"He had faced," says Henry Cabot Lodge, in his interesting life of
Washington, "the enemy, the bleak winters, raw soldiers, and all the
difficulties of impecunious government, with a cheerful courage that
never failed. But the spectacle of wide-spread popular demoralization,
of selfish scramble for plunder, and of feeble administration at the
centre of government, weighed upon him heavily." And all this at the
period of the French alliance, which it was thought would soon end the
war. Indeed, hostilities were practically over at the North, and hence
the public lassitude. Nearly two years had passed without an
important battle.

When Clinton saw that no hope remained of subduing the Americans, the
British government should have made peace and recognized the
independence of the States. But the obstinacy of the king of England was
phenomenal, and his ministers were infatuated. They could not reconcile
themselves to the greatness of their loss. Their hatred of the rebels
was too bitter for reason to conquer. Hitherto the contest had not been
bloody nor cruel. Few atrocities had been committed, except by the
rancorous Tories, who slaughtered and burned without pity, and by the
Indians who were paid by the British government. Prisoners, on the
whole, had been humanely treated by both the contending armies, although
the British prison-ships of New York and their "thousand martyrs" have
left a dark shadow on the annals of the time. Neither in Boston nor New
York nor Philadelphia had the inhabitants uttered loud complaints
against the soldiers who had successively occupied their houses, and who
had lived as comfortably and peaceably as soldiers in English garrison
towns. Some villages had been burned, but few people had been
massacred. More inhumanity was exhibited by both Greeks and Turks in the
Greek Revolution in one month than by the forces engaged during the
whole American war. The prime minister of England, Lord North, was the