In the irritable state of the public temper, it was not difficult to produce this opinion.
In addition to the causes of dissatisfaction with Great Britain which have already been suggested, others soon occurred.

Under her auspices, a truce for one year had been lately negotiated between Portugal and the Regency of Algiers, which, by withdrawing a small squadron stationed during the war, by the former power, in the Streights, opened a passage into the Atlantic to the cruisers of the latter.

The capture of American merchantmen, which was the immediate consequence of this measure, was believed, in the United States, to have been its motive.

Not admitting the possibility that a desire to extricate Portugal from a war unproductive of any advantages, and to leave her maritime force free to act elsewhere, could have induced this interposition of England, the Americans ascribed it, exclusively, to that enmity to their commerce, and to that jealousy of its prosperity, which had, as they conceived, long marked the conduct of those who administered the affairs of that nation.
This transaction was afterwards explained by England, and was ascribed to her desire to serve an ally, and to enable that ally to act more efficaciously in a common cause.
[Illustration: George Washington _From the painting by Charles Willson Peale._ _In June, 1783, Washington spent some time in Princeton, New Jersey, whither the Continental Congress had adjourned from Philadelphia in consequence of a mutiny among the unpaid troops stationed there.

On leaving Princeton the American Commander-in-Chief donated 50 guineas to the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.