The General was necessarily led, therefore, to concentrate whatever of supplies he had, at the White Plains ; to request and entreat that every possible exertion should be made to have large quantities of Provisions carried to the interior parts of the country, out of the reach of the enemy, and with the utmost expedition ; and to inform the Commissary-general of the Army that a failure to effect these would, he feared, he was certain, be productive of the fatal consequences attending on mutiny and plunder, adding, significantly, " indeed, the latter " will be authorized by necessity." 2

With such testimony as this, and there is an abundance of other testimony which is even stronger in its terms, the honest historian of these events finds great difficulty in reconciling the facts with the persistent assertion that the War of the Revolution was originated by the great body of the Colonists arising, en masse, for the protection of their several properties aud homes and families from outrages threatened or inflicted by a foreign tyrant; that it was conducted by that same great body of people, through agencies of its own appointment and under its control, always unselfishly and with nothing else than the common weal in view ; and that the willing hands and the patriotic hearts of the entire body of the people were in accord with the patriotism of the Army which it had created, which it was sustaining with all which it possessed, and on which, alone, all its hopes for security, for happiness, for prosperity, and for peace, were rested. Surely, where mutiny and plundering were officially threatened in default of