And, Sir, I do not hesitate to confess that, " if I could, by any manoeuvre, remove an enemy " from a very advantageous position, without hazard- " ing the consequences of an attack, where the point "to be carried was not adequate to the loss of men to " be expected from the enterprise, I should certainly " adopt that cautionary conduct, in the hopes of "meeting my adversary upon more equal terms." '
The careful student of that portion of the history of our own country which relates to the Campaign in Westchester-county, in 1776, will arise from the examination of it with the words on his lips which the Apostle Paul employed, in another connection : " God " hath chosen the foolish things of the world to con- " found the wise, and God hath chosen the weake "things of the world, to confound the mighty things,
and vile things of the world, and things which are " despised, hath God chosen, and things which are ' not, to bring to nought things that are."^
^t>prech of Geueral Howe before the Committee of the House of Commniit, April 29, 1779 -- .Mmon's Pnrliameiitary Beijitler, Fifth Session, Fuurteentb Parliament of Great Britain, xii.,324.
S<*, also, The N<irmlire of Sir Witluim Hotce, G, 7.
2 The Seire Tettatieiit, Genevan Version, Edit. London : 159-3, 1 Corinth- Una, i. , 27,
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS DURING THE COLONIAL AND PROVINCIAL PERIODS.
BY J. THOMAS SCHARF, A.M. LL.D.
"The history of nations," said Taine, "is the history of the men who make up nations; it is in the homes of the common people, their daily lives and their ambitions, that we find the motives which actuate the most important national events, revolutionize governments and change the political geography of continents." To no communities could this judicious comment of the keenest of critics be more aptly applied than to those which, derived from all the maritime peoples of Europe, laid broad and deep the stable foundations of Caucasian civilization in North America and erected upon them the impregnable structure of free government.