Your authority in the
Jerseys is now reduced to the small circle which your army occupies,
and your proclamation is no where else seen unless it be to be laughed
at. The mighty subduers of the continent have retreated into a
nutshell, and the proud forgivers of our sins are fled from those they
came to pardon; and all this at a time when they were despatching
vessel after vessel to England with the great news of every day. In
short, you have managed your Jersey expedition so very dexterously,
that the dead only are conquerors, because none will dispute the
ground with them.
In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had
only armies to contend with; in this case you have both an army and
a country to combat with. In former wars, the countries followed the
fate of their capitals; Canada fell with Quebec, and Minorca with Port
Mahon or St. Phillips; by subduing those, the conquerors opened a
way into, and became masters of the country: here it is otherwise;
if you get possession of a city here, you are obliged to shut
yourselves up in it, and can make no other use of it, than to spend
your country's money in. This is all the advantage you have drawn from
New York; and you would draw less from Philadelphia, because it
requires more force to keep it, and is much further from the sea. A
pretty figure you and the Tories would cut in this city, with a
river full of ice, and a town full of fire; for the immediate
consequence of your getting here would be, that you would be
cannonaded out again, and the Tories be obliged to make good the
damage; and this sooner or later will be the fate of New York.
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