Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 19

Out of doors, the dispatch of Burgoyne excited much sympathy in his favour. He told his melancholy story with much tact; but as Mrs. Inchbald, in her preface to the " Heiress," observed, "the style charmed every reader; but he had better have beaten the enemy, and misspelt every word of his dispatch, for so the great duke of Marlborough would have done." The news, instead of depressing the nation, had only the effect of exciting its spirit. The highlands of Scotland, and the towns of Manchester and Liverpool, led the way in subscriptions for fresh troops; and fifteen thousand soldiers were added to the army by private subscription alone. Franklin having complained to David Hartley that the American prisoners were suffering much in England, a subscription was also raised for them - a reproof to Chatham for his taunts on the want of magnanimity in the English compared with that of the Americans.

The news had the most instant effect across the channel. All hesitation on the part of the French court to enter into the treaty with the United States disappeared. The American commissioners, Franklin, Deane, and Lee, were informed that the king of France was ready to make a treaty, claiming no advantage whatever, except that of trade with the States. It was intimated that this proceeding would, in all probability, involve France in a war with Great Britain, but that she would claim no indemnity on that score. The only condition for which she positively stipulated was, that America should, under no temptations, give up its independence, or return under the dominion of England. The two kingdoms were to make common cause, and assist each other against the common enemy. The Americans were to endeavour to make themselves masters of all the British territories that they could, and retain them as their rightful acquisition; the French to obtain whatever islands they could in the West Indies, and retain them. France did not venture to seek back the Canadas or Nova Scotia, well knowing that the Americans would not consent to have them there as neighbours. Neither country was to make peace with England without the other. Lee was to continue at Paris as the first American ambassador there, and the treaty was to continue some weeks a secret, in order to obtain, if possible, the accession of Spain to it, which, however, they could not do then. Thus did Louis XVI., in order to avenge the lost of Canada and other territories, wrested from France by England, put his hand to this treaty, little dreaming that by this act he was signing his own death-warrant, and evoking a spirit of revolution which would never rest again till it prostrated himself, his queen, and others of his family, in their blood; utterly destroyed the ancient throne and system of France, and, through a night of unparalleled horrors and massacres, eliminated a new dynasty and a new age.

In America, such was the state of things, that a British commander there, of the slightest pretence to activity and observation, would have concluded the war by suddenly issuing from his winter quarters, and dispersing the shoeless, shirtless, blanketless, and often almost foodless, army of Washington. His soldiers, amounting to about eleven thousand, were living in huts at Valley Forge, arranged in streets like a town, each hut containing fourteen men. Such was the destitution of shoes, that all the late marches had been tracked in blood - an evil which Washington had endeavoured to mitigate by offering a premium for the best pattern of shoes made of untanned hides. For want of blankets, many of the men were obliged to sit up all night before the camp fires. More than a quarter of the troops were reported unfit for duty, because they were barefoot and otherwise naked. Provisions failed, and on more than one occasion there was an absolute famine in the camp. It was in vain that Washington sent repeated and earnest remonstrances to congress, its credit was at the lowest ebb. The system of establishing fixed prices for everything had totally failed, as it was certain to do; and Washington, to prevent the total dispersion of his army, was obliged to Bend out foraging parties, and seize provisions wherever they could be found. He gave certificates for these seizures, but their payment was long delayed, and, when it came, it was only in the continental bills, which were fearfully depreciated, and contrasted most disadvantageously with the gold in which the British paid for their supplies.

Since the issue of the ten millions of new bills, authorised early in the year, to which two millions more had been added in August, the depreciation had become alarming. Anxious to obtain money to pay the troops, congress had pressed the subject of loans, and, as a new inducement to lenders, had offered to pay the interest on all money advanced before March, 1778, in bills drawn on their commissioners in France. But it became necessary to authorise a million more of continental bills, and another million soon after, making the amount issued up to the end of the year thirty-four millions. The depreciation, meanwhile, increased so rapidly, that the bills, nearly at par for the first three months of the year, had sunk by the end of it one- fourth their value. Credit failing at home, congress ordered their commissioners to endeavour to effect loans in France and Spain, but, till after the capture of Burgoyne, with little effect.

