preliminary to this system, commissioners were appointed to make the estimates, and to introduce every practicable reform in the expenditures.  This subject was under deliberation until the 25th of February, when sundry resolutions were passed, apportioning on the states their respective quotas of provisions, spirits, and forage, for the ensuing campaign.  The value of the several articles was estimated in specie; and assurances were given that accounts between the states should be regularly kept, and finally settled in Spanish milled dollars.

For the purpose of inducing and facilitating a compliance with these requisitions, congress also resolved, “that any state which shall have taken the necessary measures for furnishing its quota, and have given notice thereof to congress, shall be authorized to prohibit any continental quartermaster or commissary from purchasing within its limits.”

These resolutions, constituting the basis of a new system on which the future subsistence of the army was essentially to depend, were too deeply interesting not to receive the anxious attention of the Commander-in-chief.  With regret, he communicated to congress the radical defects he perceived in their arrangements, with his apprehensions that this untried scheme would fail in practice.

His judgment, and the judgment of all men engaged in high and responsible situations, was decidedly in favour of conducting the war on a national rather than on a state system.  But, independent of this radical objection, economy had been so much more consulted than the probable necessities of the army, that, in almost every article, the estimate had fallen far short of the demand to be reasonably expected.

The total omission to provide means for supplying occasional deficiencies from the surplus resources of any particular state, was an error of still greater magnitude.  It was obvious that the demand in any state which should become the theatre of war, would be much greater than its quota; and experience had shown that the carriage of specific articles from distant places was always difficult and expensive, and sometimes impracticable.  Yet no means were adopted to supply such extraordinary demand, whatever might be the resources of the country.  A still more radical objection to the system was the principle, enabling any state which should take means to comply with the requisition, and should notify those means to the government of the United States, to prohibit the continental agents from making any purchases within its territory.  Among the states which adopted the proposition of congress was New Jersey, in which the largest division of the army was stationed.  Its legislature passed an act prohibiting the purchase of provisions within its jurisdiction by the staff of the continental line, under severe penalties; and refused to authorize its own agents to provide for any emergency however pressing.  It was an additional objection to these requisitions, that they specified no periods of the year within which certain portions of the articles demanded should be raised, and consequently might be complied with, although the army should be left destitute of every necessary for a considerable part of the campaign.