eived it
with joy, considering it as evidence that their fellow citizens were
not entirely unmindful of their sufferings.

Although the army was thus reduced to such extreme distress, the
discontents of the people were daily multiplied by the contributions
which they were required to make, and by the irritating manner in
which those contributions were drawn from them. Every article for
public use was obtained by impressment; and the taxes were either
unpaid, or collected by coercive means. Strong remonstrances were made
against this system; and the dissatisfaction which pervaded the mass
of the community, was scarcely less dangerous than that which had
been manifested by the army.

To the judicious patriots throughout America, the necessity of giving
greater powers to the federal government became every day more
apparent; but the efforts of enlightened individuals were too feeble
to correct that fatal disposition of power which had been made by
enthusiasm uninstructed by experience.

[Sidenote: Mission of Colonel Laurens to France.]

To relieve the United States from their complicated embarrassments, a
foreign loan seemed an expedient of indispensable necessity, and from
France they hoped to obtain it. Congress selected Lieutenant Colonel
Laurens, a gentleman whose situation in the family of the
Commander-in-chief had enabled him to take a comprehensive view of the
military capacities and weaknesses of his country, for this
interesting service; and instructed him also to urge the advantage of
maintaining a naval superiority in the American seas. Before his
departure, he passed some days at headquarters, and received from
General Washington in the form of a letter, the result of his
reflections on the existing state of things.

In this paper he detailed the pecuniary embarrassments of the
government, and represented, with great earnestness, the inability of
the nation to furnish a revenue adequate to the support of the war. He
dwelt on the discontents which the system of impressment had excited
among the people, and expressed his fears that the evils felt in the
prosecution of the war, might weaken the sentiments which began it.

From this state of things, he deduced the vital importance of an
immediate and ample supply of money, which might be the foundation for
substantial arrangements of finance, for reviving public credit, and
giving vigour to future operations; as well as of a decided effort of
the allied ar