e course of a few months a total stop is put to the
currency of it; and yet an assembly, a concert, a dinner, a supper, that
will cost three or four hundred pounds, will not only take men from
acting in this business, but from thinking of it; while a great part of
the officers of our army, from absolute necessity, are quitting the
service. * * I have no resentments, nor do I mean to point at particular
characters. This I can declare upon my honour, for I have every
attention paid me by Congress that I could possibly expect. * * But
such is the picture which from my inmost soul I believe to be true; and
I confess to you that I feel more real distress on account of the
present appearances of things, than I have done at any time since the
commencement of the dispute."[32]

Such is General Washington's own account of the character and occupation
of the Congress of the United States in the third year of the
revolutionary war, and in the second year of their alliance with
France--idleness, dissipation, extravagance, speculation, peculation,
avarice, party and personal quarrels, dancing, feasting; while the
credit was reduced almost to nothing, and the army neglected and
suffering.[33]

Such was the progress of the war; such the failure of the expeditions of
the French alliance; such the state of the revolutionary army, and of
the public credit; and such the degenerate character and proceedings of
Congress and its surroundings in the beginning of 1780--the fifth year
of the civil war.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: "They urged D'Estaing to return with his fleet into the
harbour; but his principal officers were opposed to the measure, and
protested against it. He had been instructed to go into Boston if his
fleet met with any misfortune. His officers insisted on his ceasing to
prosecute the expedition against Rhode Island, that he might conform to
the orders of their common superiors. A protest was drawn up and sent to
him, which was signed by John Sullivan, Nathaniel Greene, John Hancock,
I. Glover, Ezekiel Cornel, William Whipple, John Tyler, Solomon Lovell,
John Fitconnel. They protested against the Count's taking the fleet to
Boston, as derogatory to the honour of France, contrary to the intention
of his Christian Majesty and the interests of his nation, destructive in
the highest degree to the welfare of the United States, and highly
injurious to the alliance formed between the two nations. Had D'Estaing
prosecuted his or