r not to diminish such efforts as might be made by the
Americans themselves. On July 10th of that year, with New York and
Charleston still in British hands, Washington writes: 'That spirit of
freedom which at the commencement of the contest would have gladly
sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since
subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place.' But, indeed,
the mere fact that from the date of the battle of Monmouth (July 28th,
1778), Washington was never supplied with sufficient means, even with
the assistance of the French fleets and troops, to strike one blow at
the English in New York--though these were but very sparingly reinforced
during the period--shows an absence of public spirit, one might almost
say of national shame, scarcely conceivable, and in singular contrast
with the terrible earnestness exhibited on both sides, some eighty years
later, in the Secession War."

"INCAPACITY OF ENGLISH GENERALS IN AMERICA.

"Why, then, must we ask on the other side, did the English fail at last?

"The English were prone to attribute their ill success to the
incompetency of their generals. Lord North, with his quaint humour,
would say, 'I do not know whether our generals will frighten the enemy,
but I know they frighten me whenever I think of them.' When, in 1778,
Lord Carlisle came out as Commissioner, in a letter speaking of the
great scale of all things in America, he says, 'We have nothing on a
great scale with us but our blunders, our losses, our disgraces and
misfortunes.' No doubt, it is difficult to account for Gage's early
blunders; for Howe's repeated failure to follow up his own success, or
profit by his enemy's weakness; and Cornwallis's movement, justly
censured by Sir Henry Clinton, in transferring the bulk of his army from
the far south to Virginia, within marching distance of Washington,
opened the way to that crowning disaster at Yorktown, without which it
is by no means impossible that Georgia and the Carolinas might have
remained British."

"INEFFECTIVE MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS IN AMERICA.

"Political incapacity was, of course, charged upon Ministers as another
cause of disaster; and no doubt their miscalculation of the severity of
the struggle was almost childish. But no mistakes in the management of
the war by British statesmen can account for their ultimate failure.
However great British mismanagement may have been, it was far surpassed
by the Americans. The