When we think all hopes are gone, must we, like poor pusillanimous wretches, despair and die?

He still had some ' pusillanimous wretches' among his own New Yorkers, who resented the air of superiority affected by Arnold's New Englanders and Morgan's Virginians.

'Such a set of pusillanimous wretches never were collected' is his own description in a despairing letter to his wife.