their execution, or that interest which belongs to the consequences
that have arisen from them.

The long and distressing contest between Great Britain and these
states did not abound in those great battles which are so frequent in
the wars of Europe. Those who expect a continued succession of
victories and defeats; who can only feel engaged in the movements of
vast armies, and who believe that a Hero must be perpetually in
action, will be disappointed in almost every page of the following
history. Seldom was the American chief in a condition to indulge his
native courage in those brilliant achievements to which he was
stimulated by his own feelings, and a detail of which interests,
enraptures, and astonishes the reader. Had he not often checked his
natural disposition, had he not tempered his ardour with caution, the
war he conducted would probably have been of short duration, and the
United States would still have been colonies. At the head of troops
most of whom were perpetually raw because they were perpetually
changing; who were neither well fed, paid, clothed, nor armed; and who
were generally inferior, even in numbers, to the enemy; he derives no
small title to glory from the consideration, that he never despaired
of the public safety; that he was able at all times to preserve the
appearance of an army, and that, in the most desperate situation of
American affairs, he did not, for an instant, cease to be formidable.
To estimate rightly his worth we must contemplate his difficulties. We
must examine the means placed in his hands, and the use he made of
those means. To preserve an army when conquest was impossible, to
avoid defeat and ruin when victory was unattainable, to keep his
forces embodied and suppress the discontents of his soldiers,
exasperated by a long course of the most cruel privations, to seize
with unerring discrimination the critical moment when vigorous