The want of ammunition for the artillery was a principal inducement to this opinion.
The attempt, probably, would not have succeeded, and must certainly have been attended with considerable loss.

But the advice of the council seems to have been adopted with regret.

In communicating their opinion to congress, the general observed, "Perhaps the irksomeness of my situation may have given different ideas to me, from those which influence the gentlemen I consulted; and might have inclined me to put more to the hazard than was consistent with prudence.

If it had this effect, I am not sensible of it, as I endeavoured to give the subject all the consideration a matter of such importance required.

True it is, and I can not help acknowledging, that I have many disagreeable sensations on account of my situation; for, to have the eyes of the whole continent fixed on me, with anxious expectation of hearing some great event, and to be restrained in every military operation for want of the necessary means to carry it on, is not very pleasing; especially as the means used to conceal my weakness from the enemy, conceal it also from our friends, and add to their wonder." Late in February, various appearances among the British troops indicated an intention to evacuate Boston; but as these appearances might be deceptive, and he had now received a small supply of powder, General Washington determined to prosecute vigorously a plan he had formed, to force General Howe either to come to an action, or to abandon the town.
Since the allowance of a bounty, recruiting had been more successful; and the regular force had been augmented to rather more than fourteen thousand men.