Washington had but twenty-two hundred men under his command when he crossed the river; and two days afterward, in consequence of the expiration of the term of service of a portion of these, he had but seventeen hundred--indeed, not more than one thousand on whom he could rely. The proclamation of General Howe, mentioned on page 308, vol. i., [[November 30, 1776]] had been circulated freely in the Jerseys since the day of its publication, and had produced wide-spread disaffection to the patriot cause. * New Jersey was now in possession of a victorious enemy, and nothing but the feeble barrier of the Delaware lay between Cornwallis and his well-disciplined army, and Philadelphia, the Federal capital, where Congress was in session. The public treasury was exhausted, and the Congress bills of credit were beginning to be looked upon with suspicion and disfavor. Hourly the American army was melting away, and despondency was brooding over every patriot's mind. Clouds and darkness were gathering thick on every side. The campaign had been little else than a series of discomfitures, ** and the inefficient provisions made by Congress for keeping up an army were manifest to all. Distrust of Congress and of the army began to prevail in all minds, and the sun of American liberty seemed about to set amid the clouds of hopeless despair. Yet Washington was firm and undaunted. His faith in the ultimate triumph of the Americans seems never to have burned with a brighter and steadier light than at this dark moment. Although December frosts were rapidly preparing a bridge over which the enemy might cross the Delaware and march triumphantly to the conquest of Philadelphia and all Pennsylvania, yet he was calm, determined, hopeful. When asked what he would do if Philadelphia should be taken, he replied, "We will retreat beyond the Susquehanna River, and thence, if necessary, to the Alleghany Mountains." While there was a shadow of an army in the field--while Congress maintained its sittings and unity--while a single ray of hope for success remained, no thought of abandoning the righteous cause was harbored in the mind of that great and good man. Already, in the very darkest hour, he * Among the prominent men who had espoused the Republican cause at the commencement and now abandoned it, was Tucker, president of the New Jersey convention which had sanctioned the Declaration of Independence, and Joseph Galloway, a member of the first Continental Congress. For ten days after the issuing of the proclamation, two or three hundred persons a day came in to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown. Their disappointment is mentioned on page 308, vol. i.