We are not insensible that Bancroft, (History of the United States, original edition, ix. 177 ; centenary edition, 1876, v., 441,) said it was as early as his fifth day on Throgg's-neck, that General Howe "gave up the hope of "getting directly in Washington's rear;" and that, in consequence of that disappointment and at that time, " he resolved to strike at White *• Plains." Little credit is given to General Howe and the very able Officers whom he commanded, by any one who can really suppose they would open a Campaign, or even a series of important movements, without having, previously, formed a plan, as carefully and as intelligently constructed as possible, for the general guidance of the operations of the Army ; and if from nothing else, the selection of Tarrytown and New Rochelle-harbor, as the two extremes of the proposed line, while the Army was yet unknown on Throgg's-neck, might have indicated to a less experienced reader than the venerable ex-Secretary of War, that the proposed line from New Rochelle, by way of the White Plains, to Tarrytown, was vastly more, in the military operations of the Royal Army, than a sudden inspiration which sprung up to cheer the disappointed General, when, on the sixteenth of October, the latter is alleged to have given up all hope of getting in the rear of the Americans -- the whole of it a finely constructed creation of the venerable historian's peculiarly lively and poetical imagination.

There is an abundance of testimony showing that General Howe's original purpose was to take Tarrytown and New Rochelle, as the extremes of his proposed lines ; and, because the venerable historian did not appear to have been governed by it, preferring, rather, to pay deference to a phantom of his own creation, it must have been that he did not understand it.