The Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 12

The English expedition for punishing the Connecticutans was diverted to a more distant point. In the Bay of Penobscot, in the month of June, Francis Maclean, commander of the royal forces in Nova Scotia, had commenced a settlement, to prevent the incursions of the Massachusetts men, and to furnish timber for the king's dockyards at Halifax and other places. He conveyed thither six hundred and fifty men in three sloops of war, and was busy in clearing the ground, and preparing for the erection of a fort on a peninsula, and close upon a small bay, which was easy to defend. The news of this settlement roused the ire of the people of Massachusetts. The assembly of Massachusetts, for the purpose of extirpating this embryo settlement, laid an embargo on all the shipping in the harbour of Boston, and offered an extraordinary bounty to all who would engage in the service. By the 25th of June, the armament, thus improvised, arrived in the Bay of Penobscot, consisting of three thousand troops under general Lovel, and of nineteen sail of armed vessels of one sort or other, carrying from ten to thirty guns each, besides the twenty- seven transports which conveyed the troops. The three English sloops, however, lay across the harbour before the settlement, and the Americans sought another place of landing. On the night of the 28th they managed to get on shore, and, dragging up some artillery, erected a battery within seven hundred and fifty feet of a rising fort. As the land force commenced to play on the fort, the armament endeavoured to force its way into the harbour to co-operate. But, both from Maclean's unfinished works, and from the ships, they received so smart a fire, that the American forces, though greatly superior, consisting chiefly of raw militia, were soon daunted; and Lovel dispatched a message to solicit reinforcements from Gates; but, before these could arrive, Sir George Collier, the English admiral, hove in sight with a squadron and fresh troops.

At this sight there was a rapid run. Some of the larger vessels endeavoured to escape out to sea, but found this impracticable. Two were taken; one was blown up by its own crew; the rest of the ships and transports made a rush for the mouth of the Penobscot river, where both troops and sailors leapt to shore, and fled for their lives. The English sailors soon captured the American vessels, taking such as they chose, and burning the rest. The men, thrown on a wild and inhospitable shore, more than a hundred miles from the nearest settlements, set out on their melancholy journey to reach, if possible, a populated place. On the way, the seamen and landsmen fell into mutual recriminations, and broke into actual fight, in which fifty or sixty of them were killed. Many of the rest perished miserably in the pathless woods.

Sir George Collier, who had shown himself an active and successful commander, on his return to New York found himself superseded by admiral Arbuthnot, a much inferior officer, such as it was the fatality of that fatal English ministry generally to appoint. The new admiral had brought some new ships and forces, but in no degree in proportion to the wants of a vigorous and effective campaign.

But the chief scene of the war during this year continued to be south. In September, D'Estaing arrived off Savannah, to co-operate with the American forces in recovering that important place. He brought with him twenty-four ships of the line and fourteen frigates, and was moreover attended by a numerous squadron of French and American privateers, besides carrying a considerable body of troops. On learning D'Estaing's approach, general Lincoln and governor Rutledge began to march their troops towards Savannah, and sent a number of small vessels to enable the French to carry their troops up the river, and land them near the town. General Prevost made the most active preparations to receive them. He called in his different garrisons, evacuated Sunbury and Beaufort, and employed all his men in raising new works, and strengthening the old ones at Savannah. The vessels in the river, consisting of only four brigs and a few gallies, were drawn close under the town, their guns landed and placed on the batteries. One brig only retained her guns, and this was so disposed as to cover the right of the British line. Vessels were sunk and barriers stretched across the river, both above and below the town, to prevent fire-rafts coming down and the French ships coming up. D'Estaing had agreed to wait for the arrival of general Lincoln, with the South Carolina force, but, with the want of faith characteristic of the man, on the 12th of September he landed three thousand men, and summoned general Prevost to surrender in the name of the French king. Prevost claimed twenty-four hours to decide, and this time he employed in strengthening his defences. Before the expiration of this time, colonel Maitland, who was on the march for Beaufort with eight hundred veterans, came in, and Prevost returned for answer that he would defend the place to the utmost. On the 16th, general Lincoln arrived, and was greatly incensed to find that D'Estaing had broken the agreement to wait for him, and still worse, had summoned the place in the name of France instead of the congress. High words ensued; the old suspicions of the Americans, that the French were rather inclined to conquer for themselves than them, revived; and there was a danger that the allies would come to blows one with the other, instead of with the British. It was found, too, that D'Estaing had boastiully summoned the English to surrender before he had brought up his heavy artillery from the ships, to compel them if requisite. It was the 24th of September before this was effected, owing to the deep, swampy ground through which they had to drag the cannon; and it was the 4th of October before their batteries began to play. Prevost not only returned them their fire with interest, but captain Moncrieff, a very able engineer officer, continued to build fresh redoubts with green wood that would not burn, and filled up the hollows with earth and sand. At the same time, he made continual sorties, which impeded the operations of the assailants, and destroyed many of them. Rutledge's militia had now arrived, and the allied army amounted to ten thousand men, whilst that of general Moncrieff did not exceed two thousand five hundred. But he had contrived to mount about one hundred cannon; and, whilst it was found the artillery of the allies made little impression on the works of Moncrieff, these made deadly havoc amongst the besiegers.

