** Among other schemes for annoying the Americans, and casting discredit upon Congress, the British resorted to the issue of "cart loads" of counterfeit Continental bills, so as to depreciate the currency. This fact is alluded to on page 318, volume i. It was no secret at the time, as appears by an advertisement * in Gaine's New York Mercury, April 14th, 1777. For two or three years these bills were circulated extensively, and doubtless had great effect in depreciating the Continental money. Francis, in his History of the Bank of England, ii., 79-80, says, that Premier Pitt, the younger, resorted to a similar trick, by causing a large number of French assignats to be forged at Birmingham, to depreciate the currency of the French Republic. Napoleon also caused forged notes of the Austrian Bank to be distributed throughout the Austrian Tyrol.
*** A second great conflagration in the city, during the British occupation, occurred on Saturday night, the seventh of August, 1778. It commenced at Cruger's Wharf, Coenties Slip, and before it was subdued three hundred houses were consumed. The next day was excessively hot, and at noon, while the smoke of the smouldering fire was yet rising from the ruins, a heavy thunder-storm burst over the city. At about one o'clock, while raging at its height, the city was shaken as if by an earthquake, and suddenly a column of dense smoke arose in the east and spread over the town. Tiles were shaken from the roofs of houses, and crockery was broken in some houses at Franklin Square. The shock was occasioned by the explosion of the magazine of a powder vessel lying in the East River, which was struck by lightning. The vessel had just arrived from England, and the event was regarded as a special interposition of Providence in behalf of the Americans.—See Dunlap, ii., 164.
* "Advertisement.—Persons going into other colonics may be supplied with any number of counterfeited Congress notes, for the price of the paper per ream. They are so neatly and exactly executed, that there is no risk in getting them off, it being almost impossible to discover that they are not genuine. This has been proven by bills to a very large amount which have already been successfully circulated. Inquire of Q. E. D., at the Coffee-house, from 11 A. M. to 4 P. M., during the present month."
Treaties for Peace.—The Continental Army.—Congress at Princeton.—Mutiny.—Washington's Circular Letter.
tion of the final evacuation of the city by the British army, and the parting of Washington with his officers.
After protracted negotiations for a year and a half, a definitive treaty of peace was signed at ParisSept. 3, 1783 between American and English commissioners. A provisional treaty had been signed about nine months previously,Nov. 30, 1782 and in the mean while preparations for a final adjustment of the dispute had been made. On account of the pecuniary embarrassments of Congress, the arrearages of pay due to the soldiers, and the prospect of a dissolution of the army without a liquidation of those claims, general gloom and discontent prevailed.
We have seen its alarming manifestation at Newburgh in the spring of 1783 (see page 106), and, though suppressed, it was never entirely subdued. It required all the personal influence and sagacity of Washington to keep the remnant of the Continental army in organization until the final evacuation of the British in the autumn of that year, and when that event took place the Republican troops were a mere handful. *