country to combat with. In former wars, the countries followed the
fate of their capitals; Canada fell with Quebec, and Minorca with
Port Mahon or St. Phillips; by subduing those, the conquerors opened
a way into, and became masters of the country: here it is otherwise;
if you get possession of a city here, you are obliged to shut
yourselves up in it, and can make no other use of it, than to spend
your country's money in. This is all the advantage you have drawn
from New York; and you would draw less from Philadelphia, because it
requires more force to keep it, and is much further from the sea. A
pretty figure you and the Tories would cut in this city, with a river
full of ice, and a town full of fire; for the immediate consequence
of your getting here would be, that you would be cannonaded out
again, and the Tories be obliged to make good the damage; and this
sooner or later will be the fate of New York.

I wish to see the city saved, not so much from military as from
natural motives. 'Tis the hiding place of women and children, and
Lord Howe's proper business is with our armies. When I put all the
circumstances together which ought to be taken, I laugh at your
notion of conquering America. Because you lived in a little country,
where an army might run over the whole in a few days, and where a
single company of soldiers might put a multitude to the rout, you
expected to find it the same here. It is plain that you brought over
with you all the narrow notions you were bred up with, and imagined
that a proclamation in the king's name was to do great things; but
Englishmen always travel for knowledge, and your lordship, I hope,
will return, if you return at all, much wiser than you came.

We may be surprised by events we did not expect, and in that interval
of recollection you may gain some temporary advantage: such was the