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the British armies, some spirited men indeed were animated to greater and more determined exertions; but this state of things produced a very "different effect on the great mass, which can alone furnish the solid force of armies. In the middle states especially, the panic of distrust was perceived. Doubts concerning the issue of the contest became extensive; and the recruiting service proceeded so heavily and slowly as to excite the most anxious solicitude for the future.

The affairs of Trenton and Princeton were magnified into great victories; and were believed by the body of the people to evidence the superiority of their army and of their general. The opinion that they were engaged in a hopeless contest, yielded to a confidence that proper exertions would ensure ultimate success.

This change of opinion was accompanied with an essential change of conduct; and, although the regiments required by congress were not completed, they were made much stronger than was believed to be pos sible before this happy revolution in the aspect of public affairs.

The firmness of congress throughout the gloomy and trying period which intervened between the loss of fort Washington and the battle of Princeton, gives the members of that time a just claim to the admiration of the world, and to the gratitude of their fellow citizens. Undismayed by impending dangers, they did not, for an instant, admit the idea of surrendering the independence they had declared, and purchasing peace by returning to their colonial situation. As the British army advanced through Jersey, and the consequent insecurity of Philadelphia rendered an adjournment from that place a necessary measure of precaution, their exertions seemed to increase with their difficulties. They sought to remove the despondence which was seizing and paralyzing the public mind, by an address to the states, in which every argument was suggested which could rouse them to vigorous action. They made the most strenuous efforts to animate the militia, and impel them to the field, by the agency of those whose popular cloquence best fitted them for such a service.

When reassembled at Baltimore, the place to which they had adjourn1776. ed, their resolutions exhibited no evidence of confusion or disDec. 20. may; and the most judicious efforts were made to repair the mischief produced by past errors.

Declaring that, in the present state of things, the very existence of civil liberty depended on the right execution of military powers, to a vigorous direction of which, distant, numerous, and deliberative bodies were unequal, they authorized General Washington to raise sixteen ad

ditional regiments, and conferred upon him, for six months, almost unlimited powers for the conduct of the war.

Towards the close of 1776, while the tide of fortune was running strongest against them, some few members, distrusting their ability to make a successful resistance, proposed to authorize their commissioners at the court of Versailles to transfer to France the same monopoly of their trade which Great Britain had possessed.* This proposition is stated to have been relinquished, because it was believed that concessions of this kind would impair many arguments which had been used in favour of independence, and disunite the people. It was next proposed to offer a monopoly of certain enumerated articles; but the unequal operation of this measure gave to the proposition a speedy negative. Some proposed offering to France an offensive and defensive league; but this also was rejected. The more enlightened members argued that, though the friendship of small states might be purchased, that of France could not. They alleged that, if she would risk a war with Great Britain by openly espousing their cause, she would not be induced to that measure by the prospect of direct advantages, so much as by a desire to lessen the overgrown power of a dangerous rival.* It was therefore urged that the most certain means of influencing France to interfere, was an assurance that the United States were determined to persevere in refusing to resume their former allegiance. Under the influence of this better opinion, resolutions were again entered into, directing their commissioners in Europe to give explicit assurances of their determination at all events to maintain their independence. Copies of these resolutions were sent to the principal courts of Europe; and agents were appointed to solicit their friendship to the new formed states. These despatches fell into the hands of the British, and were published by them; a circumstance which promoted the views of congress, who were persuaded that an apprehension of their coming to an accommodation with Great Britain constituted a material objection to the interference of foreign courts, in what was represented as merely a domestic quarrel. A resolution adopted in the deepest distress, to listen to no terms of reunion with their parent state, would, it was believed, convince those who wished for the dismemberment of the British empire, that sound policy required their interference so far as to prevent the conquest of the United States.

* Ramsay.

+ Secret Journals of Congress, vol. ii. p. 38, and post.

CHAPTER VII.

American army inoculated.-General Heath moves to Kingsbridge.-Returns to Peekskill.-Skirmishes.-State of the army.-Destruction of stores at Peekskill.At Danbury.-Expedition to Sagg Harbour,—Camp formed at Middlebrook.— Sir William Howe moves out to Somerset Court House.-Returns to Amboy.Attempts to cut off the retreat of the American army to Middlebrook.-Lord Cornwallis skirmishes with Lord Stirling.-General Prescot surprised and taken.-The British army embarks.

THE effect of the proclamation published by Lord and General Howe 1777. on taking possession of New Jersey, was, in a great degree, January. counteracted by the conduct of the invading army. Fortunately for the United States, the hope that security was attainable by submission, was soon dissipated. Whatever may have been the exertions of their General to restrain his soldiers, they still considered and treated the inhabitants rather as conquered rebels than returning friends. Indulging in every species of licentiousness, the plunder and destruction of property were among the least offensive of the injuries they inflicted. The persons, not only of the men, but of that sex through which indignities least to be forgiven, and longest to be remembered, are received, were exposed to the most irritating outrage. Nor were these excesses confined to those who had been active in the American cause. The lukewarm, and even the loyalists, were the victims of this indiscriminating spirit of rapine and violence.

