or reinforcement of his army, and could not tell how far the several states would comply with the requisitions made on them. While awarding liberal praise to the militia of New Jersey, Washington renewed to the committee his constant plea for regular troops: "Perseverance in enduring the rigors of military service is not to be expected from those who are not by profession obliged to it. Our force, from your own observa

tion, is totally inadequate to our safety."

On the nineteenth of June, two days after his return to New York, Clinton repaired to New Jersey. He had at his disposition nearly four times as many regular troops as were opposed to him; but he fretted at "the move in Jersey as premature," and what he " least expected." With civil words to the German officers, he resolved to give up the expedition; but he chose to mask his retreat under the form of a military manœuvre.

Troops sent up the Hudson river, as if to take the Americans in the rear, induced Washington to move his camp to Rockaway bridge, confiding the post at Short Hills to two brigades under the command of Greene. Early on the twentythird the British advanced in two compact divisions from Elizabethtown Point to Springfield. The column on the right had to ford the river before they could drive Major Lee from one of the bridges over the Passaic. At the other, Colonel Angel with his regiment held the left column in check for about forty minutes. Greene prepared for action; but the British chief, though his army was drawn up and began a heavy cannonade, had no design to give battle; and at four in the afternoon, after burning the houses in Springfield, ordered its return. All the way back to Elizabethtown it was annoyed by an incessant fire from American skirmishers and militia. Its total loss is not known; once more the Hessian yagers lost fifty in killed or wounded, among the latter one colonel, two captains, and a lieutenant. From Elizabethtown Point it crossed to Staten Island by a bridge of boats, which at midnight was taken away. Clinton was never again to have so good an opportunity for offensive operations as that which he then rejected.

On the return of d'Estaing to France, he urged the French ministry to send twelve thousand men to the United States, as

the best way of pursuing the war; and Lafayette had given the like advice to Vergennes, with whom he had formed relations of friendship. The cabinet adopted the measure in its principle, but vacillated as to the number of the French contingent. For the command, Count de Rochambeau was selected, not by court favor, but from the esteem in which he was held in the French army. On the tenth of July, Admiral de Ternay with a squadron of ten ships-of-war, three of them ships of the line, convoyed the detachment of about six thousand men with Rochambeau into the harbor of Newport. To an address from the general assembly of Rhode Island, then sitting in Newport, the count answered: "The French troops are restrained by the strictest discipline; and, acting under General Washington, will live with the Americans as their brethren. I assure the general assembly that, as brethren, not only my life, but the lives of the troops under my command, are entirely devoted to their service." Washington in general orders desired the American officers to wear white and black cockades as a symbol of affection for their allies.

The British fleet at New York having received a large reinforcement, so that it had now a great superiority, Sir Henry Clinton embarked about eight thousand men for an expedition to Rhode Island. Supported by militia from Massachusetts and Connecticut, the French longed for the threatened attack; but the expedition proceeded no farther than Huntington bay in Long Island, where it idled away several days, and then returned to New York. Of the incapacity of Arbuthnot, the admiral, Clinton sent home bitter complaints, which were little heeded, for he was himself thought unequal to his position. The sixth summer during which the British had vainly endeavored to reduce the United States was passing away, and after the arrival of French auxiliaries the British commanderin-chief was more than ever disheartened.

On the twenty-fifth of August, Clinton, knowing well that he had in Cornwallis a favored rival eager to supplant him, reported officially from New York: "At this new epoch in the war, when a foreign force has landed and an addition to it is expected, I owe to my country, and I must in justice to my own fame declare, that I become every day more sensible

of the utter impossibility of prosecuting the war in this country without reinforcements. The revolutions fondly looked for by means of friends to the British government I must represent as visionary. The accession of friends, without we occupy the country they inhabit, is but the addition of unhappy exiles to the list of pensioned refugees. A glance at the returns of the army divided into garrisons and reduced by casualties on the one part, with the consideration of the task yet before us on the other, would renew the too just reflection that we are by some thousands too weak to subdue this formidable rebellion." Yet for the moment the only regiments sent to the United States were three to reinforce Lord Cornwallis.

