The preparations made to defend New York were, nevertheless, wise
and military; because your forces were then at sea, their numbers
uncertain; storms, sickness, or a variety of accidents might have
disabled their coming, or so diminished them on their passage, that
those which survived would have been incapable of opening the campaign
with any prospect of success; in which case the defence would have
been sufficient and the place preserved; for cities that have been
raised from nothing with an infinitude of labor and expense, are not
to be thrown away on the bare probability of their being taken. On
these grounds the preparations made to maintain New York were as
judicious as the retreat afterwards. While you, in the interim, let
slip the very opportunity which seemed to put conquest in your power.
Through the whole of that campaign you had nearly double the
forces which General Washington immediately commanded. The principal
plan at that time, on our part, was to wear away the season with as
little loss as possible, and to raise the army for the next year. Long
Island, New York, Forts Washington and Lee were not defended after
your superior force was known under any expectation of their being
finally maintained, but as a range of outworks, in the attacking of
which your time might be wasted, your numbers reduced, and your vanity
amused by possessing them on our retreat. It was intended to have
withdrawn the garrison from Fort Washington after it had answered
the former of those purposes, but the fate of that day put a prize
into your hands without much honor to yourselves.
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