However, the campaign of 1779 had been insignificant in America. The state of feeling there was humiliating and sad; Congress had lost its authority while decreasing in public esteem; moral strength appeared weakened; the great springs of national action were slackened in the heart of a war always hanging and dubious; a violent reaction led people's minds to indifference and their hearts towards light pleasures. Washington himself felt his influence growing less along with with the heroic resolution of his fellow-citizens. {299} "God alone can know what will result to us from the extravagance of parties and the general laxity of public virtue," wrote he. "If I were to paint the time and men from what I see and what I know, I would say that they are invaded by sloth, dissipation, and debauchery; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for wealth rule all the thoughts of all classes; that party disputes and private quarrels are the great matter of the day, while the interests of an empire, a heavy and ever increasing debt, the ruin of our finances, the depreciation of our paper-money, the lack of credit, all vital questions in fine, scarcely attract attention, and are set aside from day to day as if our affairs were in the most prosperous condition." In a military sense as well as in a political, the affairs of America were drooping in sorrowful alternations. Sir Henry Clinton had known how to profit by the internal dissensions of the Union; he had rallied round him the royalists in Georgia and the Carolinas; the civil war reigned there in all its horrors, precursors and pledges of more cruel rancors yet which our days were to witness. General Lincoln had just been forced to capitulate at Charleston. Washington, all the time encamped before New York, beheld his army decimated by hunger and cold, without pay, without provisions, without shoes, obliged to live by despoiling the surrounding population. Discouragement was overtaking the firmest hearts, when, in the month of April, 1780, the Marquis de la Fayette landed anew in America. He brought the news that a French army corps was preparing to embark in order to sustain the failing strength of the Americans. By a prudent prevision of the disputes which might arise from questions of rank or nationality, the Count dc Rochambeau, who commanded the French, was to be placed under the orders of General Washington, and the auxiliary corps entirely put at his disposal. {300} The enthusiasm of M. de la Fayette for the cause of American liberty had gained over the French court and people. He had borne upon the government of King Louis XVI., which was as yet uncertain and naturally preoccupied with the difficulties and growing expenses which the war was imposing on France. The national ardor and the rash generosity common to our character had prevailed. The campaign of 1780 was tardy and without great results, but the year 1781 was going to be decisive in the annals