h.
He who spurns fear, and dares disdain to be,
Mocks chains and wrongs--and is forever free;
While the base coward, never safe, tho' low,
Creeps but to suff'rings, and lives on for woe!_

[_Exeunt GUARDS._

SCENE III. _In the Camp at Cambridge._

_GENERAL WASHINGTON, GENERAL LEE, and GENERAL PUTNAM._

GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Our accounts from the Northward, so far, are very favourable;
Ticonderoga, Chamblee, St. John's and Montreal our troops are already in
possession of--and Colonel Arnold, having penetrated Canada, after
suff'ring much thro' cold, fatigue and want of provisions, is now before
Quebec, and General Montgomery, I understand, is in full march to join
him; see these letters.

[_They read._

GEN. LEE. The brave, the intrepid Arnold, with his handful of fearless
troops, have dar'd beyond the strength of mortals--Their courage smil'd
at doubts, and resolutely march'd on, clamb'ring (to all but themselves)
insurmountable precipices, whose tops, covered with ice and snow, lay
hid in the clouds, and dragging baggage, provisions, ammunition and
artillery along with them, by main strength, in the dead of winter, over
such stupendous and amazing heights, seems almost unparallelled in
history!--'Tis true, Hannibal's march over the Alps comes the nearest to
it--it was a surprising undertaking, but when compar'd to this, appears
but as a party of pleasure, an agreeable walk, a sabbath day's journey.

GEN. PUTNAM. Posterity will stand amazed, and be astonish'd at the
heroes of this new world, that the spirit of patriotism should blaze to
such a height, and eclipse all others, should outbrave fatigue, danger,
pain, peril, famine and even death itself, to serve their country; that
they should march, at this inclement season, thro' long and dreary
deserts, thro' the remotest wilds, covered with swamps and standing
lakes, beset with trees, bushes and briars, impervious to the cheering
rays of the sun, where are no traces or vestiges of human footsteps,
wild, untrodden paths, that strike terror into the fiercest of the brute
creation.

_No bird of song to cheer the gloomy desert!
No animals of gentle love's enliven!_

GEN. LEE. Let Britons do the like--no--they dare not attempt it--let 'em
call forth the Hanoverian, the Hessian, the hardy Ruffian, or, if they
will, the wild Cossac