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for forcing their property from them. About this time Gen. Washington was obliged to apply nine thousand dollars sent by the state of Massachu-setts, for the payment of her troops, to the use of the Quarter Master's department, to enable him to transport provisions from the adjacent states. Before he consented to adopt this expedient, he had consumed every ounce of provision which had been kept as a reserve in the garrison of West Point, and had strained impress by military force to so great an extent, that there was reason to apprehend the inhabitants, irritated by such frequent calls, would proceed to dangerous insurrections. Fort Schuyler, West Point, and the posts up the North River, were on the point of being abandoned by their starving garrisons. At this period there was little or no circulating medium, either in the form of paper or specie, and in the neighbourhood of the American army, there was a real want of necessary provisions. The deficiency of the former occasioned many inconveniences, but the insufficiency of the latter had well nigh dissolved the army, and laid the country in every direction open to British excursions.

On the first of May, 1781, Gen. Washington commenced a military journal. The following statement is extracted from it. "I begin at this epoch a concise journal of military transactions, &c. I lament not having attempted it from the commencement of the war, in aid of my memory; and wish the multiplicity of matter which continually surrounds me, and the embarrassed state of our affairs, which is momentarily calling the attention to perplexities of one kind or another,

may not defeat altogether, or so interrupt my present intention and plan, as to render it of little avail.

"To have the clearer understanding of the entries which may follow, it would be proper to recite in detail, our wants and our prospects; but this alone would be a work of much time and great magnitude. It may suffice to give the sum of them, which I shall do in few words; viz.

"Instead of having magazines filled with provisions, we have a scanty pittance scattered here and there in the distant states.

"Instead of having our arsenals well supplied with military stores, they are poorly provided, and the workmen all leaving them. Instead of having the various articles of field equipage in readiness, the Quarter Master General is but now applying to the several states to provide these things for their troops respectively. Instead of having a regular system of transportation estab. lished upon credit, or funds in the Quarter Master's hands to defray the contingent expenses thereof, we have neither the one nor the other; and all that business, or a great part of it, being done by impressment, we are daily and hourly oppressing the people, souring their tempers, and alienating their affections. Instead of having the regiments completed agreeable to the requisitions of Congress, scarce any state in the union has at this hour one eighth part of its quota in the field, and there is little, prospect of ever getting more than half. In a word, instead of having any thing in readiness to take the field, we have nothing; and, instead of having the prospect of a glorious

offensive campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy prospect of a defensive one; unless we should receive a powerful aid of ships, troops, and money, from our generous allies, and these at present are too contingent to build upon.

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While the Americans were suffering the complicated calamities which introduced the year 1781, their adversaries were carrying on the most extensive plan of operations against them which had ever been attempted, It had often been objected to the British commanders, that they had not conducted the war in the manner most likely to effect the subjugation of the revolted provinces. Military critics found fault with them for keeping a large army idle at New York, which, they said, if properly applied, would have been sufficient to make successful impressions at one and the same time on several of the states.. The British seem to have calculated the campaign of 1781, with a view to make an experiment of the comparative merit of this mode of conducting military operations. The war raged in that year not only in the vicinity of the British head quarters at New York, but in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and in Virginia..

In this extensive warfare, Washington could have no immediate agency in the southern department. His advice in corresponding with the officers commanding in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, was freely and beneficially given; and as large detachments sent to their aid as could be spared consistently with the security of West Point. In conducting the war, his invariable maxim was, to suffer the devastation of property, rath

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er than hazard great and essential objects for its preservation. While the war raged in Virginia, the Governor thereof, its representatives in Con. gress, and other influential citizens, urged his return to the defence of his native state. But, considering America as his country, and the general safety as his object, he deemed it of more importance to remain on the Hudson; there he was not only securing the most important post in the Unit ed States, but concerting a grand plan of combined operations, which, as shall soon be related, not only delivered Virginia, but all the states, from the calamities of the war.

In Washington's disregard of property when in competition with national objects, he was in no respect partial to his own. While the British were in the Potowmac, they sent a flag on shore to Mount Vernon, his private estate, requiring a supply of fresh provisions. Refusals of such demands were often followed by burning the houses and other property near the river. To prevent this catastrophe, the person intrusted with the management of the estate, went on board with the flag, and carrying a supply of provisions, requested that the buildings and improvements might be spared. For this he received a severe reprimand in a letter to him, in which the General observed; "That it would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard, that, in consequence of your noncompliance with the request of the British, they had burnt my house, and laid my plantation in ruins. You ought to have considered yourself as my representative, and should have reflected on the bad example of communicating

with the enemy, and making a voluntary offer of refreshment to them, with a view to prevent a conflagration.'

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To the other difficulties with which Washington had to contend in the preceding years of the war, a new one was about this time added: While the whole force at his disposal was unequal to the defence of the country against the common enemy, a civil war was on the point of breaking out among his fellow citizens. The claims of the inhabitants of Vermont to be a separate independent state, and of the state of New York, to their country, as within its chartered limits, together with open offers from the Royal Commanders to establish and defend them as a British province, produced a serious crisis, which 'called for the interference of the American chief. This was the more necessary, as the governments of New York and of Vermont were both resolved on exercising a jurisdiction over the same people and the same territory. Congress, wishing to compromise the controversy on middle ground, resolved, in August, 1781, to accede to the independence of Vermont on certain conditions, and within certain specified limits, which they supposed would satisfy both parties. Contrary to their expectations, this mediatorial act of the national legislature was rejected by Vermont, and yet was so disagreeable to the legislature of New York as to draw from them a spirited protest against it. Vermont Vermont complained that Congress interfered in their internal police; New York viewed the resolve as a virtual dismemberment of their state, which was a constituent part of the confederacy, Washington, anxious

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