The dark days of the infant republic of America had now come. The enemy, everywhere victorious, had overrun, though he could not subdue, a large portion of the land, and lorded it over some of our capitals. The paper currency, that last and most fatal of all the expedients of despair, was fast depreciating into a mere nominal value; the resources of the country were either exhausted, or could not be procured for such a worthless equivalent; the little waning army, suffering under the privation of almost every necessary of life, and every means of warfare, was struggling without hope, and the cradle of the infant Liberty seemed on the eve of becoming its grave.