the field, it would be absolutely impracticable to discharge the duties of the office. Resolving, therefore, not to take upon himself the responsibility of measures, the issue of which must inevitably be calamitous and disgraceful, he determined to withdraw from a station in which he despaired of being useful.

Apprehending the worst consequences from the derangements which must ensue from such a circumstance, in so critical a moment, General Washington pressed him to suspend this decisive step, till the effect of an application, made both by himself and by the committee of co-operation, should be known. They represented to Congress, that not only all such military preparations as would enable them to execute the plans formed for the campaign must cease, but that probably the army itself would be compelled to disperse for want of subsistence, unless measures were adopted to retain in service the present quarter-master-general, and those assistants whom he believed to be indispensable to the proper discharge of the complicated and extensive duties of his office.

These letters were without effect. The bold experiment of totally changing a system of such importance at the opening of a campaign, had been made; and the resolution not to depart from it was fixed. General Greene's resignation was accepted; and the letter conveying it excited so

much

much irritation, that a design was intimated of suspending his command in the line of the army. But these impressions soon wore off, and the recentments of the moment entirely subsided.

Colonel Pickering, who succeeded General Greene, possessed in an eminent degree those qualities which fitted him to combat and subdue the difficulties of his department. To great energy of mind and body, he added a long experience in the affairs of the continent, with an ardent zeal for its interests; and General Greene himself, and some of the former officers, at the request of the commander in chief, continued, for some time after their resignation, to render all the services in their power; but there was an absolute defect of means, for which neither talents nor exertions could compensate.

In the commissary department the same distress was experienced. General Washington was driven to the hard necessity of emptying the magazines at West Point, and of foraging on a people whose means of subsisting themselves were already nearly exhausted by the armies on both sides. The inadequate supplies drawn from these sources af forded but a short relief; and once more, at a time when the public imagination was contemplating brilliant plans, the execution of which required steady courage with persevering labour, and consequently large magazines, the army was frequently

reduced

reduced to the most distressing circumstances by the want of food.

So great were the embarrassments produced by this difficulty of procuring subsistence, that although the arrival of the second division of the flect from Brest was daily looked for, and large bodies of militia, indispensably necessary to the operations which depended on that event, were marching to join him, General Washington was under the necessity of countermanding the orders under which they were proceeding to camp, and of directing them to return home; although he felt a strong conviction, that the delays attendant on bringing them again into the field would greatly procrastinate the execution of the plans which had been formed.

Such was the state of preparation for the campaign, when intelligence was brought by the Alliance frigate that the second division of the fleet designed for the service of the United States, when ready to sail, had been stopped by a British squadron, which completely blockaded the port of Brest. The opinion however prevailed, that the combined fleets of France and Spain would be able to raise the blockade; and should this expectation be disappointed, great confidence was placed in the success of the application which had been made to the Count de Guichen.

General Washington, therefore, under every discouraging

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discouraging circumstance, still adhered steadily to his purpose respecting New York, and still continued to strain every nerve to provide the means for its execution. The details of the plan of cooperation continued to be the subject of a correspondence with the Count de Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Ternay; and at length, for complete explanation on some minute points, on which a perfect coincidence of opinion had not taken place between them, for the purpose also of concerting further eventual measures, and even of laying the foundation for the next campaign, a personal interview was agreed upon, to take place on the 21st of September, at Hartford, in Connecticut.

In this interview ulterior eventual measures, as well as an explicit and detailed arrangement for acting against New York, were the subjects of consideration.

No one of the plans, however, then concerted for the present campaign, could be put in execution. All, except an invasion of Canada, depended on a superiority at sea, which was soon rendered almost hopeless by the certain information that the Count de Guichen, instead of coming to the American coast, had sailed for Europe.

This circumstance not only disappointed every hope of such a naval reinforcement as would give the Chevalier de Ternay the command of the ocean, but enabled the British still further to increase their superiority.

When

When the Count de Guichen sailed for Europe, he took under his protection a fleet of merchantmen returning from the West Indies to France. Believing that he designed to convoy them only to a latitude out of the reach of the cruizers about the islands, and then to return for the purpose of executing the designs against New York, Admiral Rodney sailed for America, where he arrived late in September, with eleven ships of the line and four frigates. This reinforcement not only disconcerted all the plans of the allies, and terminated the sanguine hopes which had been formed at the opening of the campaign, but put it in the power of the British to project in security further expeditions to the south.

It may well be supposed that the commander in chief did not relinquish without infinite chagrin the sanguine expectations he had formed of making the present summer decisive. Never before had he indulged so strongly the hope of happily terminating the war. "We are now," he writes in a private letter to an intimate friend, " drawing to a close an inactive campaign, the beginning of which appeared pregnant with events of a very favourable complexion. I hoped, but I hoped in vain, that a prospect was opening which would enable me to fix a period to my military pursuits, and restore me to domestic life. The favourable disposition of Spain, the promised succour from. France;

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