occasion to quote, paid a visit to the camp at this juncture, in company with Colonel Miles and Major West, all American prisoners on Long Island, but who had been liberated on parole. Graydon remarks that, to their great surprise, they saw no military parade upon their journey, nor any indication of martial vigor on the part of the country. Here and there a militia man with his contrasted colored cape and facings; doubtless some one who had received his furlough, and was bound home to his farm. Captains, majors, and colonels abounded in the land, but were not to be found at the head of their men.

When he arrived at the camp, he could see nothing which deserved the name of army. "I was told, indeed," remarks he, "that it was much weakened by detachments, and I was glad to find there was some cause for the present paucity of soldiers. I could not doubt, however, that things were going on well. The commander-in-chief and all about him were in excellent spirits." The three officers waited on Washington at his marquee in the evening. In the course of conversation, he asked them what they conceived to be the objects of General Howe. Colonel Miles replied, a co-operation with the Northern army by means of the Hudson. Washington acknowledged that indications and probabilities tended to that conclusion; nevertheless, he had little doubt the object of Howe was Philadelphia. Graydon and his companions dined the next day at headquarters; there was a large party, in which were several ladies. Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who, in the preceding month of April, had been received into Washington's family as aide-decamp, presided at the head of the table, and "acquitted himself," writes Graydon, "with an ease, propriety, and vivacity which gave me the most favorable impression of his talents and accomplishments."

We may here observe that the energy, skill, and intelligence displayed by Hamilton throughout the last year's campaign, whenever his limited command gave him opportunity of evin cing them, had won his entrance to head-quarters; where his quick discernment and precocious judgment were soon fully appreciated. Strangers were surprised to see a youth, scarce twenty years of age, received into the implicit confidence, and admitted into the gravest counsels, of a man like Washington. While his uncommon talents thus commanded respect, rarely inspired by one of his years, his juvenile appearance and buoyant spirit made him a universal favorite. Harrison, the "old secretary," much his senior, looked upon him with an almost paternal eye, and regarding his diminutive size and towering

spirit, used to call him "the little lion;" while Washington would now and then speak of him by the cherishing appellation of "my boy."1

The following is Graydon's amusing account of Wayne, whom he visited at his quarters. "He entertained the most sovereign contempt for the enemy. In his confident way, he affirmed that the two armies had interchanged their original modes of warfare. That for our parts, we had thrown away the shovel, and the British had taken it up; as they dared not face us without the cover of an intrenchment. I made some allowance for the fervid manner of the general, who, though unquestionably as brave a man as any in the army, was nevertheless somewhat addicted to the vaunting style of Marshal Villars, a man who, like himself, could fight as well as brag."

Graydon speaks of the motley, shabby clothing of the troops. "Even in General Wayne himself, there was in this particular a considerable falling off. His quondam regimentals as colonel of the 4th battalion were, I think, blue and white, in which he had been accustomed to appear with exemplary neatness; whereas he was now dressed in character for Macheath or Captain Gibbet, in a dingy red coat, with a black rusty cravat and tarnished hat." Wayne was doubtless still rusty from his campaigning in the north.

Graydon, during his recent captivity, had been accustomed to the sight of British troops in the completeness of martial array, and looked with a rueful eye on patriotism in rags. From all that he saw at the camp, he suspected affairs were not in a prosperous train, notwithstanding the cheerful countenances at head-quarters. There appeared to be a want of animated cooperation, both on the part of the government and the people. "General Washington, with the little remnant of his army at Morristown, seemed left to scuffle for liberty, like another Cato at Utica.'

2

We will now turn to the North, and lift the curtain for a moment, to give the reader a glance at affairs in that quarter, about which there were such dubious rumors.

NOTE. A veteran officer of the Revolution used to speak in his old days of the occasion on which he first saw Hamilton. It was during the memorable retreat through the Jerseys. "I noticed," said he, "a youth, a mere stripling, small, slender, almost delicate in frame, marching beside a piece of artillery with a cocked hat pulled down over his eyes, apparently lost in thought, with his hand resting on the cannon, and every now and then patting it as he mused, as if it were a favorite horse, or a pet plaything.”

1 Communicated to the author by the late Mrs. Hamilton.
Graydon's Memoirs, 282.

CHAPTER XLIII.

BRITISH INVASION FROM CANADA -THE PLAN- COMPOSITION OF THE INVADING ARMY SCHUYLER ON THE ALERT · HIS SPECULATIONS AS TO THE ENEMY'S DESIGNS - BURGOYNE ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN HIS WAR-SPEECH TO HIS INDIAN ALLIES SIGNS OF HIS APPROACH DESCRIED FROM TICONDEROGA CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT BETWEEN ST. CLAIR, MAJOR LIVINGSTON, AND SCHUYLER

TICONDEROGA

AT

ST.

BURGOYNE INTRENCHES NEAR

HIS PROCLAMATION SCHUYLER'S EXERTIONS

ALBANY ΤΟ FORWARD RE-ENFORCEMENTS HEARS THAT TICONDEROGA IS EVACUATED -MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF CLAIR AND HIS TROOPS - AMAZEMENT AND CONCERN OF WASHINGTON ORDERS RE-ENFORCEMENTS ΤΟ SCHUYLER AT FORT EDWARD, AND TO PUTNAM AT PEEKSKILL -ADVANCES WITH HIS MAIN ARMY TO THE CLOVE HIS HOPEFUL SPIRIT MANIFESTED.

was con

THE armament advancing against Ticonderoga, of which General St. Clair had given intelligence, was not a mere diversion, but a regular invasion; the plan of which had been devised by the king, Lord George Germain, and General Burgoyne, the latter having returned to England from Canada in the preceding year. The junction of the two armies — that in Canada and that under General Howe in New York sidered the speediest mode of quelling the rebellion; and as the security and good government of Canada required the presence of Governor Sir Guy Carleton, three thousand men were to remain there with him; the residue of the army was to be employed upon two expeditions: the one under General Burgoyne, who was to force his way to Albany, the other under Lieutenant-Colonel St. Leger, who was to make a diversion on the Mohawk River.

The invading army was composed of three thousand seven hundred and twenty-four British rank and file, three thousand and sixteen Germans, mostly Brunswickers, two hundred and fifty Canadians, and four hundred Indians; besides these there were four hundred and seventy-three artillery men, in all nearly eight thousand men. The army was admirably appointed. Its brass train of artillery was extolled as perhaps the finest ever allotted to an army of the size. General Phillips, who commanded the artillery, had gained great reputation in the wars