They brought in many valuable prizes which caused infinite trouble, and forced Washington not only to be a naval secretary, but also made him a species of admiralty judge.

He implored the slow-moving Congress to relieve him from this burden, and suggested a plan which led to the formation of special committees and was the origin of the Federal judiciary of the United States.

Besides the local jealousies and the personal jealousies, and the privateers and their prizes, he had to meet also the greed and selfishness as well of the money-making, stock-jobbing spirit which springs up rankly under the influence of army contracts and large expenditures among a people accustomed to trade and unused to war.
Washington wrote savagely of these practices, but still, despite all hindrances and annoyances, he kept moving straight on to his object.
In the midst of his labors, harassed and tried in all ways, he was assailed as usual by complaint and criticism.

Some of it came to him through his friend and aide, Joseph Reed, to whom he wrote in reply one of the noblest letters ever penned by a great man struggling with adverse circumstances and wringing victory from grudging fortune.

He said that he was always ready to welcome criticism, hear advice, and learn the opinion of the world.