Congress next voted that five millions of dollars should be raised by direct taxation, each state to take a definite quota; that all the property of those who had taken the royalist side should be seized and sold; that of absentees was to be put into the hands of trustees, and sold too, the proceeds, after paying the debts due upon them, to be paid into the general treasury. These certainly were far more tyrannic regulations than any that Great Britain had enforced, and which had driven them into rebellion; but there is no party so unscrupulous and relentless as a revolutionary one. The sale of the estates of the disaffected brought little into the general fund, but served to gratify personal spite. Congress then went further. It established three conventions - one for the eight northern states, one for Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, aud a third for South Carolina and Georgia - which were to meet early in the year, and establish a fresh list of prices, notwithstanding the former one had failed, and to enforce those prices by seizing goods for the army, paying only those prices. It was declared a crime for persons to hold large stocks with the prospect of making extra profits by them. The commissioners were authorised to seize, for the use of the army, all woollens, blankets, stockings, shoes, and hats, wherever they could be found, and pay for them at this fixed price in the government depreciated paper. Not a hundredth part of these violent and arbitrary measures had been needed to throw the whole country into a flame against England. Conscious of the odiousness of these proceedings, congress, in a circular letter, declared that " laws unworthy the character of infant republics are become necessary to supply the defects of public virtue, and to correct the vices of some of her sons."

Nor was this the extent of that wretched condition of the United States which would have attracted the vigilant attention of an able English commander, and have roused him into successful action. The greatest discontent prevailed in congress against Washington. Gates and the northern army had triumphed over the whole British army there; but what had been the fate of Washington hitherto? The Washington of that day was not Washington as we regard him now - proved and tried by twenty years of the most disinterested and most successful public services. As yet he had been in command but little more than two years, during which he had suffered, with some slight exceptions, a continual series of losses and defeats. He had recovered Boston, to be sure, and that not by any brilliant action, but by a mere blockade, and had lost New York, Newport, and Philadelphia. He had been completely successful at Trenton, and partially so at Princetown; but had been beaten, with heavy loss, on Long Island and at Fort Washington, and lately in two pitched battles, on ground of his own choosing, at Brandy wine and Germantown. What a contrast to the battles on Behmus's Heights and the capture of Burgoyne! Want of success had evoked a party in congress against Schuyler, Sullivan, and himself. In this party Henry Lee and Samuel Adams were violent against him. They accused him of want of vigour and promptitude, and of a system of favouritism. Congress was wearied of his constant importunities and remonstrances. The people of Philadelphia were extremely sore on account of their city being allowed to fall into the hands of the English. Mifflin, against whose conduct, as quartermaster-general, he had complained, and who had resigned in consequence, was very bitter against him, and, with Conway and Gates, was actively colleaguing against him. Gates, since the capture of Burgoyne, had assumed a particular hauteur and distance, and, there could be little doubt, was aspiring to the office of commander-in-chief. A new board of war was formed, in which the opponents of Washington became the leading members. Gates and Mifflin were at its head, and Conway was made major-general over the heads of all the brigadiers, and inspector-general of the army. A system of anonymous letters was in action depreciating the character and services of Washington.

But, whilst all these elements of disunion and weakness were in full play, Howe slumbered on in Philadelphia, unobservant and, probably, unknowing of it all. He continued to eat, and sleep, and give dinners and card-parties - his officers, by their conduct, shocking all the moral notions of the staid Quakers - when a fortnight's sudden and energetic action would have freed him of all his shivering and starving enemies on this side of the Hudson. The opportunity passed away. The intrigues against Washington were defeated as soon as known to his own army and the people at large, through the influence of the real esteem that he enjoyed in the public heart, especially as news had just arrived that friends and forces were on the way from France.

