but with much difficulty, induced to offer every officer half pay for seven years if he served throughout the war, and to every soldier eighty dollars.

The sufferings of Washington's army in his camp at Valley Forge were terrible. By persevering entreaties, he prevailed on congress to send a commission to witness this distress with their own eyes. But this availed little. Congress was on the verge of insolvency, and the supplies came in slowly. This is his own account, addressed to one of his generals, on the 20th of March" By death and desertion we have lost a good many men since we came to this ground, and have encountered every species of hardship that cold, wet, hunger, and want of clothes were capable of producing. The soldiers have been for days together, two or three times, without provisions, and once six days without any of the meat kind. Could the poor horses tell their tale, it would be in a strain still more lamentable, as numbers have actually died from pure want."

What was more fatal to success, there was much caballing and rancour amongst the officers in the army, and especially against Washington. Gates, elated with his success in the north, did not hesitate to disparage Washington, and to aspire himself to the post of commander-in-chief. Washington had given offence to brigadier Thomas Conway, by representing to Richard Henry Lee, a leading member of congress, that he understood that congress was about to raise him to the rank of major-general; that this would be a just grievance to those over whose heads he would be promoted; that Conway's merits were chiefly in his own imagination; and that he himself could not hope to be of further use, if such insuperable difficulties were thrown in his way. This promotion was, however, made, and Conway became an active conspirator with others to supersede Washington, and to put Gates or Charles Lee, both Englishmen, in his place. This intrigue was called "Conway's Cabal."

La Fayette, astonished at these proceedings in patriots, wrote thus to Washington: "When I was in Europe I thought that here almost every man was a lover of liberty. You can conceive my astonishment when I saw that toryism was as apparently professed as whiggism itself. There are open dissensions in congress; parties who hate one another as much as the common enemy; men who, without knowing anything about war, undertake to judge you, and to make ridiculous comparisons. They are infatuated with Gates, without thinking of the difference of circumstances, and believe that attacking is the only thing necessary to conquer."

In Europe, war was about to break forth, in consequence of war in America. The emissaries of the states had done their best to embroil the whole of the old continent in this quarrel. They had tried the martial monarch of Prussia, who was especially embittered against England, but too shrewd to spend his strength in freeing America, whilst more profitable speculations lay at hand in the territories of Austria and Bavaria. The Emperor of Austria, Joseph II., was quite satisfied to remain quiet after a visit to his sister, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France. He found that kingdom-about to enter on war with England-in a state which filled him with deep alarm. It was overwhelmed

with debt; the people were in a condition of deep misery there was an uneasy and restless spirit abroad, ominous of coming storms, and a philosophy already in progress, which threatened the destruction of the very foundations of all monarchy. Louis XVI. was himself neither desirous of war nor by any means in a condition for it, but was borne forward by a rash ministry, and the hope of damaging England, towards a vortex which the Austrian monarch contemplated with awe.

France itself had hung aloof, till the defeat of Burgoyne had induced her to believe that the Americans were stronger than they were; and this favourable turn of feeling was artfully improved by Franklin, who pointed to the bills of conciliation now preparing by lord North, and assured the French ministers that, now or never, they must sign the treaty with America, or the Americans would accept the terms of England; all the promised advantages to France would be lost! That had decided them.

The American plenipotentiaries in Paris were in a state of as violent dissension amongst themselves as the members of their congress and of their army at home; but the influence of Franklin carried them through. In Paris the presence of the American philosopher and republican became a rage. As philosophers admired his science and discoveries, so the new lights in political philosophy admired him as an innovator on the old systems of government.. If the French ministers had not been blinded by their vanity and their hatred of England, they might have discovered, in this homage done to the republican of the transatlantic world, the scarcely-concealed fire of those principles already kindled around them. The fashionable world found in the philosopher's old-fashioned exterior matter for admiration. His homely cut of coat, his old-fashioned wig, his very buckles, were regarded with enthusiasm. The sober author of "Poor Richard's Almanac," with all its thrifty maxims, was the lion of the gayest salons and of the court ladies; and this furore in his favour he well employed for his diplomatic ends.

