Having a comparatively unlimited sea-power, they needed only to embark their regiments, with the necessary provisions and ammunition, on their ships and send them across the Atlantic, where they were more than a match for the nondescript, undisciplined, ill-equipped, and often badly nourished Americans.

The fact that at the highest reckoning hardly a half of the American people were actively in favor of Independence, is too often forgotten.

But from this fact there followed much lukewarmness and inertia in certain sections.

Many persons had too little imagination or were too sordidly bound by their daily ties to care.

As one planter put it: "My business is to raise tobacco, the rest doesn't concern me." Over the generally level plains of New Jersey, George Washington pushed the remnant of the army that remained to him.