The pleasing delusion that the war was over, to which the public mind delighted to surrender itself, made no impression on the judgment of Washington.  Viewing objects through a more correct medium, he perceived that Great Britain had yet much to hope, and America much to fear, from a continuance of hostilities.  He feared that the impression which the divisions, and apparent inertness of the United States had made on the British commissioners, would be communicated to their government; and this consideration increased his anxiety in favour of early and vigorous preparations for the next campaign.  Yet it was not until the 23d of January that congress passed the resolution, authorizing the Commander-in-chief to re-enlist the army, nor, until the 9th of March, that the requisition was made on the several states for their quotas.  The bounty offered by the first resolution being found insufficient, the government was again under the necessity of resorting to the states.  Thus, at a season when the men ought to have been in camp, the measures for raising them were still to be adopted.

About this period, several circumstances conspired to foment those pernicious divisions and factions in congress, which, in times of greater apparent danger, patriotism would have suppressed.

[Sidenote:  Divisions in congress.]

The ministers of the United States, in Europe, had reciprocally criminated each other, and some of them had been recalled.  Their friends in congress supported their respective interests with considerable animation; and, at length, Mr. Deane published a manifesto, in which he arraigned at the bar of the public, the conduct not only of those concerned in foreign negotiations, but of the members of Congress themselves.

The irritation excited by these and other contests was not a little increased by the appearance, in a New York paper, of an extract from a letter written by Mr. Laurens, the president of congress, to Governor Huiston, of Georgia, which, during the invasion of that state, was found among his papers.  In this letter, Mr. Laurens had unbosomed himself with the unsuspecting confidence of a person communicating to a friend the inmost operations of his mind.  In a gloomy moment, he had expressed himself with a degree of severity, which even his own opinion, when not under the immediate influence of chagrin, would not entirely justify, and had reflected on the integrity and patriotism of members, without particularizing the individuals he designed to censure.

These altercations added much to the alarm with which General Washington viewed that security which had insinuated itself into the public mind; and his endeavours were unremitting to impress the same apprehensions on those who were supposed capable of removing the delusion.  In his confidential letters to gentlemen of the most influence in the several states, he represented in strong terms the dangers which yet threatened the