General Cadwalader. P. DICKINSON.
I do hereby certify, that in December, 1776, while the militia
lay at Bristol, General Reed, to the best of my recollection
and belief, upon my inquiring the news, and what he thought of
our affairs in general, said that appearances were very gloomy
and unfavourable; that he was fearful or apprehensive the
business was nearly settled, or the game almost up, or words
to the same effect. That these sentiments appeared to me very
extraordinary and dangerous, as I conceived they would, at
_that time_, have a very bad tendeney[TN], if publicly known to be
the sentiments of General Reed, who then held an appointment
in the army of the first consequence.
_Philadelphia, March 12, 1783._ JOHN DIXON.
A few days before the battle of Trenton, on the 26th of
December, 1776, I rode with Mr. Reed from Bristol to Head
Quarters near New Town. In the course of our ride, our
conversation turned upon public affairs, when Mr. Reed
expressed himself in the manner following.
He spoke with great respect of the bravery of the British
troops, and with great contempt of the cowardice of the
American, and more especially of the New England troops. So
great was the terror inspired by the British soldiers into the
minds of our men, that he said, when a British soldier was
brought as a prisoner to our camp, our soldiers viewed him at
a distance as a superior kind of being.
Upon my lamenting to him the supposed defection of Mr.
Dickinson, who it was unjustly said, had deserted his country,
he used the following words: "Damn him--I wish the devil had
him, when he wrote the Farmer's letters. He has began an
opposition to Great Britain which we have not strength to
finish."
Upon my lamenting that a gentleman, of his acquaintance, had
submitted to the enemy, he said, "that he had acted properly,
and that a man who had a family, did right to take that care
of them."
The whole of his conversation upon the subject of our affairs,
indicated a great despair of the American cause.
Upon my going to Baltimore, to take my seat in Congress, the
latter end of January, I mentioned the above conversation to
my brother. I likewise mentioned it to the Hon. John Adams,
Esq., with whom I then lived in intimacy, a day or two after
his return from Boston to Congress. I did not mention it with
a view of injuring Mr. Reed, for I still respected him,
especially as I then believed that the victory at Trenton had
restored the tone of his mind, and dissipated his fears, but
to show Mr. Adams an instance of a man possessing and
exercising military spirit and activity, and yet deficient in
political fortitude. To which I well remember Mr. Adams
replied in the following words: "The powers of the human mind
are combined together in an infinite variety of ways."