'No

-to

Yet the court of France did not lack solemn warnings of the fatal path on which they were entering. The honest and farsighted financier, Turgot, who had been employed by Louis XVI., as comptroller-general, to endeavour to bring the terribly disordered revenue of France into order, said, “I must remind you, sire, of these three words bankruptcy, no augmentation of imposts, no loans.' To fulfil these three conditions, there is but one means reduce the expenditure below the receipt, and sufficiently below it to be able to economise, every year, twenty millions, in order to clear off the old debts. Without that, the first cannon fired will force the state to a bankruptcy.” He assured the king, that all colonies, on arriving at a condition of maturity, would as naturally abandon the control of the mother country as children, arriving at majority, do the control of their parents; that the independence of America would, therefore, come of itself, without France ruining herself to accelerate the event; that, as to France wishing Spain to join in this attempt, Spain must remember her own colonies, for, by assisting to free the British colonies, she would assuredly assist to liberate her own.

This was a doctrine far before Turgot's own age. None of

A.D. 1778.]

our ablest statesmen had caught a glimpse of it, except lord Coventry, who had declared in parliament, that it was not the possession of colonies, but their trade, which would enrich us. Neither Chatham nor Burke, however, saw so far as Turgot and Coventry; they were for giving the colonies self-taxation, but regarded their independence as synonymous with our commercial ruin. These doctrines now are happily universally recognised; but in France the voice of Turgot was despised; the first cannon was fired, and not merely bankruptcy, but revolution, came in inevitable sequence. All the old imposts, duties, and corvées, were continued, and even augmented, to raise fifty thousand men for the assistance of America and the invasion of England. An army was collected on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany; and the navy was put, with all activity, into a condition to outnumber that of England, and to retaliate for the losses and defeats of the last war. The system of grinding the unfortunate people was renewed in all its rigour, and the last touch was put to their endurance and their misery. At such a cost did France, already bankrupt, insure the independence of America, and to find no return of the mighty obligation when her own time came.

Before there was any declaration of war, the king of France, on the 18th of March, issued an order to seize all British ships in the ports of that kingdom; and, nine days afterwards, a similar order was issued by the English government as to all French ships in her harbours. The first act of hostility was perpetrated by admiral Keppel. He had been appointed first admiral on the earliest news of the treaty of France with America; and, being now in the channel with twenty ships of the line, he discovered two French frigates, La Licorne" and "La Belle Poule " reconnoitering his fleet. Not troubling himself that there had been no declaration of war, Keppel ordered some of his vessels to give chase; and, on coming up with the Licorne, a gun was fired over her, to call her to surrender; and the Frenchman struck his colours, but not before he had poured a broadside into the America, commanded by lord Longford, and wounded four of his men. The Arethusa, in the meantime, had come up with the Belle Poule, and, after a desperate action, drove her in amongst the rocks, whilst the Arethusa herself was so disabled as to require towing back to the fleet. A schooner and a French frigate were soon after taken; and, finding on board these vessels papers stating that the fleet in Brest harbour consisted of thirty-two sail of the line, and ten or twelve frigates, Keppel returned to Portsmouth for reinforcements.

For this Keppel was much blamed, as it was considered that the papers might have been made out in order to deceive him. The number of the French fleet, however, soon proved to be correct, for, during Keppel's absence, it sailed out of Brest, under the command of admiral D'Orvilliers. Keppel returning with his squadron augmented to thirty vessels of the line, found D'Orvilliers out at sea, and the Lively, twenty-gun brig, which he had left to watch the motions of the French, surprised by them in a fog, and captured. On the 27th, Keppel came up with D'Orvilliers off Ushant, and instantly gave battle. The two fleets passed each other on different tacks, keeping up a furious cannonade for two hours. Keppel then signalled his second in command, Sir

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Hugh Palliser, to wear round and renew the attack; but Palliser had received so much injury, that he could not or did not obey the signal. Keppel, therefore, bore down to join Palliser's division, and formed afresh for the fight. But by this time D'Orvilliers was making way for Brest, claiming a victory. Night came down, and the next morning the French fleet was nearly out of sight. On this, Keppel returned to England to refit, much out of humour with the conduct of Palliser. D'Orvilliers had two more ships of the line and considerably more frigates than Keppel, and had done much injury to his fleet; but Keppel had killed and wounded more men.

