George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[174] carried by Pennsylvania and the states north of it,

Chap. VII.} 1778.

against the southern states; but other opinions ruled before the arrival of the year in which the absorption of the currency was to begin.

The expenses of the year 1778, so far as they were defrayed by congress, amounted to sixty-two and a sixth millions in paper money, beside more than eighty-four thousand dollars in specie. Towards the expenses of the coming year, nothing further was done than to invite the states to contribute fifteen millions in paper, equal in specie to seven hundred thousand dollars; but as the payments depended on the good — will of each separate state, very little of this moderate assessment reached the national treasury, and there was no resource but in new emissions of notes and loan certificates.

Private reports from American refugees, seeking the favor of the king of England, persuaded Germain that the cause of the United States would share the wreck of their finances: but he knew not how to conciliate provinces that were weary of war, nor to measure the tenacity of the passive resistance of a determined people; and systematically sought by sanguinary measures to punish and subdue. The refugees, emboldened by the powerlessness of congress, and embittered by its advice to the several states to confiscate their property, thronged the antechamber of the minister and fired his vengeful passions by their own. In New York there sprung up a double set of counsellors. Clinton repressed the confidence of the secretary of state by faithful reports of the inadequacy of his forces: on the other hand, William Franklin, late governor of New Jersey,