to its last gasp there were speculations afoot
to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness
at different places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at
another,--to buy it in Philadelphia at two hundred and twenty-five for
one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It was possible, if
the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain; it was
very manifest that some must lose: and thus outcrops that pernicious
doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in
stripping one to clothe another.

And thus we reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of
the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington
watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was
busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was
no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them
so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened
with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here,
and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish
dollars,--how welcome must their pleasant faces have looked, after this
long, long absence! With what a thrill must the hand which had touched
nothing for years but Continental bills have closed upon solid gold and
silver! It is easy to conceive that a new spirit must soon have
manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents,--that
shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was
shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting
their losses and gains,--that every branch of commerce must have felt a
new vigor diffusing itself through its veins. But it is equally evident,
that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these
sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the
burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making
between fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to
strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the
printing-press and a few strokes of the pen.

Another circumstance told for them, too. The accession of Maryland had
fulfilled the conditions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long
held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board and intrusted
to the hands of a skilful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who
had protested energetical