the designs of Washington. The British were just beginning to appreciate the profound military genius with which they had to contend. It was a startling fact, that they had an antagonist whom it was of no use to defeat; who was just as much alive after he had been crushed, and driven from New York and New Jersey, as before; and whose plans of defence or attack could never be known except by the roar of his cannon and the charges of his brave army. Cornwallis, of course, started in hot haste for New Brunswick, to save his military stores. Washington knew his business too well to run any further risks; and, just as Cornwallis thought he was about to reach him, he quietly passed away with his three hundred Princeton prisoners to Morristown.

Though he was reduced to the greatest straits by the retiring of soldiers whose term of office expired, and found his men miserably provisioned and clothed, and his skeleton regiments constituting but an apology for an army, yet the moral effects of his late movements were most salutary. Courage came again to the American heart; and the fame of Washington, after nearly three years of consummate generalship, began to reach the ears and understandings of warriors and princes abroad.

WAR ON THE SEA.

Our first warlike movement on the water was in 1613, when Capt. Argall went from Virginia with eleven small vessels, fourteen guns in all, to the coast of Nova Scotia, to capture the French port of St. Sauveur. It was an easy task, as the French were entirely without artillery.

Capt. Argall, on his way back, dashed into the harbor of New York, frightened the Dutch terribly, and took possession of New York; leaving them, however, as entirely Dutch as before. They kept the government in the hands of their own nation for some fifty years thereafter.

The first American decked vessel was built in New York

by Skipper Adraen Block in 1614. New England built her first vessel of any size at or near Boston, in 1633. Capt. Gallop's naval engagement with the Narragansett Indians for the rescue of Capt. Oldham's pinnace, which had been seized and the captain murdered, was our first fight on the water; and it was brave and victorious.

About 1666, the career of the buccaneers commenced, and the daring exploits of the famous Capt. Kidd followed. There is, however, more of romance than history in the frightful tales told of him to excite our childish fears.

The capture of Port Royal in Acadia (now Annapolis, Md.) in 1710, and the failure of the attempt upon the French possessions on the St. Lawrence in 1711, are the next important events of our naval history.

The whale-fisheries then became the naval school for American seamen.

War with Spain was declared in 1739, and native Americans began to exercise their skill in naval warfare. In 1714, a large number of the transports sent against Cuba were built by the colonists.

The year 1744 found the English at war with France. This furnished the American colonists their first opportunity to undertake by sea and land an enterprise of importance. Without aid from England, the commander of our little colonial marine, Capt. Edward Tyng of Massachusetts, with twelve small vessels besides the transports, sailed for Louisburg, an important port commanding the entrance of the St. Lawrence. The co-operating land-forces, 4,070 strong, all from New England, were commanded by Col. William Pepperell of Maine. Commodore Warren of the British navy arrived, with a part of the southern squadron from the West Indies, in time to take command. After forty-seven days' vigorous siege, and a severe cannonade, Louisburg surrended. The peace of Aix la Chapelle arrested for the time being the opening career of American bravery on the sea.

It was 1748. The American colonies had now been little

more than a century struggling upward, and they numbered something over a million of souls. The growth of navigation had been very rapid. That year five hundred vessels sailed from Boston, and four hundred and thirty entered her port; while the shipping from and to Portsmouth, N.H., New York, Philadelphia, Newport, R.I., and Perth Amboy, N. J., was quite extensive.

Peace was of short duration. The two nations could not live together on this continent. "The old French war" was opened on the 17th of May, 1756; which, though it furnished little opportunity for naval enterprise, ended in the complete destruction of French power in America. This result, so largely due to the energy of the Earl of Chatham, harmonized with the evident purposes of Providence, and left the colonies, with the military discipline they had received, free to go on in the accumulation of power for the great struggle which was rapidly approaching. Peace was declared Feb. 10, 1763; and France ceased the struggle for territory here, holding nothing above Louisiana. The colonies were then to prepare for the great conflict with the mother-country, now just at hand.

