ceive yourselves bound to do
something, and the genius of ill-fortune told you, that you must write.

For my own part, I have not put pen to paper these several months.
Convinced of our superiority by the issue of every campaign, I was
inclined to hope, that that which all the rest of the world now see,
would become visible to you, and therefore felt unwilling to ruffle your
temper by fretting you with repetitions and discoveries. There have been
intervals of hesitation in your conduct, from which it seemed a pity to
disturb you, and a charity to leave you to yourselves. You have often
stopped, as if you intended to think, but your thoughts have ever been
too early or too late.

There was a time when Britain disdained to answer, or even hear
a petition from America. That time is past and she in her turn is
petitioning our acceptance. We now stand on higher ground, and offer
her peace; and the time will come when she, perhaps in vain, will ask
it from us. The latter case is as probable as the former ever was. She
cannot refuse to acknowledge our independence with greater obstinacy
than she before refused to repeal her laws; and if America alone could
bring her to the one, united with France she will reduce her to the
other. There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other
passion; whenever it fails it never recovers, but either breaks like
iron, or crumbles sulkily away like a fractured arch. Most other
passions have their periods of fatigue and rest; their suffering and
their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is
mortal. You have already begun to give it up, and you will, from the
natural construction of the vice, find yourselves both obliged and
inclined to do so.

If you look back you see nothing but loss and disgrace. If you look
forward the same scene continues, and the close is an impenetrable
gloom. You may plan and execute little mischiefs, but are they worth the
expense they cost you, or will such partial evils have any effect on the
general cause? Your expedition to Egg Harbor, will be felt at a distance
like an attack upon a hen-roost, and expose you in Europe, with a sort
of childish frenzy. Is it worth while to keep an army to protect you
in writing proclamations, or to get once a year into winter quarters?
Possessing yourselves of towns is not conquest, but convenience, and
in which you will one day or other be trepanned. Your retreat from
Philadelphia, was only a time