Every page, almost, of your publication is full of reflections against me, and almost upon every subject; so intent have you been to injure my reputation. The errors I committed during my command may serve a double purpose; because he who committed them is subject to censure, and he who points them out claims the merit of the discovery. That I committed errors, I readily admit; my friends have marked some, and subsequent experience discovered others; but I am conscious they proceed from want of experience, not a want of integrity. Why, then, need I seek to justify myself, when, from the nature of the war, considerable commands were, from necessity, entrusted to young officers, there being few amongst us to whom the profession was not entirely new. But, I confess, it would give me infinite pain, if, by "a strange inattention of mine to the tide and state of the river," and the not arriving "one hour" sooner at Dunk's Ferry, we had lost the opportunity of striking a blow at Mount Holly, of equal glory with that at Trenton. When you insinuated, in the former part of your address, a superior knowledge in military matters, by saying you had more "experience," I gave up the point, and left you the happiness of thinking so; for why should I have contended a point with a man who, throughout his pamphlet, assumes to himself the merit of all those brilliant successes, so highly commended even by our enemies, and which determined the fate of American independence. And if I was sensible that the charge you now make was true, or could be thought so, by competent judges, I would scorn to defend my error.