congress in offering it to them, and in time for carrying into
execution for the next year; if they should conceive it necessary for
the states to complete their quotas of troops.

"The plan I would propose is, that each state be informed by congress
annually of the _real deficiency_ of its troops, and called upon to
make it up, or s