ing the continent. It is a
discredit in them to attempt it, and in us to suffer it. It is now full
time to put an end to a war of aggravations, which, on one side, has
no possible object, and on the other has every inducement which honor,
interest, safety and happiness can inspire. If we suffer them much
longer to remain among us, we shall become as bad as themselves.
An association of vice will reduce us more than the sword. A nation
hardened in the practice of iniquity knows better how to profit by it,
than a young country newly corrupted. We are not a match for them in the
line of advantageous guilt, nor they for us on the principles which we
bravely set out with. Our first days were our days of honor. They have
marked the character of America wherever the story of her wars are told;
and convinced of this, we have nothing to do but wisely and unitedly to
tread the well known track. The progress of a war is often as ruinous
to individuals, as the issue of it is to a nation; and it is not only
necessary that our forces be such that we be conquerors in the end,
but that by timely exertions we be secure in the interim. The present
campaign will afford an opportunity which has never presented itself
before, and the preparations for it are equally necessary, whether
Charleston stand or fall. Suppose the first, it is in that case only
a failure of the enemy, not a defeat. All the conquest that a besieged
town can hope for, is, not to be conquered; and compelling an enemy
to raise the siege, is to the besieged a victory. But there must be
a probability amounting almost to a certainty, that would justify a
garrison marching out to attack a retreat. Therefore should Charleston
not be taken, and the enemy abandon the siege, every other part of the
continent should prepare to meet them; and, on the contrary, should it
be taken, the same preparations are necessary to balance the loss, and
put ourselves in a position to co-operate with our allies, immediately
on their arrival.

We are not now fighting our battles alone, as we were in 1776; England,
from a malicious disposition to America, has not only not declared war
against France and Spain, but, the better to prosecute her passions
here, has afforded those powers no military object, and avoids them,
to distress us. She will suffer her West India islands to be overrun by
France, and her southern settlements to be taken by Spain, rather than
quit the object that gratifies her rev