D'Estaing, who expected to have taken the place with little trouble, greatly alarmed lest the English should seize most of the French West Indian islands in his absence, urged an assault contrary to the wishes of Lincoln, and this was made on the 9th of October. The forces, five thousand eight hundred in number, were led on in two columns, one of these columns by D'Estaing and Lincoln themselves, the other by count Dillon, a man of Irish extraction; but they were received by such a raking fire from walls and redoubts, and from the brig flanking the right of the British lines, that they were thrown back in confusion; and, before D'Estaing and Lincoln could restore order, colonel Maitland made a general sortie with fixed bayonets, and the whole attacking force fled in utter route. D'Estaing himself was wounded, with several of his principal officers; Pulaski, the Pole, was killed; there were nine hundred of the allies killed and wounded, and only fifty-five killed, wounded, or missing, on the side of the English. D'Estaing would now remain no longer, but re-embarked his forces, and sailed away, to the unspeakable chagrin of the Americans, who retreated in all haste, the greater part of the militia breaking up and returning home. This attack on Savannah was a striking proof of what might have been done on the plan laid down by lord Barrington, of sitting down in force in the chief sea-ports, blockading the rivers, and being prepared to repel the French from sea, and the Americans from land wherever they ventured to approach.

The only other operations which the Americans undertook this year were some excursions to chastise the Indians, which produced more furious retaliations from the Indians on the settlements of the whites. The Senecas and the refugees amongst them harassed the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. The Onandagas, though professing neutrality, were believed to share in these hostilities, and a detachment was sent suddenly from Fort Stanwix, which destroyed their villages. The Indians retaliated by destroying the settlements of Schoharie, in New York, and similar depredations were committed in Pennsylvania, especially around Pittsburg.

A much greater force was dispatched against the Six Nations, a chief object of which was to capture at the same time Fort Niagara. But the officers of the New Jersey regiments ordered for this expedition refused to march without proper supplies of both officers and men. This, in the low condition of the treasury of congress, was no easy matter, and occasioned much delay. At length, the sum of two hundred pounds was sent to each officer, and forty dollars to each private. The command, being declined by general Gates, was given to general Sullivan. To the New Jersey troops others from Pennsylvania and New Hampshire were added, and they assembled at Wyoming. A New York brigade, hitherto employed in defending the frontiers of that state, crossed from Mohawk to Lake Oswego, dammed the lake, and so raised its level, that by again breaking the dam, they made a temporary flood, on which their boats descended the; north-east branch of the Susquehanna, and thus joined Sullivan's troops. This junction, however, was not effected before Brandt had taken and burnt the village of Minisink, near the north-west corner of West Jersey, and surprised, by an ambush, a detachment of militia sent to chastise him, and nearly exterminated the whole of them.

