the United States in the present war with Great Britain, by attacking the Electorate of Hanover, or any part of the dominions of Great Britain in Europe, the East or West Indies.

That the commissioners be further empowered to stipulate with the court of France, that all the trade between the United States, and the West India Islands, shall be carried on by vessels either belonging to the subjects of his most Christian Majesty, or these states, each having liberty to carry on such trade.

That the commissioners be likewise instructed to assure his most Christian Majesty, that, should his forces be employed, in conjunction with the United States, to exclude his Britannic Majesty from any share in the cod-fishery of America, by reducing the islands of Newfoundland and Cape Breton; and that ships of war be furnished, when required, by the United States to reduce Nova Scotia, the fishery shall be enjoyed equally, and in common, by the subjects of his most Christian Majesty, provided the province of Nova Scotia, island of Cape Breton, and the remaining part of Newfoundland be annexed to the territory and government of the United States.

That should the proposals, made as above, be insufficient to produce the proposed declaration of war, and the commissioners are convinced that it cannot otherwise be accomplished, they must assure his most Christian Majesty, that such of the British WestIndia Islands, as, in the course of the war, shall be reduced by the united force of France and these states, shall be yielded an absolute property to his most Christian Majesty. The United States engage, on timely notice, to furnish, at the expense of the said states, and deliver at some convenient port, or ports, in the said states, provisions for carrying an expedition against the said islands, to the amount of two millions of dollars, and six frigates, mounting not less than twenty-four guns each, manned and fitted for sea; and to render any other assistance which may be in their power, as becomes good allies.

That the commissioners for the courts of France and Spain consult together, and prepare a treaty of commerce and alliance, as nearly as may be, similar to the first proposed to the court of France, and not inconsistent therewith, nor disagreeable to his most Christian Majesty, to be proposed to the court of Spain; adding thereto, That if his Catholic Majesty will join with the United States in a war with Great Britain, they will assist in reducing to the possession of Spain, the town and harbour of Pensacola, provided the citizens and inhabitants of the United States shall have the free and uninterrupted navigation of the Mississippi and the use of the harbour of Pensacola; and will, provided it shall be true that his Portuguese Majesty has insultingly expelled the vessels of these states from his ports, or has confiscated such vessels, declare war against the said king, if that measure shall be agreeable to, and supported by the courts of France and Spain.

That the commissioners for the court of Berlin consult with the commissioners at the court of France, and prepare such treaty or treaties of friendship and commerce, to be proposed to the king of Prussia, as shall not be disagreeable to their most Christian and Catholic Majesties.

[Extract of the Minutes.]

CHARLES THOMPSON, Secretary of the Congress.
JOHN HANCOCK, President."

"General Washington, having secured the Hessian prisoners of the Pennsylvanian side of the Delaware, recrossed the river two days after the action, and took possession of Trenton. Generals Mifflin and Cadwallader, who lay at Bordentown and Crosswix with three thousand six hundred militia, were ordered to march up in the night of the first of January, to join the commander in chief, whose whole effective force, including this accession, did not exceed five thousand men. The detachments of the British army, which had been distri buted over New-Jersey, now assembled at Princeton, and were joined by the army from Brunswick under Lord Cornwallis. From this position the enemy advanced toward Trenton in great force, on the morning of the second of January; and, after some slight skir mishing with troops, detached to harass and delay their march, the van of their army reached Trenton about four in the afternoon. On their approach, General Washington retired across the Assumpinck a rivulet that runs through the town, and by some field pieces, posted on its opposite banks, compelled them, after attempting to cross m several places, to fall back out of the reach of his guns. The two armies, kindling their fires, retained their positions on opposite sides of the rivulet, and kept up a cannonade until night.

