The recent defeat at Camden was a crushing blow.

Congress was inept and had in it men, as the patient General Greene said, "without principles, honor or modesty." The coming of the British fleet was a new and overwhelming discouragement, and, on the 18th of September, Washington left West Point for a long ride to Hartford in Connecticut, half way between the two headquarters, there to take counsel with the French general.

Rochambeau, it was said, had been purposely created to understand Washington, but as yet the two leaders had not met.

It is the simple truth that Washington had to go to the French as a beggar.
Rochambeau said later that Washington was afraid to reveal the extent of his distress.

He had to ask for men and for ships, but he had also to ask for what a proud man dislikes to ask, for money from the stranger who had come to help him.
The Hudson had long been the chief object of Washington's anxiety and now it looked as if the British intended some new movement up the river, as indeed they did.