The economic problems faced by the Congress deeply touched the lives of most Americans in the 1780s. The war had disrupted much of the American economy. On the high seas the BRITISH NAVY had great superiority and destroyed most American ships, crippling the flow of trade. On land, where both armies regularly stole from local farms in order to find food, farmers suffered tremendously.
The plague had an important effect on the relationship between the lords who owned much of the land in Europe and the peasants who worked for the lords.