Congress sent a committee of their body, consisting of General Sullivan, Mr. Mathews, Mr. Atlee, and Dr. Witherspoon, to procure an accommodation. The revolters were resolute in refusing any terms, of which a redress of their grievances was not the foundation. Every thing asked of their country, they might, at any time after the 6th of January, have obtained from the British, by passing over into New York. This they refused. Their sufferings had exhausted their patience, but not their patriotism Sir Henry Clinton, by confidential messengers, offered to take them under the protection of the British government-to pardon all their past offencesto have the pay due them from Congress faithfully made up, without any expectation of military service in return, although it would be received if voluntarily offered. It was recommended to them to move behind the South River, and it was promised that a detachment of British troops should be in readiness for their protection, as soon as desired. In the mean time, the troops passed over from New York to Staten Island, and the necessary arrangements were made for moving them into New Jersey, whensoever they might be wanted. The royal commander was not less disappointed than surprised, to find that the faithful though revolting soldiers disdained his offers. The messengers of Sir Henry Clinton President Reed and were seized and delivered to General Wayne.

General Potter were appointed, by the council of Pennsylvania, to accommodate matters with the revolters. They met them at Princeton, and agreed to dismiss all whose terms of enlistment were completed, and adA board mitted the oath of each soldier to be evidence in his own case. of officers tried and condemned the British spies, and they were instantly executed. President Reed offered a purse of a hundred guineas to the mutineers, as a reward for their fidelity in delivering up the spies; but they refused to accept it, saying, "That what they had done was only a duty they owed their country, and that they neither desired nor would receive any reward but the approbation of that country for which they had so often fought and bled."

[January 17.] By these healing measures the revolt was completely quelled; but the complaints of the soldiers, being founded in justice, were first redressed. Those whose time of service was expired obtained their discharges, and others had their arrears of pay in a great measure made On this occasion, up to them. A general amnesty closed the business. the commander-in-chief stated in a circular letter to the four eastern states, the well-founded complaints of his army, and the impossibility of keeping them together, under the pressure of such a variety of sufferings. General Knox was requested to be the bearer of these despatches, and to the states to an immediate exertion for the relief of the soldiers. He urge visited Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; and with great earnestness, and equal success, described the wants of the

army. Massachusetts gave twenty-four silver dollars to each man of her line; and also furnished them with some clothing. Other states about the same time made similar advances.

[January, 1781.] The spirit of mutiny proved contagious. About one. hundred and sixty of the Jersey troops followed the example of the Pennsylvania line; but they did not conduct with equal spirit, nor with equal prudence. They committed sundry acts of outrage against particular officers, while they affected to be submissive to others. Major-general Howe, with a considerable force, was ordered to take methods for reducing them to obedience. Convinced that there was no medium between dignity and servility, but coercion, and that no other remedy could be applied without the deepest wound to the service, he determined to proceed against them with decision. General Howe marched from Kingwood about midnight, and by the dawning of the next day had his men in four different positions, to prevent the revolters from making their escape. Every avenue being secured, Colonel Barber of the Jersey line was sent to them, with orders immediately to parade without arms, and to march to a particular spot of ground. Some hesitation appearing among them, Colonel Sprout was directed to advance, and only five minutes were given to the mutineers to comply with the orders which had been sent them. This had its effect, and they to a man marched without arms to the appointed ground. The Jersey officers gave a list of the leaders of the revolt, upon which General Howe desired them to select three of the greatest offenders. A field court-martial was presently held upon these three, and they were unanimously sentenced to death. Two of them were executed on the spot, and the executioners were selected from among the most active in the mutiny. The men were divided into platoons, and made public conces sions to their officers, and promised by future good conduct to atone for past offences.

