s were only 4,000 strong, it is
difficult to understand how it was that Sir William Howe, with more
than double the number, should have failed to annihilate the American
army."

"WEAKNESS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY.

"In the winter of 1777-78 the 'dreadful situation of the army for want
of provisions,' made Washington 'advise' that they should not have been
excited to a general mutiny and desertion. In May, 1779, he hardly knew
any resource for the American cause _except in reinforcements from
France_, and did not know what might be the consequence if the enemy had
it in their power to press the troops hard in the ensuing campaign. In
December of that year his forces were 'mouldering away daily,' and he
considered that Sir Henry Clinton, with more than twice his numbers,
could 'not justify remaining inactive with a force so superior.' A year
later he was compelled, for want of clothing, to discharge the levies
which he had always so much trouble in obtaining; and 'want of flour
would have disbanded the whole army' if he had not adopted this
expedient.

"In March, 1781, again the crisis was 'perilous,' and though he did not
doubt the happy issue of the contest, he considered that the period for
accomplishment might be too far distant for a person of his years. In
April he wrote: 'We cannot transport provisions from the States in which
they are assessed to the army, because we cannot pay the teamsters, who
will no longer work for certificates. It is equally certain that our
troops are approaching fast to nakedness, and that we have nothing to
clothe them with; that our hospitals are without medicines, and our sick
without nutriment, except such as well men eat; and that all our public
works are at a stand, and the artificers disbanding. * * It may be
declared in a word that we are at the end of our tether, and that now or
never our deliverance must come.' Six months later, when Yorktown
capitulated, the British forces remaining in North America, after the
surrender of that garrison by Cornwallis, were more considerable than
they had been as late as February, 1779, and Sir Henry Clinton even then
declared that with a reinforcement of 10,000 he would be responsible for
the conquest of America.

"_The main hope of success on the English_ side lay in the idea that the
spirit and acts of resistance to the authority of the mother country
were in reality only on the part of a turbulent minority--that the bulk
of the people desi