river, about fifteen miles from General Prevost. He had either field pieces, arms, tents, nor ammunition. Towards the end of that month, the North Carolina militia, under General Ashe, increased his numbers to about 3,000.

At the close of the year 1778, the British had made no progress in subduing America. They had ravaged and laid waste a wide extent of territory, inflicting much distress upon individuals, but beyond the possession of New York, Newport, and Savannah, they had no foothold in the country. The subjugation of the State of Georgia, mentioned above, in order not to break unnecessarily the current of the narrative, was not made until the beginning of 1779. After three years of warfare, Great Britain was no stronger than at first, and had expended thousands of lives and millions of money, and brought upon herself open war with one of the most potent nations in Europe, and the ill-concealed hostility of another. A long, bloody, and expensive struggle was yet before her, with but faint prospect of recovering her revolted Colonies. These considerations, on the other hand, afforded substantial reasons for hope and confidence to the Americans. But the issue of the campaign was a grievous disappointment to the sanguine hopes to which its commencement had given rise, and the internal condition in which it left them was real cause for gloom and alarm. The alliance with France had been hailed with exultation as decisive of the success of Independence, and from the strong force which it brought to the succor of the States great results had been predicted. The first unhappy effect of these calculations was an abatement of the zeal for action on their own behalf, which had marked their unassisted exertions, and an over confident reliance upon the arms of the French. A feeling, if not of reluctance, of indifference to the public service, was indulged in by the mass of those from whom the armies were to be recruited, and by whom the means of restoring the finances and consolidating the institutions of the country were to be furnished. The immediate pressure being as they thought removed, their minds turned more to the repairing of their own means than to a vigorous and united effort for expelling the British fleets and armies. This languor continued to affect the operations of the States for the whole of the next year, and produced deplorable consequences. These delusive expectations were only suspended, not destroyed, by the unfortunate issue of the several French expeditions

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undertaken during the year. Irritation was felt and strongly expressed against the manner in which the French fleet had been employed, its inefficiency before Sandy Hook and at Newport, and its departure from the coast to prosecute the French interests in the West Indies. Such severe disappointments, together with the abatement of the popular ardor produced serious alarms in the minds of the leading patriots, and required their most energetic efforts to counteract the injurious consequences. The consequences were carried into all the relations of civil government, and all the political concerns of the country, no less than into the condition and efficiency of the army. The currency continued to depreciate without the possibility of a remedy. The finances of Congress were in a state of confusion and embarrassment that threatened an early dissolution of that body, for the want of the means to keep them together; their credit was t tally exhausted, and party spirit, state jealousies, and perSonal rivalries distracted their councils. In all the moral characteristics of the contest, in union, self-reliance, and energy, the cause of Independence had rather retrograded than been advanced by the French alliance.

It was about this epoch that, stimulated by the French minister and admiral, a project was meditated for the conquest of Canada. The object was very desirable to the French, and was urged earnestly upon Congress. They were inclined to the expedition, and without communicating fully with Washington, they had conceived a general plan for the conquest of all the British posts, by the simultaneous attacks of the different American detachments on the Northern frontier, aided by a French fleet and army, operating in the St. Lawrence. The extravagance of the plan was zealously exposed by Washington, and with final success, although it was reluctantly given up. He showed it to be impossible to provide the proper force, and dangerous to the safety of the States, from which their defence must be withdrawn in order to gather even a respectable army in the North. Privately he urged political considerations of weight, dissuading Congress from engaging all their available strength in an expedition which promised so little comparative benefit to themselves, but which was of such great prospective value to France. The expedition was laid aside on the report of a committee of Congress, based upon the views of the Commander-in-chief.

Late in the autumn of 1778, General Lafayette obtained leave to return to France, on a visit, principally with the design of procuring by his personal influence additional aid from the French court to the United States.

Mr. Laurens resigned the Presidency of Congress, and was succeeded by John Jay..

