My love to my dear little ones. They are all very good children, and I have no doubt will continue so. I will drop a line as often as I can. Adieu. 147. JOHN ADAMS. Hartford, 14 January, 1777. It is now generally believed that General Washington has killed and taken at least two thousand of Mr. Howe's army since Christmas. Indeed, the evidence of it is from the General's own letters. You know I ever thought Mr. Howe's march through the Jerseys a rash step. It has proved so. But how much more so would it have been thought if the Americans could all have viewed it in that light and exerted themselves as they might and ought! The whole flock would infallibly have been taken in the net. The little nest of hornets in Rhode Island! Is it to remain unmolested this winter? The honor of New England is concerned. If they are not ousted, I will never again glory in being a New England man. There are now New England Generals, officers, and soldiers, and if something is not done, any man may, after that, call New England men poltroons, with all my heart. 148. JOHN ADAMS. Fishkill, 1777. After a march like that of Hannibal over the Alps, we arrived last night at this place, where we found the utmost difficulty to get forage for our horses and lodgings for ourselves, and at last were indebted to the hospitality of a private gentleman, Colonel Brinkhoff, who very kindly cared for us. We came from Hartford through Farmington, Southington, Waterbury, Woodbury, New Milford, New Fairfield, the oblong, etc., to Fishkill. Of all the mountains I ever passed these are the worst. We found one advantage, however, in the cheapness of travelling. I don't find one half of the discontent nor of the terror here that I left in the Massachusetts. People seem sanguine that they shall do something grand this winter. I am well and in good spirits. My horse performs extremely well. He clambers over mountains that my old mare would have stumbled on. The weather has been dreadfully severe. 149. JOHN ADAMS. Poughkeepsie, 19 January, 1777. There is too much ice in Hudson's River to cross it in ferry-boats, and too little to cross it without, in most places, which has given us the trouble of riding up the Albany road as far as this place, where we expect to go over on the ice; but if we should be disappointed here, we must go up as far as Esopus, about fifteen miles farther. This, as well as Fishkill, is a pretty village. We are almost wholly among the Dutch, zealous against the Tories, who have not half the tranquillity here that they have in the town of Boston, after all the noise that has been made about New York Tories. We are treated with the utmost respect wherever we go, and have met with nothing like an insult from any person whatever. I heard ten reflections and twenty sighs and groans among my constituents to one here.