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