Supplies of provisions and clothing must be had in another way, or it can not exist.

The small seizures that were made of the former some time ago, in consequence of the most pressing and urgent necessity--when the alternative was to do that or dissolve--excited the greatest alarm and uneasiness imaginable, even among some of our best and warmest friends.

Such procedures may relieve for an instant, but eventually will prove of the most pernicious consequence.

Besides spreading disaffection and jealousy among the people, they never fail, even in the most veteran armies, to raise in the soldiery a disposition to licentiousness, plunder, and robbery, which it has ever been found exceeding difficult to suppress; and which has not only proved ruinous to the inhabitants, but, in many instances, to the armies themselves." In a subsequent letter to congress, he added, "I regret the occasion which compelled us to the measure the other day, and shall consider it as among the greatest of our misfortunes to be under the necessity of practising it again.

I am now obliged to keep several parties from the army thrashing grain, that our supplies may not fail; but this will not do." [Sidenote: Combination formed in Congress against General Washington.] About this time, a strong combination was forming against the Commander-in-chief, into which several members of congress, and a very few officers of the army are believed to have entered.
[Sidenote: General Gates supposed to be concerned in it.] [Sidenote: Correspondence on this subject between the two generals.] The splendour with which the capture of a British army had surrounded the military reputation of General Gates, acquired some advocates for the opinion that the arms of America would be more fortunate, should that gentleman be elevated to the supreme command.