prisoners, between sixty and seventy [captured] pieces of brass
ordnance, besides small arms, tents, stores, etc.

In order to know the real value of those advantages, we must reverse
the scene, and suppose General Gates and the force he commanded to be
at your mercy as prisoners, and General Burgoyne, with his army of
soldiers and savages, to be already joined to you in Pennsylvania. So
dismal a picture can scarcely be looked at. It has all the tracings
and colorings of horror and despair; and excites the most swelling
emotions of gratitude by exhibiting the miseries we are so graciously
preserved from.

I admire the distribution of laurels around the continent. It is the
earnest of future union. South Carolina has had her day of sufferings
and of fame; and the other southern States have exerted themselves in
proportion to the force that invaded or insulted them. Towards the
close of the campaign, in 1776, these middle States were called upon
and did their duty nobly. They were witnesses to the almost expiring
flame of human freedom. It was the close struggle of life and death,
the line of invisible division; and on which the unabated fortitude
of a Washington prevailed, and saved the spark that has since blazed
in the north with unrivalled lustre.

Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have you performed? Through all
the variety of changes and opportunities which the war has produced,
I know no one action of yours that can be styled masterly. You have
moved in and out, backward and forward, round and round, as if valor
consisted in a military jig. The history and figure of your movements
would be truly ridiculous could they be justly delineated. They
resemble the labors of a puppy pursuing his tail; the end is still at