Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1780 edition. Excerpt: ... REPLY T O Sir William Howe's Observations, &>ct WHEN a man, conscious of his own misconduct, or at least lying under the charge bf having betrayed a public trust, a trust of as great importance as was ever committed to any subject, finds himself under the necessity of misrepresenting notorious facts, and even of descending to personal detraction, for his own vindication, he is truly to be pitied. This appears to be the case of the late Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Forces in America. If the Author of the" Letters to a Nobleman" has contributed to the distress of the General, he has done it with reluctance, from a regard to truth and justice, and a sense of duty to B the the public, and not from any impulse of private resentment; for he frankly declares, he never had any cause of personal enmity to Sir William Howe, who neither had personally injured nor osfended him; and therefore, that the motives which led him to publish his strictures on the conduct of the American war, could not arise from such a principle. He considered him only in his public capacity, and, imagining that he could throw new light on a subject which appeared to many to be dark and problematical, and in which the public welfare was intimately concerned, he proceeded to animadvert upon his conduct as Commander in Chief. Nor was the examination of the management of the American war needlessly undertaken. The unparalleled failures in that war, the uncommon magnitude of the evils in which they had involved the nation, with the reluctance of Government to make judicial enquiry into the causes of them, loudly called for ir. We had seen the General, in the Middle Colonies, commanding a force always, commonly four times, and at certain periods eight times, greater...