THOSE who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men,
undergo the fatigues of supporting it. The event of yesterday was
one of those kind of alarms which is just sufficient to rouse us to
duty, without being of consequence enough to depress our fortitude. It
is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are
defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by
degrees, the consequences will be the same.
Look back at the events of last winter and the present year, there
you will find that the enemy's successes always contributed to
reduce them. What they have gained in ground, they paid so dearly
for in numbers, that their victories have in the end amounted to
defeats. We have always been masters at the last push, and always
shall be while we do our duty. Howe has been once on the banks of
the Delaware, and from thence driven back with loss and disgrace:
and why not be again driven from the Schuylkill? His condition and
ours are very different. He has everybody to fight, we have only his
one army to cope with, and which wastes away at every engagement: we
can not only reinforce, but can redouble our numbers; he is cut off
from all supplies, and must sooner or later inevitably fall into our
hands.
Shall a band of ten or twelve thousand robbers, who are this day
fifteen hundred or two thousand men less in strength than they were
yesterday, conquer America, or subdue even a single state? The thing
cannot be, unless we sit down and suffer them to do it.
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