If

The situation of the American general was at this moment ex tremely critical. Nothing but a stream, in many places fordable separated his army from an enemy, in every respect its superior. he remained in his present position, he was certain of being attacked the next morning, at the hazard of the entire destruction of his little army. If he should retreat over the Delaware, the ice in that river not being firm enough to admit a passage upon it, there was danger of great loss, perhaps of a total defeat; the Jerseys would be in full possession of the enemy; the public mind would be depressed; re cruiting would be discouraged; and Philadelphia would be within the reach of General Howe. In this extremity, he boldly determin ed to abandon the Delaware, and by a circuitous march along the left flank of the enemy, fall into their rear at Princeton. As soon as and it was dark, the baggage was silently removed to Burlington; about one o'clock the army, leaving its fires lighted, and the sentinels on the margin of the creek, decamped with perfect secresy. movement was providentially favoured by the weather, which had previously been so warm and moist, that the ground was soft, and

Its

the roads were scarcely passable; but, the wind suddenly changing

to the northwest, the ground was in a short time frozen as hard as a pavement. About sunrise, two British regiments, that were on their march under Lieutenant-Colonel Mawhood to join the rear of the British army at Maidenhead,* fell in with the van of the Americans, conducted by General Mercer and a very sharp action ensued. The advanced party of Americans, composed chiefly of militia, soon gave way, and the few regulars attached to them could not maintain their ground. General Mercer, while gallantly exerting himself to rally his broken troops, received a mortal wound. The British rushed forward with fixed bayonets, and drove back the Americans. General Washington, who followed close in the rear, now led on the main body of the army, and attacked the enemy with great spirit. While he exposed himself to their hottest fire, he was so well supported by the same troops, which had aided him a few days before in the victory at Trenton, that the British were compelled to give way. The seventeenth regiment, which was in front, forced its way through a part of the American troops, and reached Maidenhead. The fifty-fifth regiment, which was in the rear, retreated by the way of Hillsborough to Brunswick. General Washington pressed forward to Princeton. A party of the British, that had taken refuge in the college, after receiving a few discharges from the American field pieces, came out and surrendered themselves prisoners of war; but the principal part of the regiment, that was left there, saved itself by a precipitate retreat to Brunswick. In this action, upward of one hundred of the enemy were killed on the spot, and nearly three hundred were taken prisoners. The loss of the Americans in killed was somewhat less; but, beside General Mercer, Colonels Haslet and. Potter, two brave and excellent officers from Pennsylvania, Captain Neal of the artillery, Captain Fleming, and five other valuable officers, were among the slain.t

Lord Cornwallis, discovering at day light that the American army had moved off, broke up his camp, and commenced a rapid march to Brunswick, and was close in the rear of the Americans before they left Princeton. General Washington retired with his army to Morristown. During these movements, many of the American soldiers were without shoes; and their naked feet, in marching over the frozen ground, were so gashed, as to mark each step with blood. There was scarcely a tent in the whole army.

The American militia very soon overran the Jerseys. Within four days after the action at Princeton, between forty and fifty Wal

* When Lord Cornwallis quitted Princeton, Lieutenant-Colonel Mawhood was left to defend it with the 17th, 40th, and 55th regiments; but orders had just been transmitted him to march with the 17th and 55th regiments to Maidenhead, a village midway between Princeton and Trenton. These were the two regiments now on their march.

" In

+ General Mercer was from Virginia. Though a Scotchman by birth, yet from principle and affection he had engaged to support the liberties of his adopted country. In the French war he had served with Washington, who greatly esteemed him. private life he was amiable, and his character as an officer stood high in public esteem."

deckers were killed, wounded, or taken, at Springfield, (New-Jer sey,) by an equal number of the Jersey militia under Colonel Spencer. General Maxwell surprised Elizabethtown, and took nearly one hundred prisoners. General Dickenson, with four hundred Jersey militia, and fifty Pennsylvania riflemen, crossed Millstone River, near Somerset court-house, on the twentieth of January, and attacked a large foraging party of the British; nine of whom were taken prisoners, and the rest dispersed. Forty waggons, and upward of one hundred horses, with considerable booty, fell into the general's hands. About a month afterward, Colonel Nelson, of Brunswick, with a detachment of one hundred and fifty militia-men, surprised and captured at Lawrence's Neck a major, and fifty-nine privates of the refugees, who were in British pay.

The Americans had hitherto been very deficient in arms and ammunition; but in the spring of this year a vessel of twenty-four guns arrived from France at Portsmouth, in New-Hampshire, with upward of eleven thousand stand of arms, and a thousand barrels of powder; and about the same time ten thousand stand of arms arriv ed in another part of the United States.