Hopeless of success in honorable warfare, Clinton stooped to fraud and corruption. While Arnold held the command in Philadelphia, his extravagant mode of living tempted him to peculation and treasonable connections; and toward the end of February 1779 he let it be known to the British commanderin-chief that he was desirous of exchanging the American service for that of Great Britain. His open preference for the friends of the English in Pennsylvania disgusted the patriots. The council of that state, after bearing with him for more than half a year, very justly desired his removal from the command; and, having early in 1779 given information of his conduct, against their intention they became his accusers. The court-martial, before which he was arraigned on charges that touched his honor and integrity, dealt with him leniently, and sentenced him only to be reprimanded by the commander-inchief. The reprimand was marked with the greatest forbearance. The French minister, to whom Arnold applied for money, put aside his request and added wise and friendly advice. In the course of the winter of 1778 to 1779 he was taken into the pay of Clinton, to whom he gave intelligence on every occasion.

The plot received the warmest encouragement from Lord George Germain, who, toward the end of September 1779, wrote to Clinton: "Next to the destruction of Washington's army, the gaining over officers of influence and reputation among the troops would be the speediest means of subduing the rebellion and restoring the tranquillity of America. Your

commission authorizes you to avail yourself of such opportunities, and the expense will be cheerfully submitted to."

In 1780 the command at West Point needed to be changed. Acting in concert with the British general and supported by the New York delegation in congress, Arnold, pleading his wounds as an excuse for declining active service, solicited and obtained orders to that post which included all the American forts in the Highlands. Sir Henry Clinton entered with all his soul into the ignoble plot. A correspondence of two months ensued between him and Arnold, through Major John André, adjutant-general of the army in North America. On the thirtieth of August, Arnold, insisting that the advantages which he expected to gain for himself by his surrender were "by no means unreasonable" and requiring that his conditions should "be clearly understood," laid a plan for an interview at which a person "fully authorized" was to "close with" his proposals.

The rendezvous was given by him within the American lines, where Colonel Sheldon held the command; and that officer was instructed to expect the arrival "at his quarters of a person in New York to open a channel of intelligence." On the same day André, disguising his name, wrote to Sheldon from New York, by order of Clinton: "A flag will be sent to Dobb's Ferry on Monday next, the eleventh, at twelve o'clock. Let me entreat you, sir, to favor a matter which is of so private a nature that the public on neither side can be injured by it. I trust I shall not be detained, but I would rather risk that than neglect the business in question, or assume a mysterious character to carry on an innocent affair and get to your lines. by stealth." To this degree did the British commander-inchief prostitute his word and a flag of truce. The letter of André being forwarded to Arnold, he "determined to go as far as Dobb's Ferry and meet the flag." As he was approaching the vessel in which André came up the river, the British guard-boats, whose officers were not in the secret, fired upon his barge and prevented the interview.

Clinton became more eager in the project, for of a sudden he gained an illustrious assistant. At the breaking out of the war between France and England, Sir George Rodney, a Brit

ish naval officer, chanced to be detained in Paris by debt; but the aged Marshal de Biron advanced him money to set himself free, and he hastened to England to ask employment of the king. He was devoted to no political party; he reverenced the memory of Chatham, and yet held the war against the United States to be just. A man of action, quick-sighted, great in power of execution, he was the very officer whom a wise government would employ, and whom by luck the British admiralty of that day, tired of the Keppels and the Palisers, the mutinous and the incompetent, put in command of the expedition that was to relieve Gibraltar and rule the seas of the West Indies. One of the king's younger sons served on board his fleet as midshipman. He took his squadron to sea on the twenty-ninth of December 1779. On the eighth of January 1780, he captured seven vessels of war and fifteen sail of merchant-men. On the sixteenth he encountered off Cape St. Vincent the Spanish squadron of Languara, very inferior to his own, and easily took or destroyed a great part of it. Having victualled the garrison of Gibraltar and relieved Minorca, on the thirteenth of February he set sail for the West Indies. At St. Lucia he received letters from his wife, saying: "Everybody is beyond measure delighted as well as astonished at your success;" from his daughter: "Everybody almost adores you, and every mouth is full of your praise; come back when you have done some more things in that part of the world you are in now."

The thanks of both houses of parliament reached him at Barbados. In April and May, Rodney had twice or thrice encounters with the French fleet of Admiral Guichen, and with such success that in a grateful mood the British parliament thanked him once more. Yet he did not obtain a decided superiority in the West Indian seas, and he reported to the admiralty as the reason, that his flag had not been properly supported by some of his officers.

With indifference to neutral rights, he sent frigates to seize or destroy all American vessels in St. Eustatius. In June he received a check by a junction of the Spanish squadron under Solano with the French. But the two admirals could not agree how their forces should be employed. Contagious fever