Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/400

376 upon the army of Washington. But the British general kept himself very quiet, and, after a time, the commander-in-chief felt somewhat relieved of his anxiety on this point.

The feeling in Congress and elsewhere was, that Washington ought to do something more than besiege Boston; murmurs, more or less loud, were heard against the inactivity of the forces; and it was thought strange that Washington did not attack the city. His own impulses urged him to this step, and he called a council of war, early in January, 1776, to consider the expediency of such a movement. The council opposed the plan decidedly, and the commander-in-chief felt obliged to yield; but he yielded unwillingly. "Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us," said he, in a letter written at the time; "could I have known that such backwardness would have been discovered by old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston until this time."

A month later, writing to Joseph Reed, he gives expression to his feelings, under the severe trials and discouragements which had come upon Mm during several months past: "I know the unhappy predicament in which I stand. I know that much is expected from me. I know that, without men, without arms, without ammunition, without any thing fit for the accommodation of a soldier, little is to be done; and what is mortifying, I know that I cannot stand justified to the world without exposing my own weakness, and injuring the cause, by declaring my wants, which I am determined not to do, further than unavoidable necessity brings every man acquainted with them. My situation is so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long ere this have put every thing on the cast of a die. So far from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than half that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed as they should be. In short, my situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use every art to conceal it from my own officers." Well