From the best accounts I can get, Lord Cornwallis had with him, on the day of battle, the seventy-first, sixty-third, thirty-third, and twenty-third British regiments; a corps of Hessians, Tarlton’s legion, and some new levies, amounting to about three thousand men. Our numbers were very little greater; and our force will not be imagined so great, by those who are informed of our long march in a barren country, with very little other subsistence than a short allowance of fresh beef, green corn, apples, and peaches.
As soon as I recover from a relaxation of spirits, which is all my present complaint, I will write you again, and inform you that we are resolved not to despair, but bear our fortunes like veterans in the South; while you, like heroes in the North, win and wear the laurels of the present campaign.
Present my most respectful compliments to the General, whom I love; to all my friends at head quarters and in camp. Not a man among you have been generous enough to write a single sentence to
Your sincere friend and servant,
O. H. Williams.
I mentioned the surprise of General Sumpter’s party, which happened the sixteenth instant, in my last.
HAMILTON TO JAMES DUANE.
Liberty Pole, September 8, 1780.
Dear Sir:
Agreeably to your request, and my promise, I sit down to give you my ideas of the defects of our present system, and the changes necessary to save us from ruin. They may, perhaps, be the reveries of a projector, rather than the sober views of a politician. You will judge of them, and make what use you please of them.
The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress. It is hardly worth while to show in what this consists, as it seems to be universally acknowledged; or to point out how it has happened, as the only question is how to remedy it. It may, however, be said, that it has originated from three causes; an excess of the spirit of liberty, which has made the particular States show a jealousy of all power not in their own hands; and this jealousy has led them to exercise a right of judging in the last resort of the measures recommended by Congress, and of acting according to their own opinions of their propriety, or necessity; a diffidence, in Congress, of their own powers, by which they have been timid and indecisive in their resolutions: constantly making concessions to the States, till they have scarcely left themselves the shadow of power; a want of sufficient means at their disposal to answer the public exigencies, and of vigor to draw forth those means; which have occasioned them to depend on the States individually, to fulfil their engagements with the army; the consequence of which, has been to ruin their influence and credit with the army, to establish its dependence on each State separately, rather than on them, that is, rather than on the whole collectively.