Before the royal army took the field for the ensuing campaign, two enterprises were undertaken for the destruction of American stores, deposited at Peek's Kill and Danbury. The first was conducted by Colonel Bird, who landed with about five hundred men at Peek's Kill, on the east side of Hudson's River, nearly fifty miles from New-York; but on his approach, General M'Dougal, with the few Americans stationed there as a guard, fired the principal store houses, and retired. The loss of provisions, forage, and other valuable articles, was considerable.

The second enterprise was conducted by Major-General Tryon who, with a detachment of two thousand men, embarked at New. York, and, passing through Long-Island Sound, landed at Campo, between Fairfield and Norwalk; whence he advanced through the country, almost undisturbed, to Danbury. On his approach, Col. Huntington, who had occupied the town with one hundred militia and continental troops, retired to a neighbouring height, where he waited for reinforcements. The British destroyed eighteen houses, eight hundred barrels of pork and beef, eight hundred barrels of flour, two thousand bushels of grain, and seventeen hundred tents. Generals Wooster, Arnold, and Silliman, hastily collecting several hundred of the inhabitants, proceeded that night through a heavy rain to Bethel, about eight miles from Danbury. The next morning they divided their troops; and General Wooster, with about three hundred men, fell in their rear, while Arnold, with about five hundred, by a rapid movement, took post in their front at Ridgefield.

Wooster, coming up with them about eleven in the morning, attacked them with great gallantry. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which he was mortally wounded, and his troops were compelled to give way. The enemy proceeded to Ridgefield, where Arnold, who

had barricaded the road, warmly disputed the passage; but, after a skirmish of nearly an hour, being compelled to give way, he retreat. ed to Paugatuck, about three miles east of Norwalk. The royalists, having remained that night at Ridgefield, set fire to the place, and early next morning resumed their march. Arnold met them again about eleven, and a continued skirmishing was kept up until five in the afternoon, when, on their making a stand at a hill near their ships, the Americans charged them with intrepidity, but were repulsed and broken. The enemy immediately re-embarked for New-York. Their killed, wounded, and missing, amounted to about one hundred and seventy; the loss of the Americans was not admitted to exceed one hundred.*

This predatory excursion was not long after retaliated. A quantity of provisions had been deposited at Sagg Harbour, on the eastern end of Long-Island, and confided to a schooner with twelve guns, and a company of infantry. General Parsons, who commanded a few of the Connecticut recruits at New-Haven, conceiving it practicable to surprise this small post, and some others not very distant from it, intrusted the execution of his plan to LieutenantColonel Meigs, a very enterprising and gallant officer, who had distinguished himself in the attempt on Quebec. On the twentythird of May, he embarked at Guilford with about one hundred and seventy men, on board thirteen whale boats, and proceeded, under convoy of two armed sloops, across the Sound to the north division of the island near Southhold. A small foraging party, against which the expedition was in part directed, having left this place for NewYork, the boats were immediately conveyed across the land, about fifteen miles, into a bay, by which the east end of Long Island is deeply intersected, where the troops re-embarked, and, crossing the bay, landed at two in the morning about four miles from Sagg Harbour. This place they completely surprised, and carried with charged bayonets. A division of the detachment at the same time burned twelve vessels, with the forage which had been collected for the supply of the British army. Six of the enemy were killed, and ninety captured. Colonel Meigs returned to Guilford with his prisoners, without the loss of a single man."†

* David Wooster was born at Stratford, in Connecticut, in 1711, and educated at Yale College. Having, from the time of the war with Spain in 13 39 to the French war in 1755, risen through the several military gradations to the rank of colonel; at the commencement of the revolutionary war he was appointed to the chief command of the troops in the service of Connecticut, and made a Brigadier-General in the continental service; but this commission he afterward resigned. In 1776, he was appointed the first Major-General of the militia in Connecticut; and fell while bravely fighting at their head. Congress resolved, that a monument should be erected to his memory. General Arnold behaved with his usual gallantry on this occasion. In the skirmish at Ridgefield, his horse was shot under him; and while he was extricating himself a soldier advanced to run him through with a bayonet, but he shot him dead with his pistol, and made his escape. Congress resolved, that a horse, properly caparisoned, should be presented to him.

Holmes' Annals, vol. ii, p. 370-76.