"You speak like a boastful soldier, Mr. Tyrrel. It is not unlikely that his lordship may foil Gates and turn him back; such I learn to be the apprehension of the more sagacious amongst the continental officers themselves; but whether that mischance is to favor your incursion into this province may be worth a soberer study than, I doubt, you have given the question. The path of invasion is ever a difficult road when it leads against a united people. You mistake both the disposition and the means of these republicans. They have bold partisans in the field, and eloquent leaders in their senates. The nature of the strife sorts well with their quick and earnest tempers; and by this man's-play of war we breed up soldiers who delight in the game. Rebellion has long since marched beyond the middle ground, and has no thought of retreat. What was at first the mere overflow of popular passion has been hardened into principle, like a fiery stream of lava which first rolls in a flood, and then turns into stone. The delusion of republicanism, like all delusions, is embraced with more enthusiasm than men ever embrace truth. We deem too lightly of these men and their cause, and we have already, more than once, suffered for the error. When they expelled Dunmore they committed treason against the British crown; and they are wise enough to know that that cup, once tasted, must be drained to the bottom: they have, therefore, imbrued their hands the deeper in rebellion. They have raised their idol of democracy high, and have fenced it about with the penalties of confiscation and death to those who refuse to bow before it: and now they stand pledged to the prosecution of their unnatural war, by such a bond of fate as unites mariners who have rashly ventured forth upon a raging sea, in a bark of doubtful strength; their minds braced up, by the thought of instant perdition, to the daring effort necessary to reach their haven." "That haven shall they never reach," cried Tyrrel impatiently. "Let them invoke the aid of their patron devils! We have a spell shall conjure them back again to their own hell, else there is no virtue in the forged steel which these rebels have felt before." "The battle is not always to the strong," said Lindsay, "nor is the craft of soldiership without its chances."