ps for the defence of New York, the peremptory detachment
of ten battalions to Canada, in addition to previous details,
persistently foiled every preparation to meet Howe with an adequate
force. Regiments from Connecticut and from other colonies reported with
a strength of only three hundred and sixty men. While the "paper
strength" of the army was far beyond its effective force, even the
"paper strength" was but one half of the force which the
Commander-in-chief had the right to assume as at his disposal.

Other facts fall in line just here.

At no later period of the war did either commander have under his
immediate control so large a nominal force as then. During but one year
of the succeeding struggle did the entire British army, from Halifax to
the West Indies inclusive (including foreign and provincial
auxiliaries), exceed, by more than seven thousand men, the force which
occupied both sides of the New York Narrows in 1776. The British Army at
that time, without its foreign contingent, would have been as inferior
to the force which had been ordered by Congress (and should have been
available) as the depleted American army of 1781 would have been
inferior to the British without the French contingent.

The largest continental force under arms, in any one year of the war,
did not greatly exceed forty thousand men, and the largest British
force, as late as 1781, including all arrivals, numbered, all told, but
forty-two thousand and seventy-five men.

The annual British average, including provincials, ranged from
thirty-three to thirty-eight thousand men. The physical agencies which
Great Britain employed were;, therefore, far beneath the prestige of her
accredited position among the nations; and the disparity between the
contending forces was mainly in discipline and equipment, with the
advantage to Great Britain in naval strength, until that was supplanted
by that of France.

To free the question from a popular fallacy which treats oldtime
operations as insignificant, in view of large modern armies and
campaigns, it is pertinent to state, just here, that the issues of the
battle-field for all time, up to the latest hour, have not been
determined by the size of armies, or by improvements in weapons of war,
except relatively, in proportion as civilized peoples fought those of
less civilization; or where some precocity of race or invention more
quickly matured the operations of the winning side.

If the maxims of