They suppose Philadelphia to be rich with stores,
and as they think to get more by robbing a town than by attacking an
army, their movement towards this city is probable. We are not now
contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band of thieves,
who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of
conquest than by cruelty.
They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic,
by making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but
unless they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command
of the river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be
stopped with the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded
wherever they have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston
their defeat was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every
skirmish at Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to
retreat, and the instant that our arms were turned upon them in the
Jerseys, they turned likewise, and those that turned not were taken.
The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the
circumstances of the times we live in, is something so strikingly
obvious, that no sufficient objection can be made against it. The
safety of all societies depends upon it; and where this point is not
attended to, the consequences will either be a general languor or a
tumult. The encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any
state, and the suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the
principal objects for which all authority is instituted, and the
line in which it ought to operate.
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