e proposed was less than that which Congress could easily supply for
resistance. In other words, Washington would not have to fight Great
Britain, but a specific force; namely, all that Great Britain could
spare for that service; so that the issue was not between the new
Republic and England, but between the Republic and a single army, of
known elements and numbers. In fact, the opinion that France had already
made war upon England had so early gained credit, that Washington, while
still in New York, was forced to issue an order correcting the rumor,
and thus prevent undue confidence and its corresponding neglect to meet
the demands of the crisis.

Thus far, it is clear that there was nothing extravagant in the American
claim to independence; nor in the readiness of Washington to seize and
hold New York; nor in his belief that the colonial resources were equal
to the contest.

One other element is of determining value as to the necessity for his
occupation and defence of Brooklyn Heights. New York was the only base
from which Great Britain could operate against the colonies as an
organized State. By Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, her right
hand would hold New England under the guns of her warships, and by quick
occupation of Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and their tributary streams,
her left hand would cut off the South.

If the views of Lord Dartmouth had prevailed, in 1775, there would have
been no siege of Boston; but New York would have had a garrison fully
equal to its defence, while sparing troops for operations outside. But
the prompt occupation of New York, as the headquarters of revolution,
was a clear declaration to the world, and to the scattered people of the
colonies, that a new nation was asserting life, and that its soil was
free from a hostile garrison. The occupation of New York centralized, at
the social, commercial, and natural capital of the Republic, all
interests and resources, and gave to the struggle real force,
inspiration, and dignity.

Just as the men at Bunker Hill fought so long as powder and ball held
out, but could not have been led to assail, in open field, the veterans
whom they did, in fact, so effectively resist; and, as very often, a
patriotic band has bravely defended, when unequal to aggressive
action,--so the possession, defence, and even the loss, of New York, as
an incident of a campaign, were very different from an effort to wrest
the city from the grasp of a British