When Howe, the British commander, entered Philadelphia in triumph, "he found many to welcome him; among others, Duché, the late chaplain of Congress, who presently sent a letter to Washington, advising him to give over the ungodly cause in which he was engaged." *

This great commander, while he bore upon his heart the burden of the war, with all the sufferings of his soldiers, with whom he endured every deprivation as a father, was obliged to know that he was the object of cruel jealousy, and that, even in Congress, men were forming combinations for his overthrow. Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams gave influence to the disaffection towards Washington. The Pennsylvanians, smarting under the mortification of losing Philadelphia, sought to strengthen the increasing prejudice. Mifflin lent his splendid abilities to ripen the plot. Gates, who aspired to be commander-in-chief, corresponded with Mifflin and Conway, with the view of hastening the downfall of Washington. And what was his offence? Simply that he did not render his feeble band of famished continentals and militia everywhere superior to the well-fed and well-clothed hosts of the British veteran army. For want of shoes, the marches of his army "had been tracked in blood;" ""for want of blankets, many of the men were obliged to sit up all night before the camp-fires; more than a quarter part of the troops were reported unfit for duty, because they were barefoot and otherwise naked:" and he had the greatness to withdraw them from action when they were in danger of annihilation, and to endure calmly all the obloquy of impetuous discontent, while he carefully preserved the only possibility of future success.

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To add to the cares of Washington, and bring upon the national cause the greatest peril, Benedict Arnold, a chivalrous, daring warrior, turned traitor, and had just escaped, with his life and infamy, to join the enemies of his country, after having made all his arrangements to surrender West Point, with its men and munitions of war, to the British.

* Hildreth, iii. 221.

Thus were the hearts of American patriots tried. Thus did the follies of some, who, if honest, were exceedingly simple, and the treason of reckless, unprincipled men, unite to try the brave spirits upon whose integrity the cause of American liberty depended.

TRIALS FROM DEFEAT.

The invasion of Canada, commenced under Schuyler, Aug. 30, 1775, resulted in the capture of the bold Ethan Allen, who was sent to England in irons, and the death of the gallant Montgomery in a desperate attack upon Quebec. Arnold was borne from the field, severely wounded; and the remains of the spirited army of invasion went into winter-quarters behind ramparts of frozen snow.

Oglethorpe, the senior general in the British army, having declined the command in America, Gen. Howe received the appointment; and the forces designed to subdue the freemen of the colonies were raised to more than forty thousand men.

Dunmore, in Virginia, by proclamation roused the negro slaves and indented apprentices to accept arms, and take the field against their masters, promising them liberty as their reward. Soon he deemed himself strong enough for aggressive action; and Norfolk was bombarded, and then committed to the flames. He ascended the rivers, and burned and plundered, with the ferocity of a savage, the province of which he claimed to be governor.

In the spring of 1776, our poor army in Canada suffered from hunger and the small-pox, of which Thomas, then in command, died. Four hundred men surrendered to a party of Canadians and Indians. Thirteen thousand men now confronted our reduced and suffering patriots. Sullivan ordered an attack upon one division of the enemy, which was repulsed with the loss of two hundred and thirty men killed, wounded, and prisoners. Wayne was wounded, and

Thompson (who commanded the detachment) and Col. Irving were among the prisoners. All offensive measures in that quarter must now be abandoned, and our brave Northern army must seek safety in retreat from Canada, "disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, undisciplined, eaten up with vermin; no clothes, beds, blankets, nor medicines; and no victuals but salt pork and flour, and a scarce supply of that." These words from John Adams indicate the severity of suffering through which our patriotic soldiers were compelled to pass, and the bitter trials of the nation.

We had gathered a flotilla of sixteen vessels on Lake Champlain. These, after a severe engagement, were swept from the waters; and Crown Point fell into the enemy's hands.

In August of this year, the whole army of the Republic scarcely numbered twenty thousand men. One-fifth of these were sick, and another fifth were away on detached duties, when Washington was confronted by Gen. Howe with twenty-four thousand disciplined troops. All attempts to prevent their landing on Long Island were unavailing. A sharp, spirited battle took place between fifteen thousand British and five thousand Americans. Sullivan and Sterling were made prisoners; and New York, the commercial metropolis of the United States, fell into the hands of the enemy, to be held till the war was ended.

The soldiers now became unsteady under fire, and broke in so disgraceful a manner as to extort from Washington the indignant demand, "Are these the men with whom I am to defend America?" He was driven from York Island altogether. Fort Washington, and the works on Harlem Heights, under command of Magraw, were suddenly attacked by four columns. Four hundred men of the enemy fell in the onset: but our men, demoralized, refused to man the works; and the fort, with two thousand prisoners and a great quantity of artillery, fell into the hands of the British.

The time of enlistment for many of the continentals expired, and multitudes left before their time. Thus Washington saw his little army rapidly melting away. Reduced to some four thousand men, he conducted a masterly retreat southward, and finally recrossed the Delaware. New Jersey was lost to the Republic for the present.

This was a dark day for America. Disaffection spread in Pennsylvania. Lee, too self-conceited to be subordinate, virtually repudiated Washington's orders, and aspired to a separate command.

A British fleet, bearing six thousand troops, now appeared off Newport; and that harbor was lost.

During the winter of 1777, Washington was at Morristown, N. J. He had retired from Princeton too weak to strike another blow. "His troops were exhausted: many had no blankets; others were barefoot; all were very thinly clad." * He joined a few skeletons of regiments. which had been detached from the army of the North, and a few volunteers; and thus our brave men, hardly fit to be called an army, shivering with cold and suffering from hunger, waited the orders of their great commander. Again the country was scoured for men. Those who had been left for the comfort of needy families, and many who had, for reasons of cowardice or from sinister motives, evaded their country's call, were now brought into camp; and the army was re-organized.

The tone of England, in the mean time, may be judged by a single fact. American commissioners proposed that captured British seamen brought into French ports should be exchanged for so many American prisoners of war. Lord Stormont replied, "The king's ambassador receives no application from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's pardon." The note which contained these haughty words was promptly returned for his lordship's "better consideration."

* Hildreth, iii. 170.

The summer campaign gave no decisive advantage to the Americans anywhere. We lost our important defences in the Highlands on the Hudson, and in September fought the disastrous battle of the Brandywine; and Philadelphia fell into the hands of the enemy.

Our forces in the South were quite inadequate to defend so large a territory against a foe so formidable; and the Carolinas were treated by the British as conquered territory.

The Indians were officered, and trained to deeds of cruelty for which the vilest enemies in civilized warfare could not fail to blush in shame. Let the reader trace these savages, with their Tory allies under Butler and Brant, through the massacre of Wyoming, in the vivid pages of "Wyoming, its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures," by George Peck, D.D., and he will have some idea of the horrors through which America passed to the triumphs of the Revolution.

We may now pause to wonder how the struggling forces of Freedom were sustained through these years of agony. Why did they not abandon the effort? They were a marvel to their enemies, to themselves, and to the civilized world. Again and again the English thought they were conquered; that they had exhausted their last resources of men and money; and that, from very anguish of soul, they must submit to their enemies. But no. A Being above all human events would not permit them to yield. A courage that knew no danger, a fortitude that defied all suffering, was given them from above, rendering them actually invincible.

If they had passed on in uninterrupted triumph to easy success, if they had never felt the horrors of poverty, the bitterness of treachery and defeat, they would have known nothing of the value of freedom, and have entered upon the struggles of re-organization, with no adequate patience, or wisdom or patriotism, to sustain a form of government so new and so exceedingly critical. But God had sifted and tried them that they might be equal to their task.