110 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



which the imperfect union between the states entailed 

 upon the whole country, or for discussing the most 

 proper measures for remedying this condition of affairs 

 through the establishment of a more perfect union. 

 The impossibility of raising a national revenue, save 

 from precarious foreign loans or the wretched expedi- 

 ent of issuing promissory notes without any discover- 

 able means of paying them, was a source of perpetual 

 anxiety to the commander-in-chief. The consequences 

 of this poverty were daily brought home to his head- 

 quarters in the difficulty of enlisting troops, or of sup- 

 plying them with clothing and ammunition, or of 

 paying them even a small instalment of wages over- 

 due. At the end of the war there was no one who 

 could have told better than Hamilton how hard it had 

 sometimes proved to keep the army from melting away, 

 or how many times some promising military scheme 

 had been nipped in the bud for want of supplies, while 

 men in Congress and in the state legislatures were 

 wondering why Washington could not march without 

 shoes, sup without food, fight without powder, and 

 defeat a well-equipped and well-fed enemy that out- 

 numbered him two to one. No one understood better 

 than Hamilton that, but for the radical want of 

 efficiency in the government of the confederation, 

 such obstacles would have been far less formidable, 

 and the enemy might much sooner have been driven 

 from the country. No doubt the daily intercourse for 

 four years between Washington and his confidential 

 aide added much to the strength of both, and to the 

 effectiveness with which they were afterward able to 

 reenforce one another in contributing to found a better 



c5 



government. Almost from the outset Washington 



