of a powerful British army. During this time he had disbanded the small force of raw militia he at first had with him, and had recruited another army; and had then driven the enemy into his ships, and out into the sea.

The British, thus expelled from Boston, gathered their strength of fleets and armies for an attack upon New York. The Congress, assembled in Philadelphia, which at first sought only the redress of grievances, now resolved to strike for independence. A committee was appointed, of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman, to draft a Declaration. The committee presented this immortal document to Congress, and it was unanimously adopted. History has recorded no spectacle more sublime than that which was witnessed as the members of the Continental Congress came forward, each one in his turn, to sign that paper, which would be his inevitable death-warrant should the arms of America fail. Not one faltered. Every individual pledged to this sacred cause "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor." It was the 4th of July, 1776.

This Declaration was read from the steps of the State House in Philadelphia to an immense concourse, and it was received with bursts of enthusiasm. It was sent to Gen. Washington to be communicated to the army, which he had now assembled in the vicinity of New York. The regiments were paraded to hear it read. It was greeted with tumultuous applause. The troops thus defiantly threw back the epithet of "rebellious colonists," and assumed the proud title of "The Army of the United States." Gen. Washington, in an order of the day, thus alludes to this momentous occurrence:

"The general hopes that this important event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his country depend, under God, solely on the success of our arms, and that he is now in the service of a State possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest honors of a free country."

The latter part of June, just before the Declaration of Independence, two large British fleets, one from Halifax and the other direct from England, met at the mouth of the Bay of New York, and, disembarking quite a powerful army, took possession of Staten Island. Washington had assembled all his available

military force to resist their advances. The British Government regarded the leaders of the armies, and their supporters in Congress, as felons, doomed to the scaffold. They refused, consequently, to recognize any titles conferred by Congressional authority.

Gen. Howe sent a flag of truce, with a letter, directed to George Washington, Esq. The letter was returned unopened. As occasional intercourse between the generals of the two armies was of very great moment, to regulate questions respecting the treatment of prisoners and other matters, Gen. Howe, notwithstanding this merited repulse, wrote again, but insultingly, to the same address. Again the letter was returned unopened, and with the emphatic announcement, that the commander-inchief of the American army could receive no communication from Gen. Howe which did not recognize his military position. The British officer then sent a letter, insolently addressed to George Washington, Esq., &c., &c., &c. This letter was also refused. A communication was then sent to Gen. George Washington.

Thus were the members of the British cabinet in London disciplined into civility. Gen. Howe frankly confessed that he had adopted this discourteous style of address simply to save himself. from censure by the home government. Washington, writing to Congress upon this subject, says,

"I would not, on any occasion, sacrifice essentials to punctilio; but, in this instance, I deemed it my duty to my country, and to my appointment, to insist upon that respect, which, in any other than a public view, I would willingly have waived."

Gen. Washington, a gentleman and a Christian, was exceedingly pained by that vulgar and wicked habit of profane swearing which was so prevalent among the troops. We have already alluded to his abhorrence of this vice. In August, 1776, he issued the following notice to his army at New York:

"The general is sorry to be informed that the foolish and profane practice of cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in an American army, is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example as well as by influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our aims if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Add to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it."

Just before this, he had written to Congress, earnestly soliciting chaplains for the army. In this plea he writes, "The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger. The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier."

By the middle of August, the British had assembled, on Staten Island and at the mouth of the Hudson River, a force of nearly thirty thousand soldiers, with a numerous and well-equipped fleet. To oppose them, Washington had about twelve thousand men, poorly armed, and quite unaccustomed to military discipline and to the hardships of the camp. A few regiments of American troops, about five thousand in number, were gathered near Brooklyn. A few thousand more were stationed at other points on Long Island. The English landed without opposition, fifteen thousand strong, and made a combined assault upon the Americans. The battle was short, but bloody. The Americans, overpowered, sullenly retired, leaving fifteen hundred of their number either dead or in the hands of the English. Washington witnessed this rout with the keenest anguish; for he could not detach any troops from New York to arrest the carnage.

To remain upon the island was certain destruction; to attempt to retreat was difficult and perilous in the extreme. The East River flowed deep and wide between the few troops on the island. and their friends in New York. The British fleet had already weighed anchor, and was sailing up the Narrows to cut off their retreat. A vastly superior force of well-trained British troops, flushed with victory, pressed upon the rear of the dispirited colonists. Their situation seemed desperate.

