The Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 8

If Howe had most fatuously neglected Washington through the winter, Washington was too able a general to neglect the British now they were in retreat. He was at their heels, keen and vigorous as they had been dull and somnolent. Washington's army, under the encouragement of aid from France, had now rapidly swelled to ten or twelve thousand men; and, whilst Clinton was occupied in repairing the bridges and driving the militia from their forts on his way, Washington hung continually on his rear, seeking to take some advantage of him. Councils were held, in which Washington proposed to come to a general engagement, but in which general Lee declared that Clinton having ten thousand able troops would certainly beat them. Of seventeen generals, only Cadwallader and Wayne were of Washington's opinion. These deliberations took place on the 24th of June, when Clinton was at Allentown, and as the decision was against a pitched battle, Washington threw forward four thousand men under Lee, seconded by La Fayette, to press on Clinton's rear and do him all the damage they could. This continued till the 28th of June, when Clinton, finding Lee in his rear with now five thousand men and other bodies trying to outflank him, suddenly halted, wheeled with his face to the foe, and ordered lord Cornwallis to fall on them. The effect was decisive: the English soldiers dashed forward and swept the Americans from a height on which they had taken post, and Washington soon met Lee galloping back at the head of his flying squadrons. Washington saluted him with some biting words, and Lee, halting and re-forming his columns, awaited once more the British. But a second time he was forced from his ground, and was driven upon Washington's own lines, which were formed behind a morass near Freehold Court House; and there, after cannonading him for some time, Clinton left him. His object was attained - that of putting an effectual check on the Americans. He had lost in killed and wounded three hundred men, including twenty officers; five sergeants and fifty-six privates having dropped dead from the intense heat. The American loss was still more.

At ten o'clock, after a rest, Clinton resumed his march through the fine, cool summer night, not an American venturing to follow him, though he led off with a considerable firing of musketry, one of the battalions haying mistaken a herd of cows in a wood for a body of the enemy. He continued his course unmolested to New York, which he reached on the 5th of July. The affair at Freehold Court House had shown that one-half of the English army could readily in fair fight beat the whole of the American; but the congress, according to its false and braggart system, proclaimed the battle a splendid victory on their side. They did not, however, overlook the conduct of Lee. He had written a sharp letter to Washington, in resentment of the reproof he had given him; Washington replied, and Lee retorted more disrespectfully. He was arrested and tried by court-martial for disobedience of orders, and for insolent demeanour towards his commander-in-chief. On the first charge he was acquitted, but condemned on the second, and suspended for one year. This ended Lee's service in the American army. He had always shown himself captious, self-willed, proud of his military talent, and jealous of Washington. Soon after the expiration of his sentence he took offence at some imagined slight by congress, addressed to it an insulting letter, then he retracted and apologised, but was dismissed from the service.

Clinton having now united his forces at New York, directed his attention to the approach of the fleet of D'Estaing. This had sailed for the Delaware, expecting to find lord Howe there; but, finding that he had sailed for New York, he followed him, and arrived there six days after him. The fleet of D'Estaing consisted of twelve sail-of-the-line and six frigates. Howe had only ten sail-of-the-line, and some of them of only forty or fifty guns, and a few frigates. Besides, D'Estaing had heavier metal, and much better conditioned ships, for those of Howe were old and out of repair, and their crews were considerably deficient. Altogether, D'Estaing had eight hundred and fifty-four guns; Howe, only six hundred and fourteen. D'Estaing had on board M. Gerard, the new minister to the United States.

