fortable rest in a
natural and common way), have decreased near two thousand men.

We find gentlemen, without knowing whether the army was really
going into winter-quarters or not (for I am sure no resolution of
mine would warrant the Remonstrance), reprobating the measure as
much as if they thought the soldiers were made of stocks or stones
and equally insensible of frost and snow; and moreover, as if they
conceived it easily practicable for an inferior army, under the
disadvantages I have described ours to be, which are by no
means exaggerated, to confine a superior one, in all respects
well-appointed and provided for a winter's campaign within the
city of Philadelphia, and to cover from depredation and waste the
States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes this matter
still more extraordinary in my eye is, that these very
gentlemen,--who were well apprized of the nakedness of the troops
from ocular demonstration, who thought their own soldiers worse
clad than others, and who advised me near a month ago to postpone
the execution of a plan I was about to adopt, in consequence of a
resolve of Congress for seizing clothes, under strong assurances
that an ample supply would be collected in ten days agreeably to a
decree of the State (not one article of which, by the by, is yet
come to hand)--should think a winter's campaign, and the covering
of these States from the invasion of an enemy, so easy and
practicable a business. I can assure those gentlemen, that it is a
much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a
comfortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak
hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets.
However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked
and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and,
from my soul, I pity those miseries, which it is neither in my
power to relieve or prevent.

It is for these reasons, therefore, that I have dwelt upon the
subject, and it adds not a little to my other difficulties and
distress to find, that much more is expected of me than is
possible to be performed, and that upon the ground of safety and
policy I am obliged to conceal the true state of the army
from public view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and
calumny.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fo