cely one of the inhabitants joined them, while numbers were daily
flocking to the royal army to make their peace and obtain protection.
They saw on the one side a numerous, well-appointed, and full-clad army,
dazzling their eyes with their elegance of uniforms; on the other a few
poor fellows who, from their shabby clothing, were called ragamuffins,
fleeing for their safety. Not only the common people changed sides in
this gloomy state of public affairs, but some of the leading men in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania adopted the same expedient.'

"Yet it is scarcely just to the Americans to ascribe, with Dr. Ramsay,
their change of sides to nothing beyond their change of fortune. May we
not rather believe that a feeling of concern at the separation, hitherto
suppressed in terror, was now first freely avowed--that in New Jersey,
and not in New Jersey alone, an active and bold minority had been able
to overrule numbers much larger, but more quiescent and complying?

"Another remark made by the same historian might, as history shows, be
extended to other times and countries besides his own. The men who had
been the vainest braggarts, the loudest blusterers in favour of
independence, were now the first to veer around or to slink away. This
remark, which Dr. Ramsay makes only four years afterwards, is fully
confirmed by other documents of earlier date, but much later
publication, by the secret correspondence of the time. Thus writes the
Adjutant-General: 'Some of our Philadelphia gentlemen, who came over on
visits, upon the first cannon went off in a violent hurry. Your noisy
Sons of Liberty are, I find, the quietest in the field.' Thus again
Washington, with felicitous expression, points a paragraph at the
'chimney-corner heroes.'

"At this period the effective force under Washington had dwindled down
to four thousand men.

"The Congress at this juncture, like most other public assemblies,
seemed but slightly affected by the dangers which as yet were not close
upon them. On the 11th of December they passed some resolutions
contradicting, as false and malicious, a report that they intended to
remove from Philadelphia. They declared that they had a higher opinion
of the good people of these States than to suppose such a measure
requisite, and that they would not leave the city of Philadelphia
'unless the last necessity shall direct it.' These resolutions were
transmitted by the President to Washington, with a request that he wo