The war had continued much longer than was originally anticipated, and the natural resources of the country, mismanaged by the inexperience of the government and its ignorance of the principles of political economy were so much exhausted that it became apparent the war could not be carried on without a foreign loan and France, sufficiently embarrassed with her own affairs, was the only country to which Congress could look for pecuniary aid. Accordingly, Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens, who had been one of Washington's aids, was employed on this mission, and besides endeavoring to negotiate a loan was instructed to press on the French monarch the advantage of maintaining a naval superiority in the American seas. While the energies of America were thus paralyzed by the financial difficulties of Congress, the mutinous spirit of part of the army and the selfishness and apathy of several of the States, the British interest in the Provinces seemed in a prosperous condition. General Greene, as we shall presently see, was maintaining a doubtful and hazardous struggle against Cornwallis on the northern frontier of North Carolina. A British detachment from New York had made a deep impression on Virginia where the resistance was neither so prompt nor so vigorous as had been expected from the strength of that State and the unanimity of its citizens. On the 1st of May, 1781, Washington commenced a military journal. The following statement is extracted from it: "I begin at this epoch a concise journal of military transactions, &c. I lament not having attempted it from the commencement of the war in aid of my memory, and wish the multiplicity of matter which continually surrounds me and the embarrassed state of our affairs which is momentarily calling the attention to perplexities of one kind or another may not defeat altogether or so interrupt my present intention and plan as to render it of little avail. "To have the clearer understanding of the entries which may follow it would be proper to recite in detail our wants and our prospects, but this alone would be a work of much time and great magnitude. It may suffice to give the sum of them, which I shall do in a few words, viz.: "Instead of having magazines filled with provisions we have a scanty pittance scattered here and there in the distant States.