The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

164 WVASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. [.,ET. 49.
make it incumbent upon me to represent the consequences that would arise from them, and to urge a perseverance in the plan already agreed upon. Give me
leave, in the first place, to repeat to your Excellency,
that the enterprise against York, under the protection
of your ships, is as certain as any military operation
can be rendered by a decisive superiority of strength
and means; that it is in fact reducible to calculation;
that the surrender of the British garrison will be important in itself and its consequences; and that it must
necessarily go a great way towards terminating the
war, and securing the invaluable objects of it to the
allies.
Your Excellency's departure from the Chesapeake,
by affording an opening for the succour of York, which
the enemy would instantly avail themselves of, would
frustrate these brilliant prospects; and the consequence
would be, not only the disgrace and loss of renouncing
an enterprise, upon which the fairest expectations of
the allies have been founded, after the most expensive preparations and uncommon exertions and fatigues,
but perhaps the disbanding of the whole army for want
of provisions.
The present theatre of the war is totally deficient in
the means of land transportation, being intersected by
large rivers, and the whole dependence for interior
communication being upon small vessels. The country
has besides been so much exhausted by the ravages
of the enemy, and the subsistence of our own army,
that our supplies can only be drawn from a distance,
and under cover of a fleet commanding the Chesapeake. I most earnestly entreat your Excellency farther to consider, that, if the present opportunity should
be missed, and you should withdraw your maritime
force from the position agreed upon, no future day can