each  trampling  down  fields  and  consuming  grain
and  forage,  and  leaving  fatal  marks  of  its  passage.
The  Americans  undertook  to  pay,  but  had  nothing
but  Continental  bills  and  loan  certificates  to  pay
with.  When  the  English  paid,  they  paid  in  gold,
and  wherever  they  staid  long,  their  gold  worked
like  poison.  The  English  market  in  New  York
was  well  suppHed  when  the  American  army  in
the  Jerseys  was  starving.-'

The  relief  which  commerce  might  have  afforded
was,  like  the  farmer's  harvest,  subject  to  the
chances  of  war.  The  chief  trade  was  with  the
West  Indies,  but  that,  as  well  as  the  trade  with
Europe,  was  attended  with  constant  danger  from
privateers  on  the  high  seas,  and  cruisers,  stimu-
lated by  the  thirst  of  gain,  on  the  coast.  In  both
our  wars  with  England,  a  very  important  part
was  played  by  our  privateers.  In  the  first  war,
the  regular  navy  was  too  small  to  afibrd  any  ade-
quate protection  either  to  commerce  on  the  high
seas  or  in  the  seaboard  towns.  But  the  dar-
ing privateer  brought  supplies  which  regular
trade  was  unable  to  obtain,  and  inflicted  blows
upon  British  navigation  which  the  regular  navy
was  unable  to  strike.  The  progress  of  civiliza-
tion which  is  gradually  preparing  the  way  for  cor-
rect views  concerning  war  itself,  by  the  diffusion
of  sounder  views  concerning  many  of  its  instru-

1  Ramsay,  ut  sup.      Washington  453.   And  for  one  of  the  forms  of  in-

calls  it "  that  injurious  and  abomina-  jury  done  by  the  army,  vide  Greene's

ble  traffic  which  is  carried  on  with  orders  of  the  day  for  September  21,

the  city    of  New   York."     Sparks,  1780.     Whiting's    Revolutionary  Oi-

Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  vi.  p.  ders,  p.  107.
