The victory at Saratoga had spoiled him for ever, and thinking too much of himself, he committed the next great error of a military man, of thinking too lightly of his foe.

It would be idle and perhaps impertinent, to suggest that if Marion had been suffered to remain with him, the issue of this march might have been more fortunate.

Gates was quite too vain-glorious to listen and Marion quite too moderate to obtrude his opinions; and yet Marion was a man of equal prudence and adroitness.

He could insinuate advice, so that it would appear to self-conceit the very creature of its own conceptions.

Had Marion remained, could Gates have listened, we are very sure there would have been no such final, fatal disaster as suddenly stopped the misdirected progress of the Continental army.