troops by land to the aid of Sullivan. The faults complained of in the management of the fleet are attributed less to any want of zeal and capacity in Count D'Estaing, than to his inexperience, and his dependence on the judgment of his officers, who sometimes overruled his own opinion.

The remaining operations of the year, on both sides, can be summed up briefly. Admiral Byron, having got his whole force in order, sailed for Boston to watch the motions of the French, but encountering another violent storm, was driven off the coast, and his ships sustained so much damage as to be forced to take shelter in Rhode Island. Count D'Estaing embraced the opportunity, and sailed for the West Indies, on the 3d of November. On the same day, Admiral Hotham, with part of the English fleet, sailed in the same direction from Sandy Hook, and was followed in December by the whole British fleet. The scene of the conflict between the fleets of the two European parties to the war, was thus transferred to the South, and at the same time the contest on land took the same direction.

A few days after the departure of the French fleet, General Gates arrived at Boston, and took command of the Northern army.

Active operations in the North closed with the retreat of Sullivan from Rhode Island. In the Middle States no important movement was made after the battle of Monmouth. A few detached enterprises on both sides were undertaken, some of which require notice.

On the return of Clinton to New York, in the beginning of September, he despatched General Grey to Buzzard's Bay, in New England, to destroy the American privateers that resorted there. He accomplished that object, burning about seventy sail of shipping, with magazines, warehouses, ropewalks, and the wharves on both sides of the river at Bedford and Fairhaven. Thence he proceeded to Martha's Vineyard, and captured and carried off a large quantity of live stock.

A stronger expedition was next organized against Egg Harbor, on the Jersey coast. This was a general resort for American privateers and their prizes. Lord Cornwallis and General Kniphausen took up a position in New Jersey and on the Hudson, to interpose between the camp of Washing ton in the Highlands and the coast, while their frigates and some light vessels, with a British regiment, sailed directly

for the harbor. The Americans, apprized of the expedition, had sent most of their vessels to sea, and removed others up the river. The British, disappointed in their principal object, marched in pursuit, burnt several vessels, chiefly British prizes, and proceeded to destroy and ravage all the property within their reach. On their return they surprised the lightinfantry belonging to Pulaski's corps, in their sleep, and killed about fifty of them, including some distinguished officers. Another savage massacre was committed on another American regiment, by a part of Cornwallis's division, on the same service. They were a party of light-dragoons, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Baylor, who had taken up their lodgings in a barn, near Tappaun, on the Hudson. The outpost of the militia, having abandoned their ground without giving information to Colonel Baylor, a British detachment, under General Grey, was enabled to advance silently and surprise the patrol, whom they cut off, without alarming the Americans. They then rushed in upon the sleeping dragoons, and without mercy, or regard for repeated cries for quarter, bayonetted more than half of them upon the spot. Sixty-seven out of one hundred and four were killed or wounded, and those who were spared saved their lives by the humanity of one of the captains, in disobedience of the commands of his superior. The massacre was the topic of general indignation, and depositions establishing the facts, collected by Governor Livingston of New Jersey, were spread before. the world as proofs of the barbarous practices of the British.

Bloody and cruel as were these slaughters, and justly a stain on the character of the English general, they fall into insignificance compared with the atrocities committed in the same year by the Indians and tories in the British service. The massacre at Wyoming was marked with an accumulation of horrors that make the blood freeze in recalling them. This settlement consisted of eight townships, forty miles square, on the Susquehanna river, cultivated by emigrants from Connecticut, who had made it one of the most beautiful and flourishing places in America. A rich and fertile garden embosomed in the forest, with a peaceful and industrious people, in a secluded part of the country, it might have been hoped that devastation would not reach so far, and that war, if not party discord, would spare so delightful and romantic a scene. On the declaration of Independence

