The inactive state we lie in is exceedingly disagreeable

From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 51.

His second plan was to end the waiting and strike at Boston, which, it was understood, could mean destruction of the town. British defenses were formidable. In fact, defenses on both sides had been strengthened to the point where many believed neither army would dare attack the other. Also, a siege by definition required a great deal of prolonged standing still and waiting. But standing still and waiting were not the way to win a war, and not in Washington’s nature.

“The inactive state we lie in is exceedingly disagreeable,” he had confided to his brother John. He wanted a “speedy finish,” to fight and be done with it. “No danger is to be considered when put in competition with the magnitude of the cause,” he had asserted earlier in a letter to the governor of Rhode Island.

According to his instructions from Congress, he was to take no action of consequence until advising with his council of war, and thus a meeting was scheduled for the morning of September 11, “to know,” he informed his generals, “whether in your judgments, we cannot make a successful attack upon the troops in Boston, by means of boats.”

On September 10, mutiny broke out among the Pennsylvania riflemen, after several of the worst troublemakers had been confined to the guardhouse. Though the mutiny was put down at once by General Greene and a large detachment of Rhode Island troops, it only added to the sense of an army coming apart, and Washington was visibly shaken.