第31章

Having got you into this situation, a scheme for a general attack upon you at Germantown was carried into execution on the 4th of October, and though the success was not equal to the excellence of the plan, yet the attempting it proved the genius of America to be on the rise, and her power approaching to superiority.The obscurity of the morning was your best friend, for a fog is always favorable to a hunted enemy.Some weeks after this you likewise planned an attack on General Washington while at Whitemarsh.You marched out with infinite parade, but on finding him preparing to attack you next morning, you prudently turned about, and retreated to Philadelphia with all the precipitation of a man conquered in imagination.

Immediately after the battle of Germantown, the probability of Burgoyne's defeat gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania, and it was judged most consistent with the general safety of America, to wait the issue of the northern campaign.Slow and sure is sound work.The news of that victory arrived in our camp on the 18th of October, and no sooner did that shout of joy, and the report of the thirteen cannon reach your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat, and the next day, that is, on the 19th, you withdrew your drooping army into Philadelphia.This movement was evidently dictated by fear; and carried with it a positive confession that you dreaded a second attack.It was hiding yourself among women and children, and sleeping away the choicest part of the campaign in expensive inactivity.An army in a city can never be a conquering army.The situation admits only of defence.It is mere shelter: and every military power in Europe will conclude you to be eventually defeated.

The time when you made this retreat was the very time you ought to have fought a battle, in order to put yourself in condition of recovering in Pennsylvania what you had lost in Saratoga.And the reason why you did not, must be either prudence or cowardice; the former supposes your inability, and the latter needs no explanation.Idraw no conclusions, sir, but such as are naturally deduced from known and visible facts, and such as will always have a being while the facts which produced them remain unaltered.

After this retreat a new difficulty arose which exhibited the power of Britain in a very contemptible light; which was the attack and defence of Mud Island.For several weeks did that little unfinished fortress stand out against all the attempts of Admiral and General Howe.It was the fable of Bender realized on the Delaware.

Scheme after scheme, and force upon force were tried and defeated.The garrison, with scarce anything to cover them but their bravery, survived in the midst of mud, shot and shells, and were at last obliged to give it up more to the powers of time and gunpowder than to military superiority of the besiegers.

It is my sincere opinion that matters are in much worse condition with you than what is generally known.Your master's speech at the opening of Parliament, is like a soliloquy on ill luck.It shows him to be coming a little to his reason, for sense of pain is the first symptom of recovery, in profound stupefaction.His condition is deplorable.He is obliged to submit to all the insults of France and Spain, without daring to know or resent them; and thankful for the most trivial evasions to the most humble remonstrances.The time was when he could not deign an answer to a petition from America, and the time now is when he dare not give an answer to an affront from France.The capture of Burgoyne's army will sink his consequence as much in Europe as in America.In his speech he expresses his suspicions at the warlike preparations of France and Spain, and as he has only the one army which you command to support his character in the world with, it remains very uncertain when, or in what quarter it will be most wanted, or can be best employed; and this will partly account for the great care you take to keep it from action and attacks, for should Burgoyne's fate be yours, which it probably will, England may take her endless farewell not only of all America but of all the West Indies.

Never did a nation invite destruction upon itself with the eagerness and the ignorance with which Britain has done.Bent upon the ruin of a young and unoffending country, she has drawn the sword that has wounded herself to the heart, and in the agony of her resentment has applied a poison for a cure.Her conduct towards America is a compound of rage and lunacy; she aims at the government of it, yet preserves neither dignity nor character in her methods to obtain it.Were government a mere manufacture or article of commerce, immaterial by whom it should be made or sold, we might as well employ her as another, but when we consider it as the fountain from whence the general manners and morality of a country take their rise, that the persons entrusted with the execution thereof are by their serious example an authority to support these principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or invent.What greater public curse can befall any country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing than to be delivered therefrom.The soul of any man of sentiment would rise in brave rebellion against them, and spurn them from the earth.