George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[150] served only to promote its independence. In 1775

Chap. V.} 1778. Sept.

they sought to annihilate the rebellion by attacking it at its source; and before many months they were driven out of Boston. In 1776 the acquisition of New York was to prelude the one last campaign for crushing all resistance; in 1777 Philadelphia was taken, but only to be evacuated in 1778. To a friend in Virginia Washington wrote in August, as he came again upon White Plains: ‘After two years manoeuvring and the strangest vicissitudes, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and the offending party at the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.’ ‘The veil of ordinary events,’ thus the Governor of Connecticut expressed the belief of the state, ‘covers the hand of the supreme Disposer of them, so that men overlook his guidance. In the view of the series of marvellous occurrences during the present war, he must be blind and infatuated who doth not see and acknowledge the divine ordering thereof.’ The faith of the American people in the moral government of the world sprang not from irrational traditions, or unreflecting superstition, but from the deep sentiment of harmony between their own active patriotism and the infinite love which founded all things and the infinite justice which carries all things forward in continuous progression. The consciousness of this harmony, far from lulling them into an indolent expectation of supernatural