Even as to this there was great and harassing doubt, for the enemy, having command of the water, could concentrate and attack at any point they pleased.

Moreover, the British had thirty thousand of the best disciplined and best equipped troops that Europe could furnish, while Washington had some twenty thousand men, one fourth of whom were unfit for duty, and with the remaining three fourths, raw recruits for the most part, he was obliged to defend an extended line of posts, without cavalry, and with no means for rapid concentration.
Had he been governed solely by military considerations he would have removed the inhabitants, burned New York, and drawing his forces together would have taken up a secure post of observation.

To have destroyed the town, however, not only would have frightened the timid and the doubters, and driven them over to the Tories, but would have dispirited the patriots not yet alive to the exigencies of war, and deeply injured the American cause.

That Washington well understood the need of such action is clear, both from the current rumors that the town was to be burned, and from his expressed desire to remove the women and children from New York.

But political considerations overruled the military necessity, and he spared the town.