The effect of such proceedings on a people whose country had never before been the seat of war, and whose non-resistance had been occasioned solely by the expectation of that security which had been promised as the reward of submission to the royal authority, could not fail to equal the most sanguine hopes of the friends of the revolution. A sense of personal wrongs produced a temper which national considerations had proved too weak to excite; and, when the battles of Trenton and Princeton relieved the inhabitants from fears inspired by the presence of their invaders, the great body of the people flew to arms; and numbers who could not be brought into the field to check the advancing enemy, and prevent the ravages which uniformly afflict a country that becomes the seat of war, were prompt in avenging those ravages. Small bodies of militia scoured the country, seized on stragglers, behaved unexceptionably well in several slight skirmishes, and were collecting in such numbers as to threaten the weaker British posts with the fate which had befallen Trenton and Princeton.

To guard against that spirit of enterprise which his adversary had displayed to such advantage, General Howe determined to strengthen his posts by contracting them. The positions taken for the purpose of covering the country were abandoned; and the British force in New Jersey was collected at New Brunswick, on the Raritan, and at Amboy, a small town at the mouth of that river.

Feeble as was the American army, this movement was not effected without some loss. On the evacuation of Elizabethtown, General Maxwell attacked the British rear, and captured about seventy men with a part of their baggage.

The American troops had been so diminished by the extreme severity of the service, that it was with much difficulty the appearance of an army could be maintained. Fresh militia and volunteers arrived in camp, whose numbers were exaggerated by report. These additions to his small remaining regular force enabled the General to take different positions near the lines of the enemy, to harass him perpetually, restrain his foraging parties, and produce considerable distress in his camp. While, with little more than an imaginary army, General Washington thus harassed and confined his adversary, he came to the hazardous resolution of freeing himself and his troops from the fear of a calamity which he found it impossible to elude, and which had proved more fatal in his camp than the sword of the enemy.

Jan. 12.

Inoculation having been rarely practised in the western world, the American youth remained liable to the small pox. Notwithstanding the efforts to guard against this disease, it had found its way into both the northern and middle army, and had impaired the strength of both to an alarming degree. To avoid the return of the same evil, the General determined to inoculate all the soldiers in the American service. With the utmost secrecy, preparations were made to give the infection in camp; and the hospital physicians in Philadelphia were ordered to carry all the southern troops, as they should arrive, through the disease. Similar orders were also given to the physicians at other places; and thus an army exempt from the fear of a calamity which had, at all times, endangered the most important operations, was prepared for the ensuing campaign. This example was followed through the country; and this alarming disease was no longer the terror of America.

As the main body of the British army was cantoned in Jersey, and a strong detachment occupied Rhode Island, General Washington believed that New York could not be perfectly secure. His intelligence strength. ened this opinion; and, as an army, respectable in point of numbers, had been assembled about Peekskill, he ordered General Heath to approach

New York for the purpose of foraging, and, should appearances favour the attempt, of attacking the forts which guarded the entrance into the island. The hope was entertained that General Howe, alarmed for New York, might either withdraw his troops from Jersey, or so weaken his posts in that state as to endanger them. Should this hope be disappointed, it was believed that something handsome might be done, either on York or Long Island.

In pursuance of this plan, General Heath marched down to West Chester, and summoned fort Independence to surrender; but, the garrison determining to hold the place, a council of war deemed it unadviseable to risk an assault. An embarkation of troops which took place, about that time, at Rhode Island, alarmed General Heath for his rear, and induced him to resume his ground in the Highlands.

Though this attempt entirely failed, the Commander-in-chief still meditated important operations during the winter. All the intelligence from Europe demonstrated the necessity of these operations, and the fallacy of the hope, still extensively cherished, that the war would be abandoned by Great Britain. The administration was still supported by great majorities in parliament; and the nation seemed well disposed to employ all its means to reannex to the empire, what were still denominated, revolted colonies. It was not to be doubted that large reinforcements would arrive in the spring; and the safety of the nation would be in hazard should General Howe remain in full force till they should be received. The utmost efforts were made by the Commander-in-chief to collect a sufficient number of troops to enable him to give a decisive blow to some one of the positions of his enemy. The state sovereignties, where the real energies of government resided, were incessantly urged to fill their regiments, and to bring their quotas into the field; and congress, at his instance, passed resolutions authorizing him to draw the troops from Peekskill, and to call out the militia of the neighbouring "It being," these resolutions proceed to say, "the earnest desire of congress, to make the army under the immediate command of General Washington sufficiently strong, not only to curb and confine the enemy within their present quarters, and prevent their drawing support of any kind from the country, but, by the divine blessing, totally to subdue them before they can be reinforced."

states.

These resolves were communicated to the general, in a letter, manifesting the confident expectation of congress that the desire expressed in them would soon be realized. But the energy displayed in their passage, could not be maintained in their execution.

Many causes concurred to prevent the collection of a force competent

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