These mutinies alarmed the states, but did not produce permanent relief to the army. Their wants with respect to provisions were only partially supplied, and by expedients from one short time to another. The most usual was ordering an officer to seize on provisions wherever found. This differed from robbing only in its being done by authority for the public service, and in the officer being always directed to give the proprietor a certificate of the quantity and quality of what was taken from him. At first some reliance was placed on these certificates as vouchers to support a future demand on the United States; but they soon became so common as to be of little value. Recourse was so frequently had to coercion, both legislative and military, that the people not only lost confidence in public credit, but became impatient under all exertions of authority for forcing their property from them. That an army should be kept together under such circumstances, so far exceeds credibility, as to make it necessary to

produce some evidence of the fact. The American General Clinton, in a letter to General Washington, dated at Albany, April 16, 1781, wrote as follows: "There is not now (independent of Fort Schuyler) three days' provision in the whole department for the troops in case of an alarm, nor any prospect of procuring any. The recruits of the new levies I cannot receive, because I have nothing to give them. The Canadian families, I have been obliged to deprive of their scanty pittance, contrary to every principle of humanity. The quartermaster's department is totally useless the public armory has been shut up for near three weeks, and a tota. suspension of every military operation has ensued." Soon after this General Washington was obliged to apply nine thousand dollars, sent by the state of Massachusetts for the payment of her troops, to the use of the quartermaster'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 of the war, 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, and an unequal distribution of the burdens of the war; but the insufficiency of the latter had wellnigh dissolved the army, and laid the country in every direction open to British excursions.

These events were not unforeseen by the rulers of America. From the progressive depreciation of their bills of credit, it had for some time past occurred, that the period could not be far distant, when they would cease to circulate. This crisis, which had been ardently wished for by the enemies, and dreaded by the friends of American independence, took place in 1781; but without realizing the hopes of the one, or the fears of the other. New resources were providentially opened, and the war was carried on with the same vigour as before. A great deal of gold and silver was about this time introduced into the United States, by a beneficial trade with the French and Spanish West India islands, and by means of the French army in Rhode Island. Pathetic representations were made to the ministers of his Most Christian Majesty by General Washington, Dr. Franklin, and particularly by Lieutenant-colonel John Laurens, who was sent to the court Versailles as a special minister on this occasion. The king of France gave the United States a subsidy of six millions of livres, and became their ecurity for ten millions more, borrowed for their use in the United Nether lands. A regular system of finance was also about this time adopted. All

matters relative to the treasury, the supplies of the army and the accounts, were put under the direction of Robert Morris, who arranged the whole with judgment and economy. The issuing of paper money by the authority of government was discontinued, and the public engagements were made payable in coin. The introduction of so much gold and silver, together with these judicious domestic regulations, aided by the bank, which had been erected the preceding year in Philadelphia, extricated Congress from much of their embarrassment, and put it in their power to feed, clothe, and move their army.

About the same time the old continental money, by common consent, ceased to have currency. Like an aged man expiring by the decays of nature, without a sigh or groan, it fell asleep in the hands of its last possessors. By the scale of depreciation the war was carried on five years, for little more than a million of pounds sterling, and two hundred millions of paper dollars were made redeemable by five millions of silver ones. In other countries such measures would probably have produced popular insurrections, but in the United States they were submitted to without any tumults. Public faith was violated, but, in the opinion of most men, public good was promoted. The evils consequent on depreciation had taken place, and the redemption of the bills of credit at their nominal value, as originally promised, instead of remedying the distresses of the sufferers, would in many cases have increased them, by subjecting their small remains of property to exorbitant taxation. The money had in a great measure got out of the hands of the original proprietors, and was in the possession of others, who had obtained it at a rate of value not exceeding what was fixed upon it by the scale of depreciation.

Nothing could afford a stronger proof that the resistance of America to Great Britain was grounded in the hearts of the people, than these events. To receive paper bills of credit issued without any funds, and to give property in exchange for them, as equal to gold or silver, demonstrated the zeal and enthusiasm with which the war was begun; but to consent to the extinction of the same after a currency of five years, without any adequate provision made for their future redemption, was more than would have been borne by any people who conceived that their rulers had separate interests or views from themselves. The demise of one king, and the coronation of a lawful successor, have often excited greater commotions in royal governments, than took place in the United States on the sudden extinction of their whole current money. The people saw the necessity which compelled their rulers to act in the manner they had done, and being well convinced that the good of the country was their object, quietly submitted to measures, which, under other circumstances, would scarcely have been expiated by the lives and fortunes of their authors.

HILE the Americans were suffering the compli cated calamities which introduced the year 1781, their adversaries were carrying on the most extensive plan of operation which had ever been attempted since the war. 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 in particular 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 accessful 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 litary operations. The war raged in that year not only in the vicinity British head-quarters at New York, but in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and in Virginia. The latter state, from its peculiar situa