he remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at
Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise
at that time, which the presence of Mr. Washington chilled into cold
defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which
his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of
inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March
1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more
advantageous position at New York.

The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General
Washington, when the enemy had a less force than in any other future
period of the war, and the injudicious choice of positions taken by
him in the campaign of 1776, when the enemy had its greatest force,
necessarily produced the losses and misfortunes that marked that gloomy
campaign. The positions taken were either islands or necks of land.
In the former, the enemy, by the aid of their ships, could bring their
whole force against apart of General Washington's, as in the affair
of Long Island; and in the latter, he might be shut up as in the bottom
of a bag. This had nearly been the case at New York, and it was so in
part; it was actually the case at Fort Washington; and it would have
been the case at Fort Lee, if General Greene had not moved precipitately
off, leaving every thing behind, and by gaining Hackinsack bridge, got
out of the bag of Bergen Neck. How far Mr. Washington, as General, is
blameable for these matters, I am not undertaking to determine; but they
are evidently defects in military geography. The successful skirmishes
at the close of that campaign, (matters that would scarcely be noticed
in a better state of things,) make the brilliant exploits of General
Washington's seven campaigns. No wonder we see so much pusillanimity in
the President, when we see so little enterprise in the General!

The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by anything on the part of
General Washington, but by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the
army under his command, by the Northern army at Saratoga, under General
Gates. So totally distinct and unconnected were the two armies of
Washington and Gates, and so independent was the latter of the authority
of the nominal Commander in Chief, that the two Generals did not so much
as correspond, and it was only by a letter of General (since Governor)
Clinton, that General Washington was informed of that eve