Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/324

296 operations were so closely defined and analyzed, that Washington had full right to assume, as known, the strength of his adversary.

When, during May, 1776, the American Congress sent troops from New York to Canada, he sharply protested, thus: "This diversion of forces will endanger both enterprises; for Great Britain will attempt to capture New York as well as Canada, if they have the men." He did not believe that they would capture New York, if he could acquire and retain the force which he demanded.

The point to be made emphatic, is this: That, from the date of the call of Massachusetts, early in 1775, for thirty thousand men, up to the occupation of New York, the force which he had the right to assume as at his own disposal was equal to the contingencies of the conflict; and that, when he did occupy New York, and begin its exterior defences at Brooklyn, the British ministry had admitted its inability to send to America a force sufficiently strong to capture the city. The maximum force proposed was less than that which Congress could easily supply for resistance. In other words, Washington would not have to fight Great Britain, but a specific force; namely, all that Great Britain could spare for that service; so that the issue was not between the new Republic and England, but between the Republic and a single army, of known elements and numbers. In fact, the opinion that France had already made war upon England had so early gained credit, that Washington, while still in New York, was forced to issue an order correcting the rumor, and thus prevent undue confidence and its corresponding neglect to meet the demands of the crisis.

Thus far, it is clear that there was nothing extravagant in the American claim to independence; nor in the readiness of Washington to seize and hold New York; nor in his belief that the colonial resources were equal to the contest.

One other element is of determining value as to the necessity for his occupation and defence of Brooklyn Heights. New York was the only base from which Great Britain could operate against the colonies as an organized State. By Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, her right hand would hold New England under the guns of her warships, and by quick occupation of Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and their tributary streams, her left hand would cut off the South.

If the views of Lord Dartmouth had prevailed, in 1775, there would have been no siege of Boston; but New York would have had a garrison fully equal to its defence, while sparing troops for operations outside. But the prompt occupation of New York, as the headquarters of revolution, was a clear declaration to the world, and to the scattered people of the colonies, that a new nation was asserting life, and that its soil was free from a hostile garrison. The occupation of New York centralized, at the social, commercial, and natural capital of the Republic, all interests and resources, and gave to the struggle real force, inspiration, and dignity.

Just as the men at Bunker Hill fought so long as powder and ball held out, but could not have been led to assail, in open field, the veterans whom they did, in fact, so effectively resist; and, as very often, a patriotic band has bravely defended, when unequal to aggressive action,—so the possession,