At this juncture, when the eyes of all Europe were turned on the new republic of America, congress gave a proof of its utter contempt of those principles of honour which are regarded as the distinguishing characteristics of civilised nations. The convention on which general Burgoyne's army had surrendered was deliberately violated. It had been stipulated that his troops should be conveyed to Boston, and there suffered to embark for England in British transports to be admitted to the port for that purpose. But no sooner did congress learn this stipulation than it showed the utmost reluctance to comply with it. It was contended that these five thousand men would liberate other five thousand in England to proceed to America. It was therefore immediately determined to find some plea for evading the convention, and they watched for it with all the petty finesse of pettifogging attorneys.

So long as the British prisoners remained in the state of New York they were treated with courtesy; nay, more, general Schuyler, with that nobility of character which had always distinguished him, showed them the utmost kindness, though he had suffered severely in his property from them. Burgoyne had been compelled, in the arrangements for his defence at Saratoga, to burn down saw-mills and store-houses valued at ten thousand pounds, belonging to general Schuyler. When he met him as a prisoner of war, he apologised for the necessity of this proceeding; but Schuyler stopped him, saying, " Say no more of it; I should have done the same under the same circumstances." He sent an aide-de-camp with him to Albany, who there conducted him to general Schuyler's house, introduced him to Mrs. Schuyler and his family, who received and entertained him and his chief officers during his whole stay there in the most princely manner.

Madame von Reisedel gives the same testimony to general Schuyler's noble conduct. She could not help saying to him, " You are so good to us that I am sure you must be a husband and a father." The conduct of general Gates was equally that of a gentleman. But the moment the captive army passed into New England the whole scene changed. There the fierce and bitter character of the people showed itself in the most odious light Madame von Reisedel says that such was their treatment of even women and children, that they could not appear in the streets of Boston without the very women frowning fiercely upon them, and that such was their venom that they would spit upon the ground before them; that their conduct was ferocious, and disgraceful to human nature, towards those of their own people who took the British side; that captain Fenton, continuing steadfast to the king, and being gone to England, some women of the lower orders seized on his wife and daughter - a beautiful girl of fifteen - tore off their clothes, tarred and feathered them, and dragged them, in that condition, as a show round the town. (See her " Dienst-Reise," pp. 192-202.)

Whilst ladies received such treatment, it was not likely that the British troops and officers could escape insult and injury from the unmanly Bostonians. English soldiers were not only insulted but stabbed, and a colonel Henley, on the complaint of Burgoyne, was brought before a court-martial for stabbing English soldiers with his own hand on two separate occasions; but he was declared only to have acted with too much warmth, and was acquitted!

An article of the convention expressly provided that the English officers should be quartered according to their rank; but they complained that six or seven of them were crowded into one small room, without regard either to rank or comfort. But Burgoyne, finding remonstrance useless at Boston, wrote to Gates reminding him of his engagements in the convention, and declaring such treatment a breach of public faith.

. This was just one of those expressions that congress was watching for, and they seized upon it with avidity. " Here," they said, " is a deep and crafty scheme - a previous notice put in by the British general to justify his future conduct; for, beyond all doubt, he will think himself absolved from his obligation whenever released from his captivity, and go with all his troops to reinforce the army of Howe."

This was only such a plea as minds dishonourable in themselves could have advanced; no such quibbling belonged to the British character, and Burgoyne offered at once to give congress any security against any such imagined perfidy. But this did not suit congress - its only object was to fasten some imputation on the English as an excuse for detaining them contrary to the convention, and they went on, in the true spirit of a pettifogging meanness, to raise fresh obstacles. They sent to Burgoyne, insisting on his furnishing them with a descriptive list of all the non-commissioned officers and privates of his army; but, as this formed no part of the convention, it was properly declined. They then declared that the English had broken the convention; that they had not surrendered all their arms, these arms being some cartouch-boxes, and other accoutrements, retained by individuals, as is the case in all such surrenders; but the congress declared that these were arms, and therefore justified them in detaining the British force. When the transports sent by general Howe arrived, they would not admit them.