een fair-copied; so that instead of going out together, the
second, owing to further mischances, did not leave till some time later.
The English generals complained almost as bitterly as the American of
the want of adequate reenforcements, and the best of them, Sir Henry
Clinton, is found writing (1779) in a strain which might be mistaken for
Washington's of his spirits being "worn out" by the difficulties of his
position.

But no mistakes in the management of the war by British statesmen can
account for their ultimate failure. However great British mismanagement
may have been, it was far surpassed by American. Until Robert Morris
took the finances in hand, the administration of them was beneath not
only contempt but conception. There was nothing on the British side
equal to that caricature of a recruiting system, in which different
bounties were offered by Congress, by the States, by the separate towns,
as to make it the interest of the intending soldier to delay enlistment
as long as possible in order to sell himself to the highest bidder; to
that caricature of a war establishment the main bulk of which broke up
every twelvemonth in front of the enemy, which was only paid, if at all,
in worthless paper, and left almost habitually without supplies.

To mention one fact only, commissions in British regiments on American
soil continued to be sold for large sums, while Washington's officers
were daily throwing up theirs, many from sheer starvation. On the whole,
no better idea can be had of the nature of the struggle on the American
side, after the first heat of it had cooled down, than from the words of
Count de Rochambeau, writing to Count de Vergennes, July 10, 1780: "They
have neither money nor credit; their means of resistance are only
momentary, and called forth when they are attacked in their own homes.
They then assemble for the moment of immediate danger and defend
themselves."

A far more important cause in determining the ultimate failure of the
British was the aid afforded by France to America, followed by that of
Spain and Holland. It was impossible for England to reconquer a
continent, and carry on war at the same time with the three most
powerful states of Europe. The instincts of race have tended on both the
English and the American sides to depreciate the value of the aid given
by France to the colonists. It may be true that Rochambeau's troops
which disembarked in Rhode Island in July, 1780, did not ma