He published an energetic remonstrance against the petty jealousies that still found place among the different contingents; and he exempted his men from fatigue duty on Sunday as much as possible, expressly to allow them to attend public worship. He writes again :-'The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing-a vice heretofore little known in an American army-is growing into fashion. He hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavour to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.' It was a time of the intensest anxiety to the patriotic army. The citizens of New York were in the greatest alarm, and all who could left the city. Washington gravely and courageously watched the course of events. At last the first blow was dealt. The British, evading the vigilance of the Americans, attacked them in force on August 27, defeated them with heavy loss, and compelled them to withdraw secretly on the following night from Long Island. This first disaster to the colonial arms threw a deep gloom over the army, and produced a most demoralizing effect upon the militia. Crowds began to give way to the desire to return home; regiments lost one-third or onehalf of their force; some disappeared altogether. The evacuation of New York was the inevitable consequence; and this, hastened by the advance of the British, left the city in the hands of the latter by the middle of September. Washington retreated slowly and carefully with his little D army southwards, and on the 23rd took up a position at White Plains. The British followed him step by step, skirmishing on every opportunity, and eagerly watching a favourable chance of attacking. The difference between the two armies was very marked. The following letter from a British officer gives a graphic description of it:-'The rebel army are in so wretched a condition as to clothing and accoutrements that I believe no nation ever saw such a set of tatterdemalions; there are few coats among them but what are out at elbows, and in a whole regiment there is scarce a pair of breeches. Judge, then, how they must be pinched by a winter's campaign. We, who are warmly clothed and well equipped, already feel it severely; for it is even now much colder than I ever felt it in England.' But the two armies were not destined to come again into a general conflict just yet. The campaign was fought out by strategy and generalship rather than by actual fighting. On November 12 Washington crossed the Hudson, and a few days later was witness of the capture of Fort Washington and nearly 3000 prisoners by General Howe. Step by step the American army gave way before the British, retreating southwards through the Jerseys. On December 2, Trenton was reached, and the passage of the Delaware at once begun. The hopes of the patriotic party were at the lowest ebb. Their army, dispirited and diminished in numbers, barefoot and tattered, was being driven from post to post by the enemy; the militia refused to come in; the people declined to give any assistance that would implicate them in the fate of what seemed a falling cause. But Washington remained undaunted. He would fight to the last, and hope to the utmost. If driven to it, he would retreat to the back parts of Pennsylvania; if hunted thence, he would make a stand in Virginia, in the regions where he had first heard the bullets whistle. 'Numbers,' he said, 'will repair to us for safety, and we will try a predatory war. If overpowered, we must cross the Alleghanies.' There was no room in this scheme of operations for any thoughts of surrender. He had drawn his sword in the cause, and he would never sheathe it until the cause had been vindicated; what he had decided to do, he would do thoroughly. The retreat was conducted in his usual careful method. It was not precipitate, for three weeks were spent in marching 100 miles; and it was not careless, for all the ammunition, all the field-pieces, and nearly all the stores were safely transported across four rivers. Though, as was to be expected, there did not fail many discontented spirits who chafed at Washington's cautious policy, and spoke sneeringly of the 'fatal indecision of mind in a certain great man,' the confidence of Congress was still given freely to their commander-in-chief. Before they adjourned in 1776, they conferred almost dictatorial powers upon him in all things relative to the department and to the operations of the war; and he eagerly took advantage of this in making energetic attempts to increase the efficiency of his troops. But he was still careful of the dignity and claims of Congress. If he seemed to exceed his duty, 'a character to lose,' he writes, an estate to forfeit, the inestimable blessings of liberty at stake, and a life devoted, must be my excuse.' General Howe, meantime, had gone into winter quarters at New York, when Washington resolved to assume the offensive for a time. Three regiments of Hessians were carelessly posted at Trenton. On Christmas evening the Americans recrossed the Delaware, made a gallant dash against Trenton, drove the Hessians in full retreat, secured nearly 1000 prisoners, and again passed the river to the south. Lord Cornwallis was at once despatched to retrieve the British honour; and he came up with Washington between the Delaware and the Assunpink. But Washington was not now in a mood to await the attack quietly from a superior force, Giving the enemy the slip, he marched by night to Princeton, defeated the British force left there, and made a threatening march to Morristown. Cornwallis, who had confidently expected to annihilate the colonial army, was brought hurrying back to save the stores at New Brunswick, and, instead of commanding the position, took up a defensive and not very menacing attitude in that town. The tables had been turned. Washington had justified his cautious policy, and put to shame his sneering enemies and distrustful friends. He had shown that 'he possessed enterprise as well as circumspection, energy as well as endurance, and that beneath his wary coldness lurked a fire to break forth at the proper moment.' 'This year's campaign,' continues Irving, 'the most critical one of the war, and especially that part of it which occurred in the Jerseys, was the ordeal that made his great qualities fully appreciated by his countrymen, and gained for him from the statesmen and generals of Europe the appellation of the American Fabius.' During the campaign of 1777, the great aim of Washington was to prevent General (by this time Sir William) Howe from penetrating the highlands of the Hudson from New York, and forming a junction with the British army in Canada, which in its turn was watched by the force, at first under General Schuyler, and afterwards under General Gates. Howe's plan of operations was to draw off Washington's army from its intercepting position, by real or feigned descents further to the south. Had the British general known the real strength and the real condition of the American army, he would doubtless have adopted a much more actively offensive policy. But it was part of Washington's plan to circulate a false impression of his forces. Nothing but a good face and false appearances, he said, had enabled him hitherto to deceive the enemy respecting their strength. For the first six or seven months the manoeuvring match continued, but the caution of the American defied all Howe's stratagems. At length the latter made a decided movement towards Philadelphia, and in September and October the two armies. came into collisions of more or less importance. It was during this campaign that the gallant struggle for liberty on the part of the Americans attracted to their aid various young French, Polish, and German officers, among whom the Marquis de Lafayette is most famous. This gallant officer, fresh from the discipline of Europe, looked with astonishment on the motley array that were to be his comrades, but he could not disguise from himself that 'these were good-looking soldiers, conducted by zealous officers.' 'We should feel embarrassed,' said Washington to him, 'in presenting ourselves before an officer just from the French army.' 'Sir,' replied the adroit Frenchman, 'it is to learn and not to instruct that I came here.' On September 11, 1777, Washington was defeated in the battle of the Brandywine River, twenty-six miles from Philadelphia. This sealed the fate of the city. Numbers of families fled in consternation, and Congress, after hastily |