In England Parliament met on the 26th of November. The king's speech, without speaking directly of the American affairs, complained in strong language of the conduct of France as an "unprovoked aggression.' The popular hostility towards the French nation appeared to give a new spirit to the war, and ministers were more warmly supported in their line of policy. The opposition confined themselves to attacks upon the manner of conducting the late. campaigns, and the tardy and inefficient preparations that had been made. The conduct of Commissioner Johnstone was arraigned severely. The employment of Indians in the. British army was strongly reprobated, and motions made for a public censure upon the threatening manifesto with which the Commissioners had closed their labors in America. Mr. Johnstone defended the proclamation, owned and justified it as avowing a war of desolation to be right and expedient against such a refractory and rebellious people. Ministers defended it on other grounds, rejecting the extreme interpretation of Johnstone, and the vote of censure

1779.

under review by an inquiry instituted at the request of General Howe, who, in his place in Parliament, accused the secretary of maladministration in relation to America. Lord Cornwallis, General Grey, and other officers, were examined at the bar. Burgoyne, who had been in vain demanding an inquiry into his own conduct, took the opportunity of renewing it, and that was also granted. Numerous witnesses were examined on his behalf, and most of the session consumed in the investigation. The Committee came to no decision in either case, but the testimony clearly convicted the ministry of great ignorance of the geography and condition of America, as well as of the military means proper for prosecuting the war. The session was protracted to late in the summer of 1779. Before they ad journed, another enemy had been joined to the confederacy against Great Britain, by the manifesto of the king of Spain,

which was considered a declaration of war, and as such communicated by message on the 17th of June.

In the French treaties with the United States a secret article had reserved to the king of Spain, a right to become a party. That monarch had interests of his own on the American continent, which made him reluctant to aid the Americans, however much he might desire to cripple the power of England. As a security for his own possessions, and as a remuneration for his co-operation, he required a preliminary relinquishment by the United States of all claims to the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains, and the recognition of his exclusive right to the navigation of the Mississippi. He was displeased with the French treaties for not making stipulations of this kind, and declined becoming a party to them. He however offered his mediation between France and Great Britain, with the understanding that the United States were to be included in the terms agreed upon. The mediation was listened to undoubtedly with a view to procrastination by Great Britain, to prevent the junction of Spain with France in the war against her. A correspondence was instituted, which was kept up for eight months, and was finally concluded by the offer of an ultimatum by the Spanish court, in which was included a stipulation that the American provinces should be treated with as "independent in fact." The court of London rejected the proposition on the 4th of May, 1779. This result was expected by the court of Spain. In anticipation of the refusal, they had, in April preceding, formed a secret treaty with France, engaging to declare war. A manifesto to that effect, setting forth various causes of complaint against England, was delivered to the British secretary by the Spanish ambassador, on the 16th of June, and responded to immediately by the king and parliament. A new militia bill was introduced; increased supplies voted, with little opposition; and the army and navy largely augmented. Seventy thousand seamen were voted for the home service, and about thirty thousand soldiers in addition to those already in America, computed to amount, foreigners included, to forty thousand more. The sums of money voted for the services of the year amounted to 15,072,654/.

The British court, during the pendency of the negotiations which added Spain to the number of her open enemies, was not inactive in endeavoring to detach the Americans from

their new alliances by separate proposals, offering liberal terms of reconciliation. În the winter of 1778-79, David Hartley, an eminent whig member of Parliament, went to Paris, with the privity of Lord North, to confer with Dr. Franklin. The great point to which his labors were directed, was to obtain the consent of America to treat separately for peace. His own preliminary propositions made to Dr. Franklin, in April, contained a postulatum, that America should be "released, free, and unengaged from any treaties with foreign powers, which may tend to embarrass or defeat the proposed negotiation." The "great stumbling-block in the way of reconciliation," as Hartley expressly told Franklin, was the connexion with France. If, as was probably designed, the British ministry expected any admission which might be employed to create distrust in the court of France against the good faith of America, the sequel deceived them. France had more than once shown an apprehension that the States might consider themselves at liberty to make a separate peace. On the 1st of January they made such a representation to Congress through their ambassador, as to draw forth a solemn declaration, unanimously adopted, that " neither France nor the United States might of right, so these United States will not conclude either truce or peace with the common enemy without the formal consent of their ally first obtained." Dr. Franklin wisely and firmly adhered to the same line of policy, in his reply to Hartley "America," he said, "has no desire of being free from her engagements to France. The chief is, that of continuing the war in conjunction with her, and not making a separate peace; and this is an obligation not in the power of America to dissolve, being an obligation of gratitude and justice towards a nation which is engaged in a war on her account and for her protection, and would be for ever binding, whether such an article existed or not in the treaty; and though it did not exist, an honest American would cut his right hand off sooner than sign an agreement with England contrary to the spirit of it." Of course the negotiation proceeded no further.

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The time employed in these official negotiations relative to the Spanish mediation, was further employed in discus sions between the French court and Congress, in which some of the secret motives of France and Spain, in aiding America, were developed. In the debates of Congress,

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