MEASURES OF CONGRESS.
Although the confidence of many members of congress, that the contest would soon be over, was shaken, yet as a body they remained firm and hopeful. At the same time, on the advance of Lord Cornwallis through the Jerseys, they fled for safety from Philadelphia to Baltimore, in Maryland. On reassembling here, however, they betrayed no despondency or any lack of spirit. The hope of obtaining their grand object,—independence and separation from Great Britain,—seemed to sustain them in the midst of all their reverses. They now materially enlarged the powers of Washington. They authorised him to raise sixteen additional regiments; furnished him with all the money they could, and promised him a great deal more; and finally conferred upon him, for six months, a sort of dictatorship. They further voted a loan of 8,000,000 of dollars; they made more paper-money; they threatened all who would not receive it in payment for goods or labour; and they adopted all possible means, by force, intimidation, and enticement, to get money into the treasury, and to inspire courage into the hearts of the people. As for their committee of correspondence, they laboured ardently to induce France and Spain openly to espouse their quarrel, and to threaten England with an invasion, while the flower of its troops were engaged in America. It was proposed in congress that their commissioners at Versailles should be authorised to transfer to France the same monopoly of their trade which had been possessed by Great Britain. This, however, was relinquished as a measure which would strike a mortal blow at some of their leading arguments in favour of independence. It was next proposed that France should be offered a limited monopoly, and, this failing, it was suggested that France might be gained over by the offer of an alliance offensive and defensive. The more prudent among them represented that if France would venture into the war at all, it would not be by any treaty, or compact, or promises of congress, but out of her old rivalry and hatred of England. All the assurances she would want, they said, was an expression of their determination never again to submit to the mother country, but to persist in their present course, though all the world should be merely lookers-on. Resolutions were printed to this effect, and sent all over the union, and then to the principal courts of Europe, with agents appointed to impress upon those courts the sincerity of this declaration, and to solicit their friendship for the United States. The agents chosen for this mission were Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and Mr. Arthur Lee, and what success attended their negotiations will soon be seen. Though appealing to the worst passions, and the most selfish feelings of foreign courts and cabinets, they were, nevertheless, not only listened to with complacency, but obtained present aid covertly, and had hopes held out to them of aid openly hereafter.