They (the members who compose the cabinet) had no doubt of success, if they could once bring it to the issue of a battle; and they expected from a conquest, what they could neither propose with decency, nor hope for by negociation.  The charters and constitutions of the colonies were become to them matters of offence, and their rapid progress in property and population were disgustingly beheld as the growing and natural means of independence.  They saw no way to retain them long but by reducing them time.  A conquest would at once have made them both lords and landlords, and put them in the possession both of the revenue and the rental.  The whole trouble of government would have ceased in a victory, and a final end put to remonstrance and debate.  The experience of the stamp act had taught them how to quarrel with the advantages of cover and convenience, and they had nothing to do but to renew the scene, and put contention into motion.  They hoped for a rebellion, and they made one.  They expected a declaration of independence, and they were not disappointed.  But after this, they looked for victory, and obtained a defeat.

If this be taken as the generating cause of the contest, then is every part of the conduct of the British ministry consistent, from the commencement of the dispute, until the signing the treaty of Paris, after which, conquest becoming doubtful, they retreated to negociation, and were again defeated.

Though the Abbe possesses and displays great powers of genius, and is a master of style and language, he seems not to pay equal attention to the office of an historian.  His facts are coldly and carelessly stated.  They neither inform the reader, nor interest him.  Many of them are erroneous, and most of them defective and obscure.  It is undoubtedly both an ornament, and a useful addition to history, to accompany it with maxims and reflections.  They afford likewise an agreeable change to the style, and a more diversified manner of expression; but it is absolutely necessary that the root from whence they spring, or the foundations on which they are raised, should be well attended to, which in this work they are not.  The Abbe hastens through his narrations, as if he was glad to get from them, that he may enter the more copious field of eloquence and imagination.

The actions of Trenton and Princeton, in New Jersey, in December 1776, and January following, on which the fate of America stood for a while trembling on the point of suspence, and from which the most important consequences followed, are comprised within a single paragraph, faintly conceived, and barren of character, circumstance and description.

“On the 25th of December,” says the Abbe, “they (the Americans) crossed the Delaware, and fell accidentally upon Trenton, which was occupied by fifteen hundred of the twelve thousand Hessians, sold in so base a manner by their avaricious master, to the King of Great Britain.  This corps was massacred, taken, or dispersed.  Eight days after, three English regiments were in like manner driven from Princeton; but after having better supported their reputation than the foreign troops in their pay.”