ch would attack in front, while the brick
houses would be lined with musketeers, whose first must thin the ranks
of the assailants.

A part of the plan, on the successful execution of which the whole
depended, was, that the British rear should be surprised by the corps
descending the Delaware. This would require the concurrence of too
many favourable circumstances to be calculated on with any confidence.
As the position of General Greene was known, it could not be supposed
that Sir William Howe would be inattentive to him. It was probable
that not even his embarkation would be made unnoticed; but it was
presuming a degree of negligence which ought not to be assumed, to
suppose that he could descend the river to Philadelphia undiscovered.
So soon as his movements should be observed, the whole plan would be
comprehended, since it would never be conjectured that General Greene
was to attack singly.

If the attack in front should fail, which was not even improbable, the
total loss of the two thousand men in the rear must follow; and
General Howe would maintain his superiority through the winter.

The situation of America did not require these desperate measures. The
British general would be compelled to risk a battle on equal terms, or
to manifest a conscious inferiority to the American army. The
depreciation of paper money was the inevitable consequence of immense
emissions without corresponding taxes. It was by removing the cause,
not by sacrificing the army, that this evil was to be corrected.

Washington possessed too much discernment to be dazzled by the false
brilliant presented by those who urged the necessity of storming
Philadelphia, in order to throw lustre round his own fame, and that of
his army; and too much firmness of temper, too much virtue and real
patriotism, to be diverted from a purpose believed to be right, by the
clamours of faction or the discontents of ignorance. Disregarding the
importunities of mistaken friends, the malignant insinuations of
enemies, and the expectations of the ill-informed; he persevered in
his resolution to make no attempt on Philadelphia. He saved his army,
and was able to keep the field in the face of his enemy; while the
clamour of the moment wasted in air, and is forgotten.

The opinion that Sir William Howe meditated an attack on the American
camp, was not ill founded. Scarcely had Lord Cornwallis returned to
Philadelphia, and Greene to the American army, when unquestio