“If New York and our other cities were only tolerably fortified, Mr. Holland was confident that we should go to war. He lamented the consequences of that disposition that is for novelty in this country,--a disposition that cannot be quelled. Our commercial towns are defenceless, and that is our only safety at present. I want to see not a single ship, or any preparation for war.” Eppes of Virginia, the President’s son-in-law, spoke hotly against the doctrine of defence:-- “If there is any principle which ought to be hooted at in a Republican government, it is the very principle laid down by the gentleman from New York as the basis of his reasoning,--that to preserve peace we ought to be prepared for war. Sir, it is this very principle which is the source of all the miseries of Europe.” John Randolph also favored abandoning New York in case of attack:[252]-- “Suppose New York ever so well fortified, an army may land above the city and cut off its intercourse with the country. A fortification there would be made for the enemy. Not a man of our army would have escaped in the last war from Long Island, if the enemy’s general had not been treacherous to his duty; and all the calamities of that campaign might have been avoided if our army had retreated into the country.” Answer to arguments like these was of course impossible. The only final answer was to take the Southern people at their word, and to assert as a principle the rule that seaboard cities, being entitled to no protection from government in case of attack, should have the right to protect themselves by inviting the enemy to occupy them. Boston and New York had no reason to fear the operation of such a rule, if it suited the interests of Virginia; but as an argument even this logic would have availed nothing, because so deep was Virginian antipathy to cities that Randolph and all his friends would have answered with one voice, “We expect no better!”