f the campaign, he had suffered greatly from the want of
cavalry, of artillery, and of engineers. His ideas on these important
subjects had been already stated to congress, and were now reurged.
With respect to the additional expense to be incurred by the measures
recommended, he observed, "that our funds were not the only object now
to be taken into consideration. The enemy, it was found, were daily
gathering strength from the disaffected. This strength, like a snow
ball by rolling, would increase, unless some means should be devised
to check effectually the progress of their arms. Militia might
possibly do it for a little while; but in a little while also, the
militia of those states which were frequently called upon would not
turn out at all, or would turn out with so much reluctance and sloth,
as to amount to the same thing. Instance New Jersey! Witness
Pennsylvania! Could any thing but the river Delaware have saved
Philadelphia?

"Could any thing," he asked, "be more destructive of the recruiting
business than giving ten dollars bounty for six weeks service in the
militia, who come in, you can not tell how; go, you can not tell when;
and act, you can not tell where; who consume your provisions, exhaust
your stores, and leave you at last in a critical moment.

"These, sir," he added, "are the men I am to depend upon ten days
hence. This is the basis upon which your cause will rest, and must for
ever depend, until you get a large standing army sufficient of itself
to oppose the enemy."

[Illustration: Washington Crossing the Delaware

_From the painting by Emanuel Leutze, in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York City._

_On December 8, 1776, following his retreat across New Jersey, with
the British army under Cornwallis pressing him closely, Washington
transported his army of 6,000 men across the Delaware into
Pennsylvania and to safety. He had seized all the boats within seventy
miles, leaving Cornwallis to wait until the river froze over before he
could follow._

_In recrossing the Delaware (as here depicted) to strike the British
at Trenton, Washington executed the most brilliant military maneuver
of his career._

_In his sesquicentennial address delivered at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, July 3, 1925, President Coolidge related this incident
which gives us Cornwallis's estimate of the importance of the Trenton
victory:_

"It is recorded that a few evenings after the surrender of
Lord Cornwall