He did not appear to despair of the public safety, but struggled against adverse fortune with the hope of yet vanquishing the difficulties which surrounded him; and constantly showed himself to his harassed and enfeebled army, with a serene, unembarrassed countenance, betraying no fears in himself, and invigorating and inspiring with confidence the bosoms of others.

To this unconquerable firmness, to this perfect self-possession under the most desperate circumstances, is America, in a great degree, indebted for her independence.
{December 5.} After removing his baggage and stores over the Delaware, and sending his sick to Philadelphia, the American General, finding that Lord Cornwallis still continued in Brunswick, detached twelve hundred men to Princeton in the hope that this appearance of advancing on the British might not only retard their progress, but cover a part of the country, and reanimate the people of Jersey.
Some portion of this short respite from laborious service was devoted to the predominant wish of his heart,--preparations for the next campaign,--by impressing on congress a conviction of the real causes of the present calamitous state of things.

However the human mind may resist the clearest theoretic reasoning, it is scarcely possible not to discern obvious and radical errors, while smarting under their destructive consequences.

The abandonment of the army by whole regiments of the flying camp, in the face of an advancing and superior enemy; the impracticability of calling out the militia of Jersey and Pennsylvania in sufficient force to prevent Lord Cornwallis from overrunning the first state, or restrain him from entering the last, had it not been saved by other causes, were practical lessons on the subjects of enlistments for a short time, and a reliance on militia, which no prejudice could disregard, and which could not fail to add great weight to the remonstrances formerly made by the Commander-in-chief, which were now repeated.
{December 6.} {Seventh.} The exertions of General Mifflin to raise the militia of Pennsylvania, though unavailing in the country, were successful in Philadelphia.

A large proportion of the inhabitants of that city capable of bearing arms, had associated for the general defence; and, on this occasion, fifteen hundred of them marched to Trenton; to which place a German battalion was also ordered by congress.