The first overt act of hostility between the colonies and England was the famous chase between the Providence packet" Hannah" and the British schooner "Gaspé." How characteristic for the Yankee craft to lead "The Gaspé,” which she could not fight, on to a bar where she must remain until a company on shore was extemporized to attack and destroy her during the night! On "The Gaspé" was shed the first blood of the Revolution. This daring adventure produced great indignation in England. But neither a thousand pounds sterling for the arrest of the leader from Providence, nor five hundred pounds to any informer, nor the commission of inquiry under the great seal of England, sitting for five months, could secure the least information for the crown. England did not comprehend this mysterious event; America did not. It was little Rhode Island opening the War of In

dependence. This was in 1772: the battle of Lexington was, as we have seen, in 1775.

The first engagement on the water, after the opening of the war, was between a lumber-sloop of Machias, Me., and "The Margaretta." Capt. Moore had not heard of the war; but the news had reached the Maine lumbermen, and they promptly resolved upon the capture of "The Margaretta." It was Sunday, and the captain and his men, seeing danger, escaped from the church through the window. He moved his vessel, as he thought, to a place of safety, but was fired upon, and summoned to surrender, from a high bluff. He moved farther, and would have run away, rather than fight; but the ugly-looking Yankee craft came down upon him. suddenly and roughly. "The Margaretta" was boarded, her commander shot down; and, after the fall of twenty men on both sides, the British vessel was surrendered. Though superior in numbers and armament, she could by no means resist the dreadful energy with which she was assailed. The volunteer crew of the lumber-sloop sailed without a commander, but made one on the way to the battle. Jeremiah O'Brien has the historic honor of conducting the forces of this Lexington of the seas.

We shall now see the slow growth of the naval power of the Republic. The persistent idea in America that this was a temporary struggle for certain rights under the crown, and not a war between equals, rendered the action of the colonies slow, and their preparations inadequate, both on the land and on the sea. The Americans were looking anxiously to the ocean: but it was not till the 13th of October, 1775, that Congress passed a law initiating the organization of naval arrangements; and not till the 10th of November of the same year that Massachusetts "established courts of admiralty, and enacted laws for the encouragement of nautical enterprises."

On the 13th of December following, Congress ordered

*Cooper's Naval History of the United States, p. 37.

thirteen ships of war built; and on the 22d of December, 1775, Eseck Hopkins was appointed commander-in-chief. Thus began the navy of the United States.

Commodore Hopkins soon made a dash at New Providence, where his marines behaved with the steadiness and gallantry which have ever since characterized the men of our navy when brought into action on land or on the sea. About a hundred cannon, a large quantity of other military stores, and the governor, were the trophies of his victory.

The first considerable naval engagement under orders of Congress was on the 6th of April, 1776. Commodore Hopkins, with a part of his squadron, fell in with "The Glasgow," a large ship of twenty guns. "The Cabot" boldly attacked the stranger, delivering her broadside skilfully; but her metal was too light for important effect. She dexterously moved away from her enemy; and "The Alfred" came up handsomely into her place, and delivered her fire. "The Andrea Doria" came into action, and did her best; while "The Providence" moved under the stern of "The Glasgow," and blazed away in vigorous style.

Capt. Howe, soon perceiving that he was in danger if he continued the fight, shook off his spunky little assailants; and "The Glasgow," by dexterous sailing, escaped after considerable damage.

This affair, which at first was taken for an important victory, produced, when the true history came to be known, extreme mortification among the American people, and cost the commodore and several of his commanders the loss of position.

By way of compensation for the escape of "The Glasgow," our spirited little "Lexington," Capt. Barry, fell in with the armed tender "Edward," and in a brave fight of an hour cut her nearly to pieces, and captured her.

The famous Capt. Paul Jones now comes in sight. In command of "The Providence," he mistook an English fast-sail