the mass of the inhabitants united with their countrymen in supporting that measure, and furnished a thousand men to the American army. The loyalists and tories, however, were numerous, and no where did they exhibit a more ferocious spirit. Several of them having been arrested for trial, their party formed a secret league with the Indians, commanded by a tory refugee, named John Butler, and a half-blood, named Brandt, to obtain vengeance on the devoted settlement. Deceitful professions and artful manœuvres were practised to lull the victims into security, until all was prepared, and in the month of July, a force of about seventeen hundred Indians and tories invaded the unsuspecting community. Four forts constituted its defences, and about 500 men were all the force that had remained. The rest were with the American army. Two of the forts fell into their hands, one by the treachery of the tories, and the other by storm. Here they spared the women and children, but butchered the male prisoners without exception. The third fort, called Kingston, was next surrounded. Here the old men, the sick, the children, and the females, all who were incapable of bearing arms, were collected. A great part of the defenders, four hundred in number, with unaccountable credulity, were lured out of the fort to parley with the enemy, and betrayed into an ambush, where all but sixty were massacred on the spot by the Indians, or tortured to death as prisoners. The feeble remnants of the garrison were appalled on the return of the exulting savages, by having two hundred reeking scalps of their murdered kinsmen thrown among them. To the flag of truce, begging for terms of surrender, the besiegers gave but one inhuman word in reply, the hatchet! When they were forced at last to give up at discretion, the barbarians enclosed men, women, and children in the barracks, and setting fire to them, mocked at the agonies of their victims, expiring in the flames. The last fort offered no resistance, and shared the same fate. The whole settlement was then ravaged and desolated by fire and sword by the furious victors, sparing neither house nor field, nor brute beast, that belonged to a republican. The enormities they perpetrated, chiefly under the guidance with fire and encouragement of renegade Americans, exceed the imagination and defy description. A blacker record of human depravity, a more revolting pieture of human suffering, is not to be found in the annals of

civilized nations. The wars of the most savage and ignorant tribes never presented more cold-blooded and remorseless barbarity, than the massacre of Wyoming stamped upon the conduct of the tories of the Revolution.

A retaliatory expedition was undertaken in October, by Colonel William Butler, of Schoharie, New York, into the district occupied by these Indians and the tories. They ravaged the country on both sides of the Susquehanna, and between that river and the Delaware, and punished severely such of the barbarians and renegade whites as fell into their power. The tory Butler, in revenge, invaded Cherry Valley, in the month of November, and re-enacted the barbarities of Wyoming.

These excursions for plunder and devastation were the only military events requiring notice, which took place in the Middle States during the remainder of the year 1778. Washington withdrew his forces to a commanding station at White Plains, and early in the season led them to winterquarters, at Middlebrook in New Jersey. Sir Henry Clinton was in safe quarters in the city of New York. It is not a little remarkable, that the relative position of the two armies did not vary much from that at the close of 1776. The fact is noted by Washington, in one of his letters, in the following impressive terms: "It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that after two years manœuvring, and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of the pickaxe and the spade for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations." The British general, knowing his superiority of force, and availing himself of his command of the coast by means of the fleet, towards the close of the year despatched an expedition to Georgia. The South was made the theatre of a winter campaign. On the 27th of November, Colonel Campbell, with two thousand men, including the New York tory companies, convoyed by ships of war, commanded by Commodore Hyde Parker, sailed from New York for Savannah, and at the same time orders were dispatched to General Prevost, who was at the head of the British forces in East Florida, to advance into Georgia to co-operate with Ꮓ

Campbell, and take the command of the joint expedition. The squadron was detained about three weeks at sea, and finally entered the Tybee river late in the ensuing month. On the 29th of December, the troops effected a landing, about twelve miles up the river Savannah, and three miles below the city.

Dec. 29th.

The American force for the defence of the place was under the command of General Robert Howe, and consisted of about six hundred continentals, and a few hundred militia. His numbers were much reduced by an unsuccessful expedition into Florida, from which he had just returned. The position which he chose for the repulse of the British, was naturally strong, and could have been defended but for the accidental discovery of a path which led through a morass to the American rear. By this, which was unknown to the Americans, a detachment of British infantry, with the New York volunteers, gained, unobserved, the rear of General Howe's little army, and by a simultaneous attack broke them up instantly, and drove them into and through the city of Savannah, with the loss of all their artillery, one hundred killed, and four hundred and fifty prisoners. The defeated and scattered troops made the best of their way into South Carolina, and the capital of Georgia was quietly occupied by the enemy. General Prevost, following his instructions, marched his troops from East Florida, and after many days of difficult and painful travelling through the wilderness, entered the State of Georgia, captured the fort of Sunbury, and marched into Savannah to take the command. The whole State submitted without further effort, and the royal government was in a short time established completely. Colonel Campbell acted with much policy, forbearance and dignity, and did more for the British interest, during the time in which he held command, than any British officer who served in America during the war. Georgia is the only State in the Union in which, after the declaration of Independence, the legislature was peaceably convened under the authority of the Crown of Great Britain.

Congress appointed Lincoln the command of the Southern department, and on the 4 of December he arrived at Charleston. There were no troops ready for him, and it was not till the beginning of January that he was able, with the remnant of Howe's force, muster 1,400 men, with which he established himself at Perrysburgh, on the Savannah