The situation of America did not require these desperate measures. The
British general would be compelled to risk a battle on equal terms, or
to manifest a conscious inferiority to the American army. The
depreciation of paper money was the inevitable consequence of immense
emissions without corresponding taxes. It was by removing the cause,
not by sacrificing the army, that this evil was to be corrected.

Washington possessed too much discernment to be dazzled by the false
brilliant presented by those who urged the necessity of storming
Philadelphia, in order to throw lustre round his own fame, and that of
his army; and too much firmness of temper, too much virtue and real
patriotism, to be diverted from a purpose believed to be right, by the
clamours of faction or the discontents of ignorance. Disregarding the
importunities of mistaken friends, the malignant insinuations of
enemies, and the expectations of the ill-informed; he persevered in
his resolution to make no attempt on Philadelphia. He saved his army,
and was able to keep the field in the face of his enemy; while the
clamour of the moment wasted in air, and is forgotten.

The opinion that Sir William Howe meditated an attack on the American
camp, was not ill founded. Scarcely had Lord Cornwallis returned to
Philadelphia, and Greene to the American army, when unquestionable
intelligence was received that the British general was preparing to
march out in full strength, with the avowed object of forcing
Washington from his position, and driving him beyond the mountains.

[Sidenote: General Howe marches out to Chestnut Hill.]

On the 4th of December, Captain M'Lane, a vigilant officer on the
lines, discovered that an attempt to surprise the American camp at