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arrived off New Haven; and, at two in the morning of the fifth of July, one party landed suddenly on the west of the town, another on the east. Everything was abandoned to plunder: vessels in the harbor, public stores, and the warehouses near the sound, were destroyed by fire. The soldiers, demoralized by license, lost all discipline, and the next morning retired before the Connecticut militia, who left them no time to burn the town. At East Haven, where Tryon commanded, dwelling-houses were fired and cattle wantonly killed; some of the unarmed inhabitants were put to death, others carried away as prisoners; but the British were driven to their ships.

On the afternoon of the seventh the expedition landed near Fairfield. The village, a century and a quarter old, situated near the water, with a lovely country for its background, contained a moral, well-educated, industrious, and affluent people of nearly unmixed English lineage; well-ordered homes; freeholders as heads of families. An Episcopal church stood by the side of the larger meeting-house. The husbandmen who came together were too few to withstand the unforeseen onslaught. The Hessians were let loose to plunder, and every dwelling was given up to be stripped. Before the sun went down the firing of houses began, and was kept up through the night, amid the "cries of distressed women and helpless children." Early the next morning the conflagration was made general. When at the return of night the retreat was sounded, the rear-guard, composed of Germans, set in flames the meetinghouse and every private habitation that till then had escaped. At Green Farms a meeting-house and all dwellings and barns were consumed.

On the eleventh the British appeared before Norwalk and burned its houses, barns, and places of public worship. Sir George Collier and Tryon, the British admiral and general, in their address to the inhabitants of Connecticut, said: "The existence of a single habitation on your defenceless coast ought to be a constant reproof to your ingratitude."

New London was selected as the next victim; but Tryon, who had already lost nearly a hundred and fifty men, was recalled to New York by a disaster which had befallen the Brit

ish. No sooner had they strongly fortified themselves at Stony Point than Washington, after ascertaining the character of their works, formed a plan for taking them by surprise. Wayne, of whom he made choice to lead the enterprise, undertook the perilous office with alacrity, and devised improvements in the method of executing the design.

Stony Point, a hill just below the Highlands, projects into the Hudson, which surrounds three fourths of its base; the fourth side was covered by a marsh, over which there lay but one pathway; where this road joined the river, a sandy beach was left bare at low tide. The fort, which was furnished with heavy ordnance and garrisoned by six hundred men, crowned the hill. Half-way between the river and the fort there was a double row of abattis. Breastworks and strong batteries could rake any column which might advance over the beach and the marsh. From the river, vessels of war commanded the foot of the hill. Conducting twelve hundred chosen men in single file over mountains and through morasses and narrow passes, Wayne halted them at a distance of a mile and a half from the enemy, while with the principal officers he reconnoitred the works. About twenty minutes after twelve on the morning of the sixteenth the assault began, the troops placing their sole dependence on the bayonet. Two advance parties of twenty men each, in one of which seventeen out of the twenty were killed or wounded, removed the abattis and other obstructions. Wayne, leading on a regiment, was wounded in the head, but, supported by his aids, still went forward. The two columns, heedless of musketry and grape-shot, gained the centre of the works nearly at the same moment. On the right, Fleury struck the enemy's standard with his own hand, and was instantly joined by Stewart, who commanded the van of the left. Five hundred and forty-three British officers and privates were made prisoners. The achievement was in its kind the most brilliant of the war.

The diminishing numbers of the troops with Washington not permitting him to hold Stony Point, the cannon and stores were removed and the works razed. The post was soon reoccupied, but only for a short time, by a larger British garrison.

The enterprising spirit of Major Henry Lee of Virginia

had been applauded in general orders; his daring proposal to attempt the fort at Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, obtained the approval of Washington. The place was strong, but was carelessly guarded. The party with Lee was undiscovered until, in the morning of the nineteenth of August, before day, they plunged into the canal, then deep from the rising tide. Entering the main work through a fire of musketry from block-houses, they captured the fort before the discharge of a single piece of artillery. After daybreak they withdrew, taking with them one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners.

Incited by the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry valley, congress, on the twenty-fifth of February, had directed Washington to protect the inland frontier and chastise the Seneca Indians. Of the two natural routes to their country, that of the Susquehannah was selected for three thousand men of the best continental troops, who were to rally at Wyoming, while one thousand or more of the men of New York were to move from the Mohawk river.

Before they could be ready, a party of five or six hundred men, led by Van Schaick and Willet, made a swift march of three days into the country of the Onondagas, and, without the loss of a man, destroyed their settlement.

