Mr. Washington had the nominal rank of Commander in Chief, but he was not so in fact. He had, in reality, only a separate command. He had no controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates, that captured Burgoyne; nor of that to the south under [Nathaniel] Greene, that recovered the southern States.(2) The nominal rank, however, of Commander in Chief, served to throw upon him the lustre of those actions, and to make him appear as the soul and centre of all military operations in America. 1 The Tory publisher of New York City, whose press was destroyed in 1775 by a mob of Connecticut soldiers.-- _Editor._ 2 See Mr. Winterbotham's valuable History of America, lately published.--Author. [The "History of the Establishment of Independence" is contained in the first of Mr. Winterbotham's four volumes (London, 1795).--_Editor._.] He commenced his command June, 1775, during the time the Massachusetts army lay before Boston, and after the affair of Bunker-hill. The commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months he remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise at that time, which the presence of Mr. Washington chilled into cold defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March 1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more advantageous position at New York.