nion was accompanied with an essential change of
conduct; and, although the regiments required by congress were not
completed, they were made much stronger than was believed to be
possible before this happy revolution in the aspect of public affairs.

[Sidenote: Firmness of Congress.]

The firmness of congress throughout the gloomy and trying period which
intervened between the loss of fort Washington and the battle of
Princeton, gives the members of that time a just claim to the
admiration of the world, and to the gratitude of their fellow
citizens. Undismayed by impending dangers, they did not, for an
instant, admit the idea of surrendering the independence they had
declared, and purchasing peace by returning to their colonial
situation. As the British army advanced through Jersey, and the
consequent insecurity of Philadelphia rendered an adjournment from
that place a necessary measure of precaution, their exertions seemed
to increase with their difficulties. They sought to remove the
despondence which was seizing and paralyzing the public mind, by an
address to the states, in which every argument was suggested which
could rouse them to vigorous action. They made the most strenuous
efforts to animate the militia, and impel them to the field, by the
agency of those whose popular eloquence best fitted them for such a
service.

{1776}

{December 20.}

When reassembled at Baltimore, the place to which they had adjourned,
their resolutions exhibited no evidence of confusion or dismay; and
the most judicious efforts were made to repair the mischief produced
by past errors.

{December 27.}

Declaring that, in the present state of things, the very existence of
civil liberty depended on the right execution of military powers, to a
vigorous direction of which, distant, numerous, and deliberative
bodies were unequal, they authorized General Washington to raise
sixteen additional regiments, and conferred upon him, for six months,
almost unlimited powers for the conduct of the war.

Towards the close of 1776, while the tide of fortune was running
strongest against them, some few members, distrusting their ability to
make a successful resistance, proposed to authorize their
commissioners at the court of Versailles to transfer to France the
same monopoly of their trade which Great Britain had possessed.[53]
This proposition is stated to have been relinquished, because it was
believed that concessions of this kind would i