tion as he finds himself
unable to the task, he will employ his strength to distress women and
weak minds, in order to accomplish through their fears what he cannot
accomplish by his own force. His coming or attempting to come to
Philadelphia is a circumstance that proves his weakness: for no general
that felt himself able to take the field and attack his antagonist would
think of bringing his army into a city in the summer time; and this mere
shifting the scene from place to place, without effecting any thing,
has feebleness and cowardice on the face of it, and holds him up in a
contemptible light to all who can reason justly and firmly. By several
informations from New York, it appears that their army in general, both
officers and men, have given up the expectation of conquering America;
their eye now is fixed upon the spoil. They suppose Philadelphia to be
rich with stores, and as they think to get more by robbing a town than
by attacking an army, their movement towards this city is probable. We
are not now contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band
of thieves, who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of
conquest than by cruelty.

They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic, by
making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but unless
they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command of the
river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be stopped with
the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded wherever they
have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston their defeat
was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every skirmish at
Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to retreat, and the
instant that our arms were turned upon them in the Jerseys, they turned
likewise, and those that turned not were taken.

The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the circumstances
of the times we live in, is something so strikingly obvious, that no
sufficient objection can be made against it. The safety of all
societies depends upon it; and where this point is not attended to,
the consequences will either be a general languor or a tumult. The
encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any state, and the
suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the principal objects for
which all authority is instituted, and the line in which it ought to
operate. We have in this city a strange vari