t the actual
impotency of his position. In a letter to Franklin, who was
minister-plenipotentiary at the court of Versailles, he strongly
expresses his chagrin: "Latterly, we have been obliged to become
spectators of a succession of detachments from the army at New York in
aid of Lord Cornwallis, while our naval weakness, and the political
dissolution of a great part of our army, put it out of our power to
counteract them at the southward, or to take advantage of them here."

The last of these detachments to the South took place on the 20th of
December, but was not destined, as Washington had supposed, for
Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton had received information that the troops
already mentioned as being under General Leslie in the Chesapeake,
had, by orders from Cornwallis, sailed for Charleston, to reinforce
his lordship; and this detachment was to take their place in Virginia.
It was composed of British, German, and refugee troops, about
seventeen hundred strong, and was commanded by Benedict Arnold, now a
brigadier-general in his majesty's service. Sir Henry Clinton, who
distrusted the fidelity of the man he had corrupted, sent with him
Colonels Dundas and Simcoe, experienced officers, by whose advice he
was to be guided in every important measure. He was to make an
incursion into Virginia, destroy the public magazines, assemble and
arm the loyalists, and hold himself ready to co-operate with Lord
Cornwallis.

As Washington beheld one hostile armament after another winging its
way to the South, and received applications from that quarter for
assistance, which he had not the means to furnish, it became painfully
apparent to him, that the efforts to carry on the war had exceeded the
natural capabilities of the country. Its widely diffused population,
and the composition and temper of some of its people, rendered it
difficult to draw together its resources. Commerce was almost extinct;
there was not sufficient natural wealth on which to found a revenue;
paper currency had depreciated through want of funds for its
redemption until it was nearly worthless. The mode of supplying the
army by assessing a proportion of the productions of the earth, had
proved ineffectual, oppressive, and productive of an alarming
opposition. Domestic loans yielded but trifling assistance. These
considerations Washington was continually urging upon the attention of
Congress in his full and perspicuous manner; the end of which was to
enforce hi