es of management arising from the distance were
sure to be great, unless a competent commander were to be given
complete authority in the colonies. Then, too, the problem was not one
of conquering cities or single strategic points, or of defeating a
rival state, but of so thoroughly beating down resistance as to lead
the Americans to abandon their revolution and submit to the extinction
of their new-formed confederation. Armies must operate inland from a
seacoast where landing was easy in hundreds of places, but where almost
every step took them into a rough country, ill-provided with roads and
lacking in easily collected supplies. In spite of all advantages of
military power, the problem before the British government was one
calling for the highest forms of military capacity, and this, by an
unexplained ill-fortune, was conspicuously {77} lacking. Not a British
general who commanded in America failed to show fighting ability and
tactical sense, but not one of them possessed the kind of genius which
grasps the true military ends of any campaign and ignores minor points
for the sake of winning decisive advantages. Perhaps it would be
unjust to apply to the British forces in this war the designation won
in 1774--"armies of lions led by asses"; but the analogy is at least
suggested.

Still more serious was the fact that the North Ministry was chosen
mainly on the basis of the willingness of its members to execute the
King's orders and use their influence and parliamentary power and
connections in his behalf. North himself, able as a parliamentarian,
was irresolute in policy, ignorant of war, and careless in
administration; Weymouth and Suffolk, the Secretaries, were of slight
ability; Lord George Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, was
arrogant, careless, and lacking in military insight; Barrington,
Secretary at War, possessed administrative ability, but was without
personal weight in the cabinet; Sandwich at the Admiralty was grossly
inefficient. There was not a single member of the Cabinet fitted to
carry on war, or able to influence George III. For such a body of men
to undertake to direct the operations in America {78} at the distance
of 3,000 miles was a worse blunder than it would have been to commit
the conduct of the war to any one of the generals in the field, however
commonplace his abilities.

On the side of the colonists, the problem of fighting the full power of
England was apparently a desperate o