Table at Head-quarters.-Sir Henry Clinton reinforced.—Arrival of D'Estaing on the Coast of Georgia.-Plans in Consequence. - The French Minister at Washington's Highland Camp.-Letter to Lafayette.-D'Estaing Coöperates with Lincoln.-Repulsed at Savannah.—Washington Reinforces Lincoln.-Goes into Win- ter-quarters. - Sir Henry Clinton sends an Expedition to the LIFE OF WASHINGTON. CHAPTER I. BURKE ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN AMERICA.-NEW JERSEY ROUSED TO ARMS.-WASHINGTON GRANTS SAFE CONDUCT TO HESSIAN CONVOYS.-ENCAMPMENT AT MORRISTOWN.-PUTNAM AT PRINCETON.-HIS STRATAGEM TO CONCEAL THE WEAKNESS OF HIS CAMP.-EXPLOIT OF GENERAL DICKINSON NEAR SOMERSET COURT-HOUSE.—WASHINGTON'S COUNTER PROCLAMATION. -PREVALENCE OF THE SMALL-POX.-INOCULATION OF THE ARMY.-CONTRAST OF THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN COMMANDERS AND THEIR CAMPS. THE news of Washington's recrossing the Delaware, and of his subsequent achievements in the Jerseys, had not reached London on the 9th of January. "The affairs of America seem to be drawing to a crisis," writes Edmund Burke. "The Howes are at this time in possession of, or able to awe the whole middle coast of America, from Delaware to the western boundary of Massachusetts Bay; the naval barrier on the side of Canada is broken. A great tract is open for the supply of the troops; the river Hudson opens a way into the heart of the provinces, and nothing can, in all probability, prevent an early and offensive campaign. What the Americans have done is, in their circumstances, truly astonishing; it is indeed infinitely more than I expected from them. But, having done so much for some short time, I began to entertain an opinion that they might do more. It is now, however, evident that they cannot look standing armies in the face. They are inferior in everything-even in numbers. There seem by the best accounts not to be above ten or twelve thousand men at most in their grand army. The rest are militia, and not wonderfully well composed or disciplined. They decline a general engagement; prudently enough, if their object had been to make the war attend upon a treaty of good terms of subjection; but when they look further, this will not do. An army that is obliged at all times, and in all situations, to decline an engagement, may delay their ruin, but can never defend their country."* At the time when this was written, the Howes had learnt, to their mortification, that "the mere running through a province, is not subduing it." The British commanders had been outgeneraled, attacked, and defeated. They had nearly been driven out of the Jerseys, and were now hemmed in and held in check by Washington and his handful of men castled among the heights of Morristown. So far from holding possession of the ter * Burke's Works, vol. v. p. 125. NEW JERSEY ROUSED TO ARMS. 27 ritory they had so recently overrun, they were fain to ask safe conduct across it for a convoy to their soldiers captured in battle. It must have been a severe trial to the pride of Cornwallis, when he had to inquire by letter of Washington, whether money and stores could be sent to the Hessians captured at Trenton, and a surgeon and medicines to the wounded at Princeton; and Washington's reply must have conveyed a reproof still more mortifying: No molestation, he assured his lordship, would be offered to the convoy by any part of the regular army under his command; but "he could not answer for the militia, who were resorting to arms in most parts of the State, and were excessively exasperated at the treatment they had met with from both Hessian and British troops." In fact, the conduct of the enemy had roused the whole country against them. The proclamations and printed protections of the British commanders, on the faith of which the inhabitants in general had stayed at home, and forbore to take up arms, had proved of no avail. The Hessians could not or would not understand them, but plundered friend and foe alike.* The British soldiery often followed their example, and the plunderings of both were at times attended by those brutal outrages on the weaker sex, which inflame the dullest spirits to revenge. * "These rascals plunder all indiscriminately. If they see anything they like, they say, 'Rebel good for Hesse-mans,' and seize upon it for their own use. They have no idea of the distinctions between whig and tory."-Letter of Hazard the Postmaster. The whole State was thus roused against its invaders. In Washington's retreat of more than a hundred miles through the Jerseys, he had never been joined by more than one hundred of its inhabitants; now sufferers of both parties rose as one man to avenge their personal injuries. The late quiet yeomanry armed themselves, and scoured the country in small parties to seize on stragglers, and the militia began to signalize themselves in voluntary skirmishes with regular troops. In effect, Washington ordered a safe conduct to be given to the Hessian baggage as far as Philadelphia, and to the surgeon and medicines to Princeton, and permitted a Hessian sergeant and twelve men, unarmed, to attend the baggage until it was delivered to their country men. Morristown, where the main army was encamped, had not been chosen by Washington as a permanent post, but merely as a halting-place, where his troops might repose after their excessive fatigues and their sufferings from the inclement season. Further considerations persuaded him that it was well situated for the system of petty warfare which he meditated, and induced him to remain there. It was protected by forests and rugged heights. All approach from the seaboard was rendered difficult and dangerous to a hostile force by a chain of sharp hills, extending from Pluckamin, by Boundbrook and Springfield, to the vicinity of the Passaic River, while various defiles in the rear afforded safer retreats into a fertile and |