ly be independent citizens or
conquered subjects."[29]

Even a year later--"The military force," says Mr. Tucker, "embarked in
the beginning of 1781, to maintain the cause of independence, is thus
stated in (Chief Justice) Marshall's Life of Washington: The Southern
troops, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, did not exceed three thousand men.
Of the Northern troops, twelve hundred had been detached to Virginia,
under La Fayette; with these they amounted only to three thousand
effective men in April. The cavalry and artillery was less than one
thousand. With some small additions, the whole reached four thousand men
in May. They were ill supplied with clothing, and were seriously
threatened with a want of provisions. The quartermaster's department was
without means of transport," (Marshall, Vol. IV., p. 446).[30]

Such was the character and such the fruits of the alliance with France
during the first two years of its existence; and such was the state of
the revolutionary army in 1780, and which seems to have been largely
owing to the incapacity and ill conduct of the Congress itself, which
had become degenerate and corrupt--equal to that of any British
Parliament, or of any Provincial Legislature, under any Royal
Governor.[31]

Abundant evidence can be adduced in proof and illustration of this
statement from the warmest partizans of Congress; but the testimony of
Washington himself is ample and indisputable. In the winter of 1778-9 he
had to concert his measures with Congress at Philadelphia, and he writes
from thence as follows to his friend Benjamin Harrison:

"If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men
from what I have seen, heard, and in part known, I should in one word
say that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast
hold of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for
riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration and of
every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the
great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a
great and accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and
want of credit, which in its consequence is the want of everything, are
but secondary considerations, and postponed from day to day, and from
week to week, as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect. * * Our
money is now sinking fifty per cent. a day in this city, and I shall not
be surprised if in th