From D'Estaing's superiority of force it was quite expected that he would attack Howe; but he was dissuaded by the pilots from entering the harbour, and lay outside eleven days, during which time he landed the ambassador. Lord Howe showed much spirit in preparing for an encounter, though he was daily in expectation of admiral Byron with some additional ships, the admiral coming to supersede him. He put his ships in the best order he could, and the English seamen hurried in from all quarters to man his vessels. A thousand volunteers came from the transports, and masters and mates of merchantmen offered their services. Just, however, when it was expected that D'Estaing would avail himself of the tide, on the 22nd of July, to enter the harbour, he sailed away for Rhode Island, and up the Newport river. A few days after some of Byron's ships arrived in a shattered condition. The admiral had encountered that tempestuous weather which, strangely enough, pursued him in all his voyages, and earned for him the name of " Foul-weather Jack." Scarcely one of Byron's vessels was little better than a wreck; yet no time was lost in endeavouring to get them into sailing trim, and in a few days Howe sailed in quest of D'Estaing. They found D'Estaing joined by La Fayette with two thousand American troops, and by general Sullivan with ten thousand more, and D'Estaing proposed to land four thousand from his fleet. The English garrison in Newport amounted to only five thousand men.

But here a contest arose betwixt D'Estaing and Sullivan for the supreme command, and this was not abated till Howe with his fleet hove in sight. Then D'Estaing stood out to sea, spite of the remonstrances of Sullivan, Greene, and the other American officers. Lord Howe endeavoured to bring him to action, at the same time manoeuvring to obtain the weather-gage of him. In these mutual endeavours to obtain the advantage of the wind, the two fleets stood away quite out of sight of Rhode Island, and Sullivan commenced in their absence the siege of Newport. Howe, at length, seeing that he could not obtain the weather-gage, determined to attack the French to leeward, but at this moment a terrible storm arose, and completely parted the hostile fleets, doing both of them great damage. A day or two after part of the English fleet encountered part of the French, in which Admiral Bouganville lost an arm and an eye, but in other respects the skirmish was not decisive. D'Estaing returned into the harbour of Newport, but only to inform the Americans that he was too much damaged to remain, but must make for Boston to refit. This threw the American generals into a violent rage. During D'Estaing's absence, the storm, raging on land as fiercely as on sea, had thrown down Sullivan's tents, deluged the powder, and, besides rendering the whole army miserable, had destroyed some of the men. Sullivan and the other officers remonstrated vehemently against his departure; but in vain. They could not even prevail on him to land the promised four thousand men. All the officers, except La Fayette, signed a strong protest against this desertion of them; but D'Estaing continued immovable, and sailed away.

Scarcely had D'Estaing disappeared, when Sir Henry Clinton himself, leading four thousand, men, arrived in Rhode Island, and Sullivan crossed over to the mainland in haste. He attributed the failure of the enterprise entirely to the French, and so violent was the indignation of the Americans, that D'Estaing was very ill received at Boston; he was hooted in the streets, and such was the ill blood which arose betwixt the republicans and their new allies, that in a scuffle a French officer was killed. Similar wranglings took place betwixt the French and American sailors in Charlestown, South Carolina, where several of the quarrellers were killed, and the Yankees began to denounce the French alliance as a hoax and delusion.

Whilst these transactions were in progress, the British commissioners continued to urge the advantage of listening to their proposals. They omitted no honourable means of inducing congress to give them their attention. Governor Johnstone wrote private letters to various members to whom he had brought introductions from their friends and connections in England, amongst these to Robert Morris, Richard, and Dana; and in some of these letters suggestions were thrown out, that friendly services in contributing to the great object of peace and reunion would not be forgotten by England. These letters were laid before congress; and Reed even asserted that ten thousand pounds had been offered him, through a certain Mrs. Ferguson, who had connections in the British army; and that he had replied that " he was not worth purchasing; but, such as he was, the king of England was not rich enough to buy him." Upon these vague charges - for no evidence of this offer was produced - congress passed a resolution that Johnstone had endeavoured to bribe and corrupt its members, and therefore, that no communication should be held with him or the commission to which he belonged. The congress were, indeed, only too anxious to establish an excuse for this discourtesy; for the commissioners did not hesitate to press on their attention and on that of the American public very disagreeable facts. They referred to the recent conduct of the French, and asked triumphantly whether the Americans had had, for the first time, to learn that that people was habitually perfidious? They also continued to demand the fulfilment of the convention with Burgoyne. " But," says Hildreth, one of their own historians, " a new loop-hole was found by congress. It was not for nothing that so many lawyers sat in that body. As all their acts were subject to approval by parliament, congress denied the authority of the commissioners to make a definite ratification. Finding now that all appeals to such a body were useless, the commissioners prepared to take their departure; but, before leaving, they published a manifesto, charging the responsibility of the continuance of the war on the congress, reminding the Americans that they had conceded all the questions at issue, and very foolishly declaring that if, after forty days, these conditions were not accepted, they must not complain if the conflict was carried on with less regard to the property and security of the population."