On the 18th of August D'Orvilliers again put to sea, and proceeded to cruise off Cape Finisterre. To prevent his proceeding to America, or intercepting any of our merchantmen from coming from the West Indies, Keppel sailed again on the 23rd, but stretched out westward, and did not this time fall in with the French admiral. His movements enabled our East and West India traders to reach home in safety, whilst, on the other hand, our privateers and cruisers captured a great number of French merchantmen; but this did not satisfy the public, who were anxious for a great victory, to punish France for her interference, and this led to mutual altercations and recriminations betwixt Keppel and Palliser, which, however, fell into the next year.

Returning to America, we find congress and their commander-in-chief reduced to such extremities, that they were compelled, if they were to continue the contest, to resort to such arbitrary actions as would have caused the Americans to rave in the extreme of execration, had they, or a hundredth part of them, been perpetrated by the English before the revolution. The English were paying solid gold for whatever they obtained from the country people; the Americans in a paper, now reduced to one-twentieth of its nominal value : their twenty dollar notes being worth only one dollar in specie. The consequence was, that the country people contrived to steal through the American lines by some means, and convey their provisions to Howe's camp; and the equally certain consequence was, that Washington's soldiers were reduced to starvation, which was only one of their miseries, for they were so naked that their legs and feet froze, and had in great numbers to be amputated. The congress sent Washington orders to seize anything that he wanted, and he was compelled to seize, giving these worthless notes in payment, or he would soon have had no army at all. He ordered the farmers within seventy miles of Valley Forge to thresh out half their corn by the 1st of February, and the other half by the 1st of March, under penalty of having the whole seized as straw. But the farmers only threshed it out to conceal it; and, when they could not conceal their property, they became desperate, and resisted the foragers with arms. Washington saw that a second civil war was likely to grow up, and warned the congress that they must find some other means of feeding and clothing the army, or it must cease to exist.

And there was every prospect that it would soon cease to exist, unless some extraordinary measures were resorted to. Washington informed congress that men as well as provisions would fail; that voluntary enlistment was out of the question for recruiting an army in a state of starvation, and whose

deserted in great numbers to Howe's camp, carrying there the tale of the misery and want that existed at Valley Forge. That Howe, under such circumstances, did not sally forth and sweep away these half-frozen and three-parts famished men, which, as a modern historian has observed, he might have done as easily as to sweep a swarm of frozen flies from a dead wall, has only one mode of explanation-it was not the will of the Great Disposer of Empires.

Howe all this time lay comfortably at Philadelphia, as if no great interest was depending, and as if he had no responsibility to regard, or no power to maintain. Instead of being on the look-out for information which might enable

In this city of sober, domestic, and moral quakers, they gave way to the most scandalous debauchery and disregard of all order and decency. "A want of order and proper subordination pervaded the whole army; and if disease and sickness thinned the American army encamped at Valley Forge, indolence and luxury, perhaps, did no less injury to the British troops at Philadelphia. During the winter a very unfortunate inattention was shown to the feelings of the inhabitants, whose satisfaction should have been vigilantly consulted, both from gratitude and from interest. They experienced many of the horrors of civil war. The soldiers insulted and plundered them, and their houses were

occupied as barracks, without any compensation. Some of the first families were compelled to receive into their habitations individual officers, who were even indecent enough to introduce their mistresses into the mansions of their hospitable entertainers. This soured the minds of the inhabitants, many of whom were quakers.

"Gaming of every species was permitted, and even sanctioned. This vice not only debauched the mind, but, by sedentary confinement and the want of seasonable repose, enervated the body." Howe was expecting his recall, in compliance with his own demand, and this probably added to his otherwise unexampled carelessness and neglect of the most palpable opportunities of completely routing Washington, who all this time was assailed by the intrigues of the Conway Cabal for his ruin. Amongst these endeavours, was one for alienating from him La Fayette. For this purpose an expedition was planned against Canada, and La Fayette, as a Frenchman, was appointed to the command, hoping thus to draw to him the Frenchmen of Canada. Not a word was to be breathed of it to Washington; and Conway and Starke, two of the most malicious members of the cabal, were to take command under La Fayette.