The command of the great expedition, which Gates declined, devolved on Sullivan, to whom Washington in May gave repeatedly the instruction: "Move as light as possible even from the first onset. Reject every article that can be dispensed with; this is an extraordinary case, and requires extraordinary attention." Yet Sullivan made insatiable demands on the government of Pennsylvania, and wasted time in finding fault and writing strange theological essays. Meanwhile, British and Indian partisans near Fort Schuyler surprised and captured twenty-nine mowers. Savages under Macdonell laid waste the west bank of the Susquehannah, till "the Indians," by his own report, "were glutted with plunder, prisoners, and scalps." Thirty miles of a closely settled country were burnt. Brant and his crew consumed with fire all the settlement of Minisink, one fort excepted, and, from a party by whom they were pursued, took more than forty scalps and one prisoner.

The best part of the season was gone when Sullivan, on the

last of July, moved from Wyoming. His arrival at Tioga sent terror to the Indians. Several of their chiefs said to Colonel Bolton in council: "Why does not the great king, our father, assist us? Our villages will be cut off, and we can no longer fight his battles." On the twenty-second of August, the day after Sullivan was joined by New York troops under General James Clinton, he began the march up the Tioga into the heart of the Indian country. On the same day Little David, a Mohawk chief, delivered a message from himself and the Six Nations to Haldimand, then governor of Canada: "Brother! for these three years past the Six Nations have been running a race against fresh enemies, and are almost out of breath. Now we shall see whether you are our loving, strong brother, or whether you deceive us. Brother! we are still strong for the king of England, if you will show us that he is a man of his word, and that he will not abandon his brothers, the Six Nations."

The march into the country of the Senecas on the left extended to Genesee; on the right, detachments reached Cayuga lake. After destroying eighteen villages and their fields of corn, Sullivan returned to New Jersey. A small party from Fort Pitt, under command of Colonel Brodhead, broke up the towns of the Senecas upon the upper branch of the Alleghany. The manifest inability of Great Britain to protect the Six Nations taught them to desire neutrality.

In June the British general Maclean, who commanded in Nova Scotia, established a post of six hundred men at what is now Castine, on Penobscot bay. To dislodge the intruders, the Massachusetts legislature sent nineteen armed ships, sloops, and brigs; two of them continental vessels, the rest privateers or belonging to the state. The flotilla carried more than three hundred guns, and was attended by twenty-four transports, having on board nearly a thousand men. So large an American armament had never put to sea. The towns on the coast spared no sacrifice to insure success. On the twenty-eighth of July the expedition gallantly effected their landing, but were too weak to carry the works of the British by storm, and, while a reinforcement was on the way, Sir George Collier on the fourteenth of August arrived in a sixty-four gun ship, at

tended by five frigates. Two vessels of war fell into his hands; the rest and all the transports ran up the river, and were burnt by the men of the expedition, who made their escape through the woods. The British were left masters of the country east of the Penobscot.

Yet the result of the campaign at the north promised success to America. Clinton had evacuated Rhode Island, and all New England west of the Penobscot was free from an enemy. In New York the Six Nations had learned that the alliance with the English secured them gifts, but not protection. On the Hudson river the Americans recovered the use of King's ferry, and held all the country above it.

The winter set in early and with unwonted severity. Before the middle of December, and long before the army could build their log huts, the snow lay two feet deep in New Jersey, where the troops were cantoned; so that they saved themselves with difficulty from freezing by keeping up large fires. Continental money was valued at no more than thirty for one, and even at that rate the country people took it unwillingly. There could be no regularity in supplies. Sometimes the army was five or six days together without bread; at other times as many without meat; and once or twice two or three days without either. But such was the efficiency of the magistrates of New Jersey, such the good disposition of its people, that, when requisitions were made by the commander-in-chief on its several counties, they were punctually complied with, and in some counties exceeded. For many of the soldiers the term of service expired with the year; and shorter enlistments, by which several states attempted to fill their quotas, were fatal to compactness and stability. Massachusetts offered a bounty of five hundred dollars to each of those who would enlist for three years or the war, and found few to accept the offer. The Americans wanted men and wanted money, but could not be subdued. An incalculable strength lay in reserve in the energy of the states and of each individual citizen; and neither congress nor people harbored a doubt of their ultimate triumph.

Thomas Pownall, a member of parliament, who, from long civil service in various parts of the United States, knew them

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