The fluctuations of numbers in the American army seemed very largely to depend upon its vicinity to endangered sections. Remoteness from the seaboard induced indifference to expenditures for the navy, because British ships could not operate on land; and seaboard towns, which were constantly in peril, insisted upon retaining their able-bodied militia within easy reach, until armed vessels could be built and assigned for their protection. The same unpatriotic principle of human nature affected all supplies of food and clothing. It has already been noticed that Washington was profoundly grieved that country people courted the British markets of New York, and that British gold was of such mighty weight in the balance of “stay-at-home comfort,” against personal experience in some distant camp. Starvation and suffering could not fail to arouse resistance to their constraints. The condition of the army was one of protracted agony. Lafayette wrote home to his wife as follows: “Human patience has its limits. No European army would suffer one-tenth part of what the Americans suffer. It takes citizens, to support hunger, nakedness, toil, and the total want of pay, which constitute the condition of our soldiers,—the hardiest and most patient that are to be found in the world.” Marshall states the case fairly when he asserts that “it was not easy to persuade the military, that their brethren in civil life were unable to make greater exertions in support of the war, or, that its burdens could not be more equally borne.”