Again Providence came to our aid. The wind died away to a perfect calm, so that the British fleet could not move. A dense fog was rolled in from the ocean, which settled down so thick upon land and river, that, with the gathering darkness of the night, one's outstretched hand could scarcely be seen. The English, strangers to the country, and fearing some surprise, could only stand upon the defensive. The Americans, familiar with every foot of the ground, improved the propitious moments with ener gies roused to their highest tension. Boats were rapidly collected; and, in the few hours of that black night, nine thousand men, with nearly all their artillery and military stores, were safely landed in

New York. The transportation was conducted so secretly, with muffled oars and hushed voices, that though the Americans could hear the English at work with their pickaxes, and were even within hearing of the challenge of the hostile sentinels, the last boat had left the Long Island shore ere the retreat was suspected. God does not always help the "heavy battalions."

The British now presented themselves in such force, of both fleet and army, that Washington, with his feeble and dispirited band, was compelled to evacuate the city. A rash and headstrong man would have been goaded to desperation, and would have risked a general engagement, which, in all probability, would have secured our inevitable ruin. A man easily depressed by adversity would, in hours apparently so hopeless, have abandoned the cause. Washington wrote to Congress,—

"Our situation is truly distressing. The check our detachment received has dispirited too great a proportion of our troops, and filled their minds with apprehension and despair. The militia, instead of calling forth their utmost efforts to a brave and manly opposition in order to repair our losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to return to their homes."

The American army was now in a deplorable condition. It had neither arms, ammunition, nor food. The soldiers were unpaid, almost mutinous, and in rags. There were thousands in the vicinity of New York who were in sympathy with the British ministry. Nearly all the government officials and their friends were on that side. A conspiracy was formed, in which a part of Washington's own guard was implicated, to seize him, and deliver him to that ignominious death to which the British crown had doomed him. We were then, not a nation, but merely a confederacy of independent colonies. There was no bond of union, not unity of counsel, no concentration of effort. Each colony furnished such resources as it found to be convenient, or withheld them at its sovereign pleasure. England's omnipotent fleet swept, unobstructed, ocean and river and bay. Her well-drilled armies, supplied with the most powerful weapons and strengthened with all abundance, tramped contemptuously over the land, scattering our militia before them, burning and destroying in all directions. Gen. Howe, despising his foe, and confident that the colonists could present no effectual resistance to his powerful army, issued his proclamations, offering pardon to all who would bow the neck

in unquestioning obedience to the dictation of the British king, excepting only Washington, Franklin, and a few others of the most illustrious of the patriots.

Washington was equal to the crisis. He saw that the only hope was to be found in avoiding an engagement, and in wearing out the resources of the enemy in protracted campaigns. To adopt this course required great moral courage and self-sacrifice. To rush madly into the conflict, and sell life as dearly as possible, required mere ordinary daring. Thousands could be found capable of this. Animal courage is the cheapest of all virtues. The most effeminate races on the globe, by a few months of suitable drilling, can be converted into heroic soldiers, laughing lead and iron and steel to scorn. But to conduct an army persistently through campaigns of inevitable defeat; ever to refuse a battle; to meet the enemy only to retire before him; to encounter silently the insults and scorn of the foe; to be denounced by friends for incapacity and cowardice; and, while at the head of a mere handful of ragged and unfurnished troops, to be compelled, in order to save that little handful from destruction, to allow the country as well as the enemy to believe that one has a splendid army, splendidly equipped, this requires a degree of moral courage and an amount of heroic virtue, which, thus far in the history of this world, has been developed only in George Washington.

America had many able generals; but it may be doubted whether there was another man on this continent who could have conducted the unequal struggle of the American Revolution to a successful issue. Washington slowly retired from New York to the Heights of Haarlem, with sleepless vigilance watching every movement of the foe, that he might take advantage of the slightest indiscretion. Here he threw up breastworks, which the enemy did not venture to attack. The British troops ascended the Hudson and the East River to assail Washington in his rear. A weary campaign of marches and countermarches ensued, in which Washington, with scarcely the shadow of an army, sustained, in the midst of a constant succession of disasters, the apparently hopeless fortunes of his country. At one time General Reed in anguish exclaimed,—

"My God! Gen. Washington, how long shall we fly ?"

Serenely Gen. Washington replied, "We shall retreat, if necessary, over every river of our country, and then over the