Trenton and Princeton from all eyes concealed also the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jerseys. Men still looked hopefully to the lower line of the Hudson. It was resolved, therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treasury by a lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia.

A lottery, does not the word carry you back, a great many years back, to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the table of Congress for revision; and in the second and third of those articles, officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and the gaming-table stand side by side on the same broad highway.

No such thoughts troubled the minds of our forefathers, well stored as those minds were with human and divine lore; but, going to work without a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme, and fixed the 1st of March for the day of drawing, 66 or sooner, if sooner full." It was not full, however, nor was it full when the subject next came up. Tickets were sold; committees sat; Congress returned to the subject from time to time; but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of

credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the people. Some good Whigs bought tickets from principle, and, like many of the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost their money.

In the same November, the Treasury was directed to make preparations for a new issue; and in order to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was also resolved to issue five hundred thousand dollars in bills of two thirds, one third, one sixth, and one ninth of a dollar. Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could save public credit, men could not bend their minds to the necessity. "Do you think, gentlemen,” said a member of Congress, "that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole?" It was so easy a way of making money, that men seemed to be getting into the humor of it.

The campaign of 1777, like the campaign of 1776, was fought upon paper-money without any material depreciation. The bills could never be signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. The public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the questior

The delibThus far the

of ultimate payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was conquered; but a more powerful, a more insidious enemy, one to whom Congress itself had opened the gate, was already within the works and fast advancing towards the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower. erations were long and anxious. public faith had supported the war. said, the quantity of the money for which this faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and secret enemies, the avidity of professed friends, and the scarcity of foreign commodities, and it seemed easy to account for the depreciation. "The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,”

66

But, it was

depravity of morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war, debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within reach; and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest solicitude," Congress recommended the raising by taxes on the different States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.

But having explained, justified, and recommend

ed, its power ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious words that Dante read on the gates of hell been written on it, they could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling :

:

"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate."

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

The sums

Some States paid, some did not pay. that came in were wholly insufficient to relieve the actual pressure; and that pressure, unrelieved, grew daily more severe. Congress had tried the regulating of prices, it had tried loans, it had tried a lottery; and now it was forced back again to its earliest and most dangerous expedient, papermoney. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he sees the shadowy form of a sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a gleam of sunshine, a breath of pure air, while myriads of little sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with "Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he turns, with gibes and

taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was almost ended; the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember that they who strayed from the path as he had done, must sooner or later find a grave like his.

It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of men's minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In January, 1776, it had been solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to accept the Continental bills, or did anything to obstruct the circulation of them, should, upon due conviction, "be deemed, published, and treated as an enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or intercourse with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it, there were Committees of Inspection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands, whose eyes were never sealed in slumber. In this work, which seemed good in their eyes, the State Assemblies, and Conventions, and Committees of Safety, joined heart and hand with Congress. Tender-laws were tried, and the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the recusant creditor from. the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility for gold or silver with a ream