It was bad enough in
his time, but he did not live to see Virginia with her wasted and
exhausted lands stand still, while her sister States to the north
passed her with giant strides in the race for wealth and population.
He did not live to see her become, as a result of her colonial system,
a mere breeder of slaves for the plantations of the Gulf States. But
he saw enough, and the lesson taught him by the results of industrial
dependence was well learned.
When the war came and he was carrying the terrible burden of the
Revolution, he learned the same lesson in a new and more bitter way.
Nothing went so near to wreck the American cause as lack of all the
supplies by which war was carried on, for the United States produced
little or nothing of what was then needed. The resources of the
northern colonies were soon exhausted, and the South had none. Powder,
cannon, muskets, clothing, medical stores, all were lacking, and the
fate of the nation hung trembling in the balance on account of the
dependence in which the colonies had been kept by the skillful policy
of England. These were teachings that a lesser man than Washington
would have taken to heart and pondered deeply. In the midst of the
struggle he wrote to James Warren (March 31, 1779): "Let vigorous
measures be adopted, ... to punish speculators, forestallers, and
extortioners, and, above all, to sink the money by heavy taxes,
to promote public and private economy, and _to encourage
manufactures_.
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