He believed that the south must work out its own salvation, as New York and New England had done with Burgoyne, and he felt sure that in the end it would be successful.

But he would not go south, nor take his army there.

The instinct of a great commander for the vital point in a war or a battle, is as keen as that of the tiger is said to be for the jugular vein of its victim.

The British might overrun the north or invade the south, but he would stay where he was, with his grip upon New York and the Hudson River.

The tide of invasion might ebb and flow in this region or that, but the British were doomed if they could not divide the eastern colonies from the others.