colonial army blockading it was able to
maintain its position, because ships laden with stores for the one
were captured, and the cargoes diverted to the use of the other. To
secure free and ample communications for one's self, and to interrupt
those of the opponent, are among the first requirements of war. To
carry out the measures of the British government a naval force
was needed, which not only should protect the approach of its own
transports to Boston Bay, but should prevent access to all coast ports
whence supplies could be carried to the blockading army. So far from
this, the squadron was not equal, in either number or quality, to the
work to be done about Boston; and it was not until October, 1775, that
the Admiral was authorized to capture colonial merchant vessels, which
therefore went and came unmolested, outside of Boston, carrying often
provisions which found their way to Washington's army.

After evacuating Boston, General Howe retired to Halifax, there to
await the coming of reinforcements, both military and naval, and of
his brother, Vice-Admiral Lord Howe, appointed to command the North
American Station. General Howe was commander-in-chief of the forces
throughout the territory extending from Nova Scotia to West Florida;
from Halifax to Pensacola. The first operation of the campaign was to
be the reduction of New York.

The British government, however, had several objects in view, and
permitted itself to be distracted from the single-minded prosecution
of one great undertaking to other subsidiary operations, not always
concentric. Whether the control of the line of the Hudson and Lake
Champlain ought to have been sought through operations beginning at
both ends, is open to argument; the facts that the Americans were back
in Crown Point in the beginning of July, 1776, and that Carleton's
13,000 men got no farther than St. John's that year, suggest that the
greater part of the latter force would have been better employed in
New York and New Jersey than about Champlain. However that may be, the
diversion to the Carolinas of a third body, respectable in point
of numbers, is scarcely to be defended on military grounds. The
government was induced to it by the expectation of local support from
royalists. That there were many of these in both Carolinas is
certain; but while military operations must take account of political
conditions, the latter should not be allowed to overbalance elementary
principles of