CHAPTER IX.

[1778.]

WHILE the United States, strengthened by an alliance with France, were indulging the most sanguine anticipations of success, the British councils were full of embarrassment and uncertainty. Stimulated by hatred of their great rival, they found their generous people again rushing forward to lavish their treasures, and expend their blood in a cause which the national sentiment had at first condemned; but how to achieve their object, or what new system of warfare to adopt, which could promise a more favourable result, was the great, the perplexing question.

It had been found that New-England was fully able to cope with any aggression that might be made upon her. The efforts in New-York, though more successful, had secured a station for one army, but had resulted in the capture of another. The campaign of the Jersies had been little more than a mere marauding inroad, and the possession of Philadelphia, after vast losses, without weakening the confidence of the Americans in their eventual success, had placed their enemy in a position to extricate themselves from which, seemed to be the great object of solicitude. Results, the obvious consequences of this mad attempt to subjugate a people, who must be divided and debased before they can be conquered, were attributed to the incapacity of Sir William Howe; and, in the idle hope that a new leader of her armies might better reward the efforts of the nation, the command was confided to Sir Henry Clinton.

The intelligence that a French armament was destined to America, confirmed the purpose which had long been enter

tained of surrendering the prize of the last campaign, and concentrating the whole strength at New-York, there to await such a plan of operations as future events should develope.

The increased and augmenting force of the Americans, rendered their position in a city without works, and incapable of being fortified, extremely perilous. Subsistence for the army becoming daily more difficult of attainment, which a blockade of the Delaware, by a French fleet, would entirely intercept, and the effective strength which on its embarkation in the preceding year had reached nearly eighteen thousand men, notwithstanding the reinforcements in the autumn, was reduced by losses and desertions to little more than eleven thousand.

What would be the future operations of the enemy, became now the interesting problem with the Americans. By many it was supposed that the threatened danger of their West India possessions would be seized, as a pretext to withdraw from the United States, which was countenanced by the evacuation of the Fort's Lee* and Washington, and by the reduced number of the troops in NewYork, now amounting only to six thousand three hundred men. By others, an attempt on the Highlands was expected; but this belief, the inadequacy of the force in Canada, necessary to co-operate, did not justify: Washington meanwhile had ascertained† their purposes, and hoped to crush them by a decisive blow.

* May 21st, 1778.

The most active surveillance was kept up at this time as to the movements of the British army. This duty was especially confided to Captain Allan McLane, who rendered invaluable services by his zeal, intelligence, and activity. The following is a letter addressed to him by Colonel Laurens.

SIR:

Head-Quarters, May 26th, 1778.

I have received your letter and communicated its contents to his excellency. Intelligence becomes every moment more interesting. The grand fact of the

The British army broke up from their encampment on the eighteenth of June, and proceeding down the Delaware, landed in New-Jersey, at Gloucester, and on the same day marched to Haddonsfield. As soon as this information reached head-quarters, the commander-in-chief having detached General Dickinson to collect the Jersey militia, who had received orders from Governor Livingston, always zealous and on the alert, to hold themselves in immediate readiness, and having commanded General Maxwell to follow the route of the enemy, convened a council of war to decide upon the plan of operations. At this council it was determined by a majority of its members to avoid either a general or partial engagement in opposition to the sentiments of Greene, Wayne and Cadwallader, who urged the opinion, that their true policy was to harass the enemy on their retreat, and without an unnecessary exposure of the army to seize the first opportunity of bringing on an engagement.

The opinion of General Lee, who was particularly strenuous in opposing an attack, and whose reputation for military experience gave it a preponderating weight, caused

enemy's design to evacuate the city being ascertained, no pains should be spared to discover, if possible, the precise moment when the event is to take place, and the route which their army will pursue; whether they mean to cross the Delaware and march through Jersey, or cross the Schuylkill and march down to Chester, to embark there, on account of the tedious navigation through the chevaux-de-frize, and because they may cover their real march by a pretended attempt on this army. Endeavour to discover the number of transports, their situation on the river; as well as that of the ships-of-war. whether the horses that have been embarked were really dragoon horses, or only those that are superfluous, as their heavy artillery and baggage is embarked, and they would march as light as possible through Jersies, provided they go that way. What are the bridge-boats that you speak of? do you mean those that may be put together for facilitating the embarkation on board the transports? His excellency desires if you have sufficient ground for suspecting that you will immediately secure them and send them to camp."

great offence to the personal friends of Washington. He not only urged the impolicy of active operations, but endeavoured to sustain it on grounds extremely mortifying to the pride of the American army.

Colonel Hamilton, whose ardour for battle was fully supported by a sense of duty, in an eulogium which he pronounced upon General Greene, thus expressed himself in reference to this determination.

"I forbear to lift the veil from off those impotent councils, which by a formal vote had decreed an undisturbed passage to an enemy retiring from the fairest fruits of his victories, to seek an asylum from impending danger, disheartened by retreat, dispirited by desertion, broken by fatigue ; — retreating through woods, defiles, and morasses, in which his discipline was useless, in the face of an army superior in numbers, elated by pursuit, and ardent to signalize their courage. 'Tis enough for the honour of Greene to say, that he left nothing unessayed to avert and to frustrate so degrading a resolution; and it was happy for America, that the man whose reputation could not be wounded without wounding the cause of his country, had the noble fortitude to rescue himself and the army he commanded from the disgrace with which they were both menaced, by the characteristic imbecility of a council of war."

The first movements of Sir Henry Clinton, rendering it doubtful which course he proposed to take, Washington, embarrassed by the decision of the council, and yet unwilling to assume the responsibility of precipitating an engagement, took a circuitous route, by which he reached Hopewell, a place about five miles from Princeton, about noon of the twenty-third of June, where he halted until the morning of the twenty-fifth, having detached a small force under Arnold to take possession of Philadelphia. Meanwhile the enemy, with Dickinson and Maxwell harassing their left, and General Cadwallader and Colonel Morgan annoying their rear

and right flank, gained the vicinity of Allentown. A letter written by Hamilton, by the orders of General Washington, to Cadwallader, from this point, explains the delay of the army, which has been the subject of animadversion.

66 DEAR SIR,

"I have just received yours this day from the Draw Bridge. The army marched this morning to this place. It was my intention to have taken post near Princeton; but finding the enemy are dilatory in advancing, I am doubtful of the propriety of proceeding any farther, till their intention is ascertained. I wish you to inform me more particularly of the obstructions which have been thrown in their way, that I may be better able to judge whether their delay is owing to necessity or choice. Any circumstance that may serve to throw light upon this question, I shall be obliged to you for, as it is of very great importance. If their delay is voluntary, it argues a design to draw us into a general action, and proves that they consider this to be a desirable event. They may, perhaps, wish to draw us off from the Delaware, far to the left, and then by a rapid movement gain our right flank and rear.

66

“I should be glad of your sentiments fully as to their probable designs, and the conduct which it will be most proper for us to observe in consequence. You will be pleased to continue to advise me punctually of every movement and appearance of the enemy.

"Let me remind you of mentioning alway; the hour at which you write, which is of the greatest moment."

While the army was at this post, and Sir Henry Clinton was balancing between the route to Staten Island, which would expose him to the danger of crossing the Raritan with an army in his rear, and that which, leading to Amboy by way of Monmouth, gave him the advantage, if necessary,of