At length, on the 22nd of August, Sullivan's army, amounting to five thousand men, advanced up the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna. At Newtown, near Elmira, they fell in with a mingled force of Indians and tories, under the command of Brandt, the Butlers, and Johnson, whom they defeated, and then proceeded to lay waste the Indian settlements. They cut down the ancient Indian orchards, destroyed great quantities of corn, and burned down eighteen villages, composed chiefly of framed houses. Sullivan continued so long engaged in this work of devastation, that he could not attack Fort Niagara. Simultaneously, an expedition from Pittsburg ascended the Alleghany, and destroyed the villages and orchards of the Indians on that river. But these ravages only incited the Indians to more deadly ones on the white settlements in other quarters; and though congress passed a vote approving of Sullivan's operations, the murmurs of the ravaged white population soon awoke them to a different mood. Washington complained that his proceedings had been checked by the large detachment thus withdrawn, for no good result, for Sullivan's expedition; and Sullivan himself complained of the insufficiency of means placed at his disposal. He offered to resign his commission on the plea of ill health, and congress readily acquiesced; though his friends sought to make it a short release from active service rather than resignation. He soon after became a member of congress for New Hampshire.

During the whole of this time nothing could be more melancholy than the whole condition of the United States. Congress, elated by the French alliance, had imagined that they had little to do but to sit still and see the French play the game for them. They fondly believed that England would find enough to do to defend its own shores and its West Indian Islands from their Gallican neighbours, little dreaming that those neighbours were on the very verge of bankruptcy. But, so far, all these fairy hopes had been rudely disappointed. The depreciation of the currency still went on. Twenty to one was the very most that the United Startes' paper would represent against gold or silver. In many cases it had fallen to one-thirtieth, and even to one- hundredth of its nominal value. In the State of Maryland, in December of this year, an English officer paid his bill at an inn. In English gold it amounted only to four guineas and a half, but it stood nominally, as calculated in state paper, at seven hundred and thirty-one pounds! This officer, major Anbury, has printed the bill at large in his Travels.

Washington describes, in a letter to a friend, the dreadful depreciation. "Without some new measures," he says, "what funds can stand the present expenses of the army? What officer can bear the weight of prices that every necessary article is now got to? A rat - in the shape of a horse - is not to be bought at this time for less than two hundred pounds, nor a saddle under thirty or forty pounds; boots twenty pounds, and shoes and other articles in like proportion. How is it possible, therefore, for officers to stand this without an increase of pay? " He adds that flour is from five to fifteen pounds a hundredweight; nay, from ten to thirty pounds, and beef and everything else in proportion; that a wagon-load of money could scarcely purchase a wagon-load of provisions. Yet, with one hundred millions of paper already out, congress issued, during this one year, one hundred millions more!

This was not the worst; the more rascally part of the community took the opportunity, as the paper was still a legal tender, to pay off their debts in it, at or about nominal rate, and Washington, amongst others, suffered from this species of robbery at the very moment that he was spending his life and energies to free his country. No persons, however, were more alive to this species of transaction than congress itself. It indignantly resented any suspicion of its ever paying less than the full value of its currency, and on one occasion observed, " It is with great regret and reluctance that we can prevail upon ourselves to take the least notice of a question which involves in it a doubt so injurious to the honour and dignity of America. A bankrupt, faithless republic would be a novelty in the political world!" Within two years the United States were that very bankrupt, faithless republic! But long before that, in selling old cannon, stores, &c., it took great care not to receive the value in its own paper, but exacted specie. (See their own historian, Dr. Gordon, vol. iv., p. 143.) Let us also quote the opinion of the brave commander-in-chief, Washington, of this model congress, and of American patriots generally: - " If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should, in one word, say that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and of almost every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit, which, in its consequence, is the want of everything, are but secondary considerations, and postponed from day to day and from week to week, as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect.