had placed on the
reorganization of his army. Successive revolts among the troops of
Pennsylvania, which threatened to spread to those of New Jersey, had
convinced him that America had come to the end of her sacrifices. "The
country's own powers are exhausted," he wrote to Colonel Lawrence in a
letter intended to be communicated to Louis XVI.; "single-handed we
cannot restore public credit and supply the funds necessary for
continuing the war. The patience of the army is at an end, the people
are discontented; without money, we shall make but a feeble effort, and
probably the last."

The insufficiency of the military results obtained by land and sea, in
comparison with the expenses and the exhibition of force, and the
slowness and bad management of the operations, had been attributed, in
France as well as in America, to the incapacity of the ministers of war
and marine, the Prince of Montbarrey and M. de Sartines. The finances
had up to that time sufficed for the enormous charges which weighed upon
the treasury; credit for the fact was most justly given to the consummate
ability and inexhaustible resources of M. Necker, who was, first of all,
made director of the treasury on October 22, 1776, and then
director-general of finance on June 29, 1777, By his advice, backed by
the favor of the queen, the two ministers were superseded by M. de Segur
and the Marquis of Castries. A new and more energetic impulse before
long restored the hopes of the Americans. On the 21st of March, 1780,
a fleet left under the orders of Count de Grasse; after its arrival at
Martinique, on the 28th of April, in spite of Admiral Hood's attempts to
block his passage, Count de Grasse took from the English the Island of
Tobago, on the 1st of June; on the 3d of September, he brought Washington
a reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men, and twelve hundred
thousand livres in specie. In a few months King Louis XVI. had lent to
the United States or procured for them on his security sums exceeding
sixteen million livres. It was to Washington personally that the French
government confided its troops as well as its subsidies. "The king's
soldiers are to be placed exclusively under the orders of the
general-in-chief," M. Girard, the French minister in America, had said,
on the arrival of the auxiliary corps.

After so many and such painful efforts, the day of triumph was at last
dawning upon General Washington and his country. Alternation