La Fayette, highly incensed at the aspersions cast on his countrymen, in spite of the serious remonstrances of Washington, sent a challenge to lord Carlisle, who coolly replied that he owed no responsibility for his public acts to any one but his own sovereign.

Sir Henry Clinton, on leaving Rhode Island, proposed to stop, on his way back to New York, at New London, on the Connecticut coast, where he meant to burn out a nest of pirates, buts as the weather was bad, he continued his voyage to New York, and left major-general Grey to execute this duty. Grey had been celebrated for these raids ever since he surprised general Wayne in the wood near Brandy- wine Creek, and he had acquired the cognomen of " the no-flint general," because on such occasions he ordered his men to take the flints out of their guns, and trust entirely to their bayonets. Major-general Grey was eventually raised to the peerage, as lord Grey of Howiek, and, finally, earl Grey, and was the father of earl Grey, the well-known whig minister.

Grey executed his orders with rapidity and entire success. He descended on Buzzard Bay, in Massachusetts, another grand rendezvous of American pirates, destroyed seventy sail of ships, many store-houses and wharves, besides demolishing a fort mounting eleven pieces of heavy cannon. Thence he proceeded to the island called Martha's Vineyard, where he burned a number more vessels, destroying a salt- work, and levied a contribution of ten thousand sheep and three hundred oxen. To facilitate a similar expedition, Clinton himself marched his army up both sides of the Hudson at once, and destroyed a nest of pirates at Little Egg Harbour, on the Jersey coast. The town itself was burned; Baylor's regiment of horse, on duty in New Jersey, was surprised and cut to pieces; Pulasky's legion was also surprised, and a great part of the men cut off.

But Clinton had planned a new mode of operation in the war, and now, with the approbation of his government, commenced it. The southern colonies were in a state of mutual hostility, especially East Florida, which continued to adhere to England, and East Georgia, which had been the last to join the congress. Clinton dispatched thither three thousand five hundred men, and supported their movements by the presence of a powerful squadron under Sir Peter Parker. The capital of Georgia - Savannah - which was defended by the American general, Robert How, was first attacked, carried, and the entire province speedily reduced. How's remnant of an army fled into South Carolina. The inhabitants came in on all sides and took the oath to the king; and colonel Campbell, who headed the expedition, instead of following the example of the congress, and hanging and imprisoning those who had fallen from their allegiance, frankly received all, and thus conciliated the goodwill of the most disaffected.

The greatest ferocity was everywhere in this war perpetrated by the Americans of different factions on one another The case of Wyoming, on the Susquehanna, has become famous, through the poem of Campbell on the subject: -

On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming!
Although the wild-flower on thy ruined wall
And roofless homes a sad remembrance brings
Of what thy gentle people did befall;
Yet wert thou once the loveliest land of all
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.

Beautiful as the district certainly is, Campbell was no more correct in calling its inhabitants gentle than he was in making aloes and palm-trees flourish there. The place had been claimed equally by Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It was settled originally by Connecticut people, but fell, on laying out the states, within the limits of Pennsylvania. But the spirit of the Connecticut men was not of that kind which readily yields up anything that it can hold. The people of the two states actually went to war for the possession of Wyoming, and their mutual hostilities were so violent that they were not even suspended by the breaking out of the conflict with the mother country. On the contrary, the great quarrel added fresh elements of fury to the former one, The Pennsylvanian farmers were chiefly royalists, the Connecticut ones the firmest of republicans. Their mutual hatreds converted the place into a hell rather than into that paradise which it suited the purpose of the poet to paint it. Still worse, families were divided in themselves, and the fire of contention burnt terribly through this place, celebrated in verse as the seat of natural beauty and social harmony.