The stony soil prevented the ditch from being made of any troublesome depth or the parapet of a troublesome height : the latter was not fraised : only where it was least needed -- probably because the construction of it, elsewhere, had been interfered with -- was there the slightest appearance of an abatis. 1 There was little foundation, therefore, for General Howe's transparent excuses ; and it would have been more creditable to his candor, had he told the true reason for his failure to assault the lines, on the morning after the Battle and while the troops who had been designated to make the assault, with their line unbroken, were resting on their arms, within a mile and in open sight from the works which they were expecting to assault, and ready to move against them, at a moment's notice -- the fact was simply this, as we have already seen, 2 " the Army could no longer expediently attempt "anything against the enemy's" [the Americans'] " main body ; " and it was necessary that it should be reinforced, before the Americans should be attacked. During Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of October, as we have seen, the Royal Army, " with very little al- " teration " in its position, encamped on the Plain, and awaited the arrival of reinforcements ; 3 and, notwithstanding the loss of Chatterton's-hill, in the opinion of some of the American Officers,* had made

1 In this description of the character of the American defenses, we have followed Stedman, (History of the American War, i., 213,) who was probably present, in the Royal Army.