Next to a supply of money he considered a naval superiority in the American seas as an object of the deepest interest. To the United States it would be of decisive importance, and France also might derive great advantages from transferring the maritime war to the coast of her ally. The future ability of the United States to repay any loan which might now be obtained was displayed, and he concluded with assurances that there was still a fund of inclination and resource in the country, equal to great and continued exertions, provided the means were afforded of stopping the progress of disgust by changing the present system and adopting another more consonant with the spirit of the nation, and more capable of infusing activity and energy into public measures, of which a powerful succor in money must be the basis. "The people were discontented, but it was with the feeble and oppressive mode of conducting the war, not with the war itself." With great reason did Washington urge on the cabinet of Versailles the policy of advancing a sum of money to the United States which might be adequate to the exigency. Deep was the gloom with which the political horizon was then overcast. The British in possession of South Carolina and Georgia had overrun the greater part of North Carolina also, and it was with equal hazard and address that Greene maintained himself in the northern frontier of that State. A second detachment from New York was making a deep impression on Virginia, where the resistance had been neither so prompt nor so vigorous as the strength of that State and the unanimity of its citizens had given reason to expect. Such were the facts and arguments urged by Washington in his letter to Colonel Laurens. Its able exposition of the actual state of the country, and his arguments in support of the application of Congress for a fleet and army as well as money, when laid before the King and the ministry, decided them to afford the most ample aid to the American cause. A loan of $6,000,000 was granted, which was to be placed at Washington's disposal, but he was happy to be relieved from that responsibility. A loan from Holland was also guaranteed by the French government, and large reinforcements of ships and men were sent to the United States. The intelligence of these succors followed within a few days after the desponding tone of Washington's journal, to which we have just referred.