The desperate state of our arms
abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I
love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor.
I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that
the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I
venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your armies in the last
war effected everything that could be effected; and what was it? It cost
a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, a long and
laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French
America. My lords, you cannot conquer America.
What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we
know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much.
Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern force, the
best-appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William
Howe, has retired from the American lines. As to conquest, I repeat, it
is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more
extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or
borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that
sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your
efforts are forever vain and impotent--doubly so from this mercenary aid
on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds
of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and
plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling
cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign
troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my
arms--never--never--never.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257