On the 24th of January, Washington received a letter from Gates, the president of the Board of War, commanding him to send one of his best regiments to Albany, on the Hudson, for a particular service, and inclosing another to La Fayette, requiring his immediate attendance on Gates. Gates found, however, that La Fayette was not to be seduced from his attachment to Washington. He would not accept the command, otherwise than as acting in subordination to his commander-in-chief; and that he should send all his dispatches and bulletins to him, at the same time that he furnished copies to congress. He went further: he drank the health of Washington at a dinner given him at Gates's own house, thus compelling the whole clique of his enemies to do the same.

La Fayette demanded appointments for several French officers in his army, which were complied with, and he was told that he would find a force of two thousand five hundred regulars at Albany, a large body of militia further on, and some money in specie, as well as two millions of dollars in paper, which, in fact, was of little more value than waste paper.

The vain Frenchman verily believed that he was going to restore Canada, not to America, but to the French crown --a fear which began to haunt congress after he had set out; but the fear was needless. When La Fayette reached his invading army, instead of two thousand five hundred men, it amounted to about one thousand two hundred, and the militia were nowhere to be heard of. Clothes, provisions, sle lges, were all wanting, and, instead of leading his troops, as he was directed, to Lake Champlain, whence he was to proceed to Isle aux Noix to blow up the English flotilla, and thence, crossing the Sorel, to descend the St. Lawrence to Montreal, he gave up the expedition with a sigh, and returned to the camp of Washington.

There the remainder of the winter was spent in foraging to preserve existence, and this gave rise to some sharp skirmishes. In these the spirit of vindictiveness was carried

to a pitch such as the oldest soldiers or officers declared that they had never witnessed. This was occasioned by the total disregard by the Americans of any engagements that they entered into, or of the usual courtesies by which civilised nations endeavour to soften the horrors of war. In this respect, congress and the soldiery were equally conspicuous. In one of these skirmishes, in which colonel Mawhood surprised and routed a body of American foragers near Quinton's Bridge, the only Englishman killed was a hussar, who had captured an American, and given him quarter, but, on advancing to seize others, was immediately stabbed by this man from behind. The habitual practice on the part of the Americans of this perfidy enraged our soldiers, and made them unnecessarily cruel.

Congress continued to set to the whole nation the most demoralising example of contempt of all engagements, and of that chicane and duplicity which, the best friends of America must admit, has always too much marked its government. The conduct of congress was, moreover, marked by that hasty spirit of insult and vindictive retaliation so unfavourably contrasting with the calm dignity of an old and powerful state-a feature still distinguishing the American government, as evidenced in the recent affair of the Island of San Juan, and the fear ever arising from resistance to their slave-trading propensities at sea. Besides the flagrant breach of the treaty with general Burgoyne, the constant quibbles and tricks of congress obstructed the regular exchange of prisoners. On one occasion Howe agreed to liberate a certain number of his prisoners at New York for the same number of English prisoners in the hands of congress; but in this case, even Washington, who, to do him justice, was generally greatly ashamed of the conduct of his own government, insisted that as some of these prisoners died on their way home, as many living English prisoners should be kept back for them, on the plea that they diel from want of proper support during their confinement-a want equally prevailing amongst the prisoners on both sides, and arising from the congress's own carelessness of the comfort of their captured soldiers. It was not likely that a power, whose army at large was suffering every species of privation, should be very prodigal of comforts to the prisoners in its hands; hence the English and German soldiers suffered dreadfully in their captivity amongst the Americans.

Howe endeavoured to remedy this, and, after many strong remonstrances, he at length obtained from Washington a permission that he might send an escort under a quarter-" master from Philadelphia, to carry food and clothing to the? poor English prisoners. But the escort, though proceeding under guarantee of a passport from Washington himself,| were fallen upon by a strong party under lieutenant-coloz 4 Smith, at the express command of the American Board of War, and detained. This was done on pretence that Howe had prevented provisions being sent by water to the American prisoners. Washington knew that the pretence was groundless, and sent immediate orders for the liberation of the English party. But it was too late; the America had lamed the horses, and plundered the stock of clothes anprovisions. Soon after, Washington sent a proposal for American commissioners to visit the American prisoners