"Within a few days this army will be reduced to less than ten thousand men by the expiration of enlistments," answered Washington; "and when we can ever attack Boston is a problem. For six months I have been waiting for powder, fire-arms, recruits, and what-not; and here we are with the 1st of January, 1776, right upon us, when several thousand soldiers will leave." "A very discouraging fact indeed," answered the staff officer; "and how will you fill the breach created by their going?" "That is what troubles me. We shall be forced to require soldiers whose term of enlistment expires, to leave their muskets, allowing them fair compensation for the same. And to encourage their successors to bring arms, we must charge each one of them who fails to bring his gun one dollar for the use of the one we provide." "A novel way of recruiting and supplying an army, truly," said the staff officer. "The only way left to us," remarked Washington. "Yes; and I suppose that any way is better than none." Washington wrote to a friend on the 4th of January: "It is easier to conceive than to describe the situation of my mind for some time past and my feelings under our present circumstances. Search the volume of history through, and I much question whether a case similar to ours can be found; namely, to maintain a post against the power of the British troops for six months together without powder, and then to have one army disbanded and another raised within the same distance (musket shot) of a reinforced enemy.... For two months past I have scarcely emerged from one difficulty before I have been plunged into another. How it will end, God, in His great goodness, will direct. I am thankful for His protection to this time." A few days later he wrote: "The reflection of my situation and that of this army produces many an unhappy hour, when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam." Still, through his tact and indomitable perseverance, Washington found his army in a condition to attack Boston in March. He had vainly tried to induce the British troops to leave their comfortable quarters and come out to battle. He had so effectually cut off their supplies by his determined siege that the British Government was compelled to send supplies from home. But now he felt that the time for action had come. He called a council of war.