Political incapacity was of course charged upon ministers as another cause of disaster; and no doubt their miscalculation of the severity of the struggle was almost childish. When Parliament met in the autumn of 1776--_i.e._, after the Declaration of Independence had gone forth to the world--it was held out in the King's speech that another campaign would be sufficient to end the war, while in spite of all the warnings of the Opposition, they persisted in blinding themselves to the force of the temptations which must inevitably bring down France, if not Spain, into the lists against them, until the treaties of these powers with America were actually concluded. The forces sent out were miserably inadequate for a war on so large a scale--"too many to make peace, too few to make war," as Lord Chatham told the Ministry. When for once a really considerable force was sent out under Burgoyne, it failed for want of timely coöperation by Howe, and this failure is stated, by Lord Shelburne, to have arisen from Lord George Germain's not having had patience to wait after signing the despatch to Burgoyne, till that to Howe had been fair-copied; so that instead of going out together, the second, owing to further mischances, did not leave till some time later. The English generals complained almost as bitterly as the American of the want of adequate reënforcements, and the best of them, Sir Henry Clinton, is found writing (1779) in a strain which might be mistaken for Washington's of his spirits being "worn out" by the difficulties of his position. But no mistakes in the management of the war by British statesmen can account for their ultimate failure. However great British mismanagement may have been, it was far surpassed by American. Until Robert Morris took the finances in hand, the administration of them was beneath not only contempt but conception. There was nothing on the British side equal to that caricature of a recruiting system, in which different bounties were offered by Congress, by the States, by the separate towns, as to make it the interest of the intending soldier to delay enlistment as long as possible in order to sell himself to the highest bidder; to that caricature of a war establishment the main bulk of which broke up every twelvemonth in front of the enemy, which was only paid, if at all, in worthless paper, and left almost habitually without supplies.