Twenty days later he again writes to the President of Congress: “I am sorry to be necessitated to mention to you the egregious want of public spirit which prevails here. Instead of pressing to be engaged in the cause of their country, which I vainly flattered myself would be the case, I find we are likely to be deserted in a most critical time. * * * Our situation is truly alarming, and of this General Howe is well apprised. No doubt when he is reinforced he will avail himself of the information.” In a letter to Reed he disburdened his heart more completely. “Such dearth of public spirit, and such want of virtue; such stock-jobbing, and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantage of one kind or another in this great change of military arrangement, I never saw before, and I pray God’s mercy that I may never be witness to again. What will be the end of these manœuvres is beyond my scan. I tremble at the prospect. We have been till this time (Nov. 28) enlisting about three thousand five hundred men. To engage these, I have been obliged to allow furloughs as far as fifty men to a regiment, and the officers I am persuaded indulge many more. The Connecticut troops will not be prevailed upon to stay longer than their term, saving those who have enlisted for the next campaign, and are mostly on furlough; and such a mercenary spirit pervades the whole, that I should not be surprised at any disaster that may happen. * * * Could I have foreseen what I have experienced and am likely to experience, no consideration upon earth should have induced me to accept this command.” No one drew closer to Washington in this time of his troubles and perplexities than General Greene. He had a real veneration for his character, and thought himself “happy in an opportunity to serve under so good a general.” He grieved at Washington’s annoyances, but attributed them in part to his being somewhat of a stranger in New England. “He has not had time,” writes he, “to make himself acquainted with the genius of this people; they are naturally as brave and spirited as the peasantry of any other country, but you cannot expect veterans of a raw militia from only a few months’ service. The common people are exceedingly avaricious; the genius of the people is commercial, from their long intercourse with trade. The sentiment of honor, the true characteristic of a soldier, has not yet got the better of interest. His Excellency has been taught to believe the people here a superior race of mortals; and finding them of the same temper and dispositions, passions and prejudices, virtues and vices of the common people of other governments, they sank in his esteem.”[27]