Aug.

with the characters of the congrefs and the board of 1779 war. He carried fix light field pieces and two howitzers along with him; and would have the morning and evening gun fired conftantly. At length he arrived at Newtown; and vaunted in the morning what great things 29. he would do with and against the Indians. He began to engage them, by firing his field pieces at their breast works; which he continued while he detached gen. Poor to the right, round the mountain to fall upon their left flank. Poor had to march a mile and a half in full view of the Indians and their affociates, who penetrated his defign. They waited however for his approach; but obferving (that when his firing announced his being engaged) other movements were made toward them, they quitted their works, and betook themselves to a fudden and precipitate flight. To the left of Sullivan there was a river, and a plain on the right fide of it, along which had a force been fent early, they could have marched round undifcovered, and have fallen in nearly upon the centre of the Indians, by the time Poor came upon their left flank. A number of riflemen defired to take that route, but were not permitted. At night Sullivan was not a little mortified upon finding how completely the enemy had efcaped. He had 7 men killed and 14 wounded in the courfe of the day. The army marched on the gift for Catherine's town, lying on the. Seneca-lake. They had to traverse a fwamp feveral miles long; to pass through dangerous defiles, with steep hills on each fide; and to ford a river, emptying itself into the lake, confiderably broad in many places, with a ftrong current, and up to the middle of the men: its courfe was fo ferpentine, that they had to pass through

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it feven or eight times. Sullivan was advifed not to enter the swamp till the next day, but in vain. Clinton, who brought up the rear, was fufficiently fatigued by the time he reached the entrance, and being affured, that it would kill the horfes and cattle to proceed, defifted from marching forward.

Notwithstanding Sullivan kept out flanking parties as he advanced, fuch was the fteepness of the hills, the narrownefs and difficulty of the defiles, that twenty or thirty Indians might have thrown his troops into the utmost confufion. The night was fo exceeding dark, that the men could fee but a little way before them. They were wearied out, fcattered and broken, loft all their fpirits, lay down here and there, and wifhed to die, Had a body of the enemy fallen on them in this fituation, it might have produced the most fatal confequences, Now was the general's mind racked and tortured. It was twelve at night before his troops reached the town, The Indian fcouts had watched them while it was light; but had no thought of their continuing to march in fo dark a night and to fo late an hour. Before they got to the first house there was a most dangerous defile, fo formed by nature that had it been poffeffed by the five and twenty Indians, who were in the town roafting corn, they might have shot down, while ammunition lafted, what Americans they pleafed when within the reach of their guns and the fight of their eyes, without risking their own perfons. When the troops had fafely finished their march, Sullivan declared, he would not have fuch another night for all his command. The men were obliged to halt all the next day to recruit; and fuffered more

in the preceding, than they would have done in a month's 1779. regular march.

General Sullivan continued in the Indian country, fpreading defolation and deftruction among the towns and plantations of the enemy, without fparing the orchards of apple and peach trees, which had been raised from pips and stones, and in fome places properly planted by the advice of the miffionary who had lived among them. The heat of the climate, and richness of the foil, will raife good fruit in a few years from kernels that are produced by fuitable trees. Several officers thought it a degradation of the army to be employed in destroying apple and peach trees, when the very Indians in their excursions fpared them, and wished the general to retract his orders for it. He was told that the trees would in a little time be worth to the continent at least many thousand hard dollars. He continued relentless and faid-"The Indians fhall fee, that there is malice enough in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes toward their fupport." Some of the officers however, who were fent out with parties to lay wafte the Indian territory, would fee no apple or peach trees; so that they were left to bloffom and bear, for the refreshment of man or beast, friend or foe that might chance to pass that way, Thus did gen. Hand and col. Durbin do honor to their own characters. By the middle of October gen. Sullivan reached Eafton in Pennsylvania on his return to join the main army. He brought back only 300 horfes out of the 1400 he took with him. During his expedition, there were eleven Indians killed; two old fquaws, a negro, and a white man taken;-18

1779. towns* destroyed, and 150,000 bushels of corn, befide

apple and peach trees. By groundlefs complaints, he displeased the commander in chief, and gave great umbrage to the board of war and the quarter mafter general. The pompous account † of his military peregrination which he fent to congrefs, made him the laugh of the officers in the army remaining under gen. Washington; one declared it was a little mifchievous to print the whole account; another when he read of elegant Indian houses, was ready to queftion from the abuse of the epithet, whether he understood the true meaning of the word. He foon felt himself fo diffatisfied, that on the 9th of November he begged leave of congress to refign upon the plea of bad health: they, on the last of the month, accepted his refignation.

The carrying on of this expedition did not however prevent the offenfive operations of the Indians and their affociates. On the 23d of July, a party of 60 Indians, and 27 white men under Jofeph Brandt, fell upon the Minifink fettlements and burnt 10 houses, 12 barns, a fort and 2 mills, killed and carried off feveral people with confiderable plunder. The militia from Goshen and parts adjacent, to the amount of 149, collected; and pursued them, but without fufficient caution and neceffaries, fo that they were furprised and totally defeated; no more than 30 returned. Many were killed, a number made prifoners; the reft difperfed and were

* Sullivan in his account fays 40: but if a few old houfes which had been deferted for feveral years, were met with and burnt, they were put down for a town. Stables and wood hovels, and lodges in the field, when the Indians were called to work there, were all reckoned as houses. See the Remembrancer, vol. ix. p. 158.

miffing long after the action. Five days after, capt. 1779. M'Donald at the head of 250 men, a third British, the reft Indians, took Freeland's fort, on the weft branch of the Susquehanna; in which were 30 men and 50 women and children; the captain confented that the last fhould be fet at liberty, but the men were made prifoners of war. The party on their way to it had burnt houses and mills, had killed and captivated feveral of the inhabitants. On the other fide, gen. Williamfon, with col. Pickens, entered the Indian country about the 22d of August, burnt and destroyed the corn of eight towns, amounting to more than 50,000 bufhels. He would hearken to no propofals from the Indians, nor accept of their friendship, but infifted on their removing immediately, with their remaining property, into the fettled towns of the Creeks, and refiding among their countrymen, to which they agreed. Col. Broadhead alfo engaged in a fuccefsful expedition against the Mingo and Munfey Indians, and the Senecas on the Alleghaney river. He left Pittsburgh Auguft the 11th, with 605. rank and file, including militia and volunteers, and did not return till the 14th of September. They went about 200 miles from the fort, deftroyed a number of towns, and cornfields to the amount of 500 acres, and made a great deal of plunder in skins and other articles.

The active part which the Spaniards have now taken in the prefent conteft, muft iffue in favor of the American States. The Spanish governor of Louisiana, Don Bernardo de Galvez, has acknowledged his being apprized of the commencement of hoftilities between the courts of Madrid and London, on the 9th of Auguft. The eafieft way of accounting for this extraordinary cir