Among the miseries of these years was a scarcity of food, almost amounting to a famine. Speculation was active and remorseless, getting control of the market and growing rich on human suffering. An appeal was made to Connecticut for a suspension of her embargo on provisions in favor of Rhode Island. The question how to counteract "engrossers and forestallers," was one of the most difficult questions which Congress and state legislatures and special conventions were called upon to meet. Two thousand helpless poor were scattered through the State, dependent upon public and private charity for bread. Five hundred pounds were voted for the relief of the poor of Newport. The appeal to Connecticut for a relaxation of her embargo was met by permission to export seven thousand bushels of grain, and a recommendation of a general contribution by her citizens. The recommendation called forth gifts of four thousand three hundred pounds in money, and five hundred bushels of grain. The recommendation was extended through Congress to other states, and South Carolina assumed through her delegates fifty thousand dollars of Rhode Island's Continental quota. It was in this year also that the storm, long known as the Hessian storm, from the number of those wretched mercenaries who perished in it, occurred. Sentinels froze at their posts--some were suffocated by the whirling snow. The roads were blocked up by it. Never had such a storm been known. New taxes were regularly called for and voted, both for Continental and State expenses. But the currency was deranged and the sources from whence taxes were drawn well nigh exhausted. The treasury was empty. To enlist a new brigade,--the term of the old one having run out,--it was found necessary to borrow twelve thousand pounds from Connecticut for a month. There was not time yet for constitutional reforms, although attention was frequently called to the inequality of representation. But the more important reforms were the reforms of the army, and the great event of 1779 was the introduction of Steuben's Tactics. The derangement of the currency made itself felt everywhere. Colonel Crary, of the First State Infantry, an excellent officer, was compelled to throw up his commission because he could not support his family on his pay. With many others it was merely a question of time--whether they should resign at once or wait a little longer till they were ruined utterly. As paper depreciated taxes were increased. Confidence, the basis of national prosperity, was gone. In June, 1778, two heavy taxes were levied, one of two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds for Congress, and one of sixty thousand pounds for the State. Almost the only channel through which goods and money still continued to come was through privateers.