22,000 had been collected, not a cent of which came from Georgia, the
Carolinas, or Delaware. Rhode Island, which paid $38,000, did the best
of all according to its resources. Of the Continental taxes assessed in
1783, only one-fifth part had been paid by the middle of 1785. And the
worst of it was that no one could point to a remedy for this state of
things, or assign any probable end to it.

[Sidenote: Dread of the army.]

[Sidenote: Supposed scheme for making Washington king.]

Under such circumstances the public credit sank at home as well as
abroad. Foreign creditors--even France, who had been nothing if not
generous with her loans--might be made to wait; but there were creditors
at home who, should they prove ugly, could not be so easily put off. The
disbandment of the army in the summer of 1783, before the British troops
had evacuated New York, was hastened by the impossibility of paying the
soldiers and the dread of what they might do under such provocation.
Though peace had been officially announced, Hamilton and Livingston
urged that, for the sake of appearances if for no other reason, the army
should be kept together so long as the British remained in New York, if
not until they should have surrendered the western frontier posts. But
Congress could not pay the army, and was afraid of it,--and not without
some reason. Discouraged at the length of time which had passed since
they had received any money, the soldiers had begun to fear lest, now
that their services were no longer needed, their honest claims would be
set aside. Among the officers, too, there was grave discontent. In the
spring of 1778, after the dreadful winter at Valley Forge, several
officers had thrown up their commissions, and others threatened to do
likewise. To avert the danger, Washington had urged Congress to promise
half-pay for life to such officers as should serve to the end of the
war. It was only with great difficulty that he succeeded in obtaining a
promise of half-pay for seven years, and even this raised an outcry
throughout the country, which seemed to dread its natural defenders only
less than its enemies. In the fall of 1780, however, in the general
depression which followed upon the disasters at Charleston and Camden,
the collapse of the paper money, and the discovery of Arnold's treason,
there was serious danger that the army would fall to pieces. At this
critical moment Washington had earnestly appealed to Congress, and
aga