e been the same, but there would have been some
bloody fighting before that end was reached. The explanation of the
feeble abandonment of Boston lies in the stupidity of the English
government, which had sown the wind and then proceeded to handle the
customary crop with equal fatuity.

There were plenty of great men in England, but they were not
conducting her government or her armies. Lord Sandwich had declared
in the House of Lords that all "Yankees were cowards," a simple and
satisfactory statement, readily accepted by the governing classes, and
flung in the teeth of the British soldiers as they fell back twice
from the bloody slopes of Bunker Hill. Acting on this pleasant idea,
England sent out as commanders of her American army a parcel of
ministerial and court favorites, thoroughly second-rate men, to whom
was confided the task of beating one of the best soldiers and hardest
fighters of the century. Despite the enormous material odds in favor
of Great Britain, the natural result of matching the Howes and Gages
and Clintons against George Washington ensued, and the first lesson
was taught by the evacuation of Boston.

Washington did not linger over his victory. Even while the British
fleet still hung about the harbor he began to send troops to New York
to make ready for the next attack. He entered Boston in order to see
that every precaution was taken against the spread of the smallpox,
and then prepared to depart himself. Two ideas, during his first
winter of conflict, had taken possession of his mind, and undoubtedly
influenced profoundly his future course. One was the conviction that
the struggle must be fought out to the bitter end, and must bring
either subjugation or complete independence. He wrote in February:
"With respect to myself, I have never entertained an idea of an
accommodation, since I heard of the measures which were adopted in
consequence of the Bunker's Hill fight;" and at an earlier date he
said: "I hope my countrymen (of Virginia) will rise superior to any
losses the whole navy of Great Britain can bring on them, and that the
destruction of Norfolk and threatened devastation of other places
will have no other effect than to unite the whole country in one
indissoluble band against a nation which seems to be lost to every
sense of virtue and those feelings which distinguish a civilized
people from the most barbarous savages." With such thoughts he
sought to make Congress appreciate the probabl