George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

To the agent Washington confided a statement of the condition of the country; and with dignity and candor avowed that it had reached a crisis out of which it could not rise by its own unassisted strength. ‘Without an immediate, ample, and efficacious succor in money,’ such were his words, ‘we may make a feeble and expiring effort in our next campaign, in all probability the period of our opposition. Next to a loan of money, a constant naval superiority on these coasts is the object most interesting;’ and without exaggeration he explained the rapid advancement of his country in population and prosperity, and the certainty of its redeeming in a short term of years the comparatively inconsiderable debts it might have occasion to contract. To Franklin he wrote in the same strain; and Lafayette addressed a like memorial of ripe wisdom to Vergennes.

While the United States thus importuned a foreign prince for help, their people, in proportion to numbers, was richer than the people to whose king from their own want of government they were obliged to appeal. Can France organize its resources, and are the people of the republican America incapable of doing so? Can monarchy alone give to a nation unity? Is freedom necessarily anarchical? Can liberty not administer and rule? Are authority and the hopes of humanity for ever at variance? Can Louis the Sixteenth have revenues, armies, and fleets; and are American statesmen powerless to bring out the resources