Every step of this retreat, I say again, treads
out some lingering spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this
army dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too, increasing every hour,
thinning your own ranks and swelling your foes?--and that, too, at a
crisis--Colonel Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles
further; let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business is
done,--we may roll up our pretty declaration as fast as we please, and
go home in peace.
_Leslie_. General Arnold, I have heard you to the end, though you have
spoken insultingly of councils in which I have had my share. Will you
look at this little clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak
of will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than this whole
army's loss. There's a line--there's a line, Sir, that will make null
and void, very soon, if not on the instant, all the evil of these golden
promises. There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood than
that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it.
_Arnold_. I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat you point at?
_Leslie_. Can't you see?--They have let loose these hell-hounds upon us,
and butchery must be sent into our soft and innocent homes;--beings that
we have sheltered from the air of heaven, brows that have grown pale at
the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife of the Indian
now.
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