ward there were military parades, and at night bonfires, fireworks, and a general illumination.

Six days later a most daring adventure succeeded. Prescott, the commander of the British forces on Rhode Island, had his quarters at a farm-house about four miles from Newport, on the west side of the island, a mile from any troops, with no patrols along the shore, and no protection but a sentry and the guard-ship in the bay. Informed of this rashness, William Barton, a native of Warren, then a lieutenant-colonel in the Rhode Island militia, on the night following the ninth of July embarked in whale-boats at Warwick neck a party of forty volunteers, steered between the islands of Patience and Prudence, and landed at Redwood creek. Coming up across fields, they surrounded Prescott's house, burst open the doors, took him and Lieutenant Barrington out of their beds, hurried them to the water without giving them time to put on their clothes, and, while men from the several camps were searching for their tracks on the shore, they passed under the stern of the guard-ship which lay against Hope Island, regained Warwick, and forwarded their captives to the American headquarters in Providence. In rank Prescott was the equal of Lee, and they were promptly exchanged.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ADVANCE OF BURGOYNE FROM CANADA.

MAY-AUGUST 1777.

"THIS campaign will end the war," was the opinion given by Riedesel; and through Lord Suffolk he solicited the continued favor of the British king, who was in his eyes "the adoration of all the universe." Flushed with expectations of glory, Carleton employed the unusually mild winter in preparations. On the last day of April he gave audience to the deputies of the Six Nations, and accepted their services with thanks and gifts. Other large bodies of Indians were engaged, under leaders of their own approval. "Wretched colonies!" said Riedesel, "if these wild souls are indulged in war."

To secure the Mohawks to the British side, Joseph Brant urged them to abandon their old abode for lands more remote from American settlements. To counteract his authority, Gates, near the end of May, thus spoke to a council of warriors of the Six Nations:

"The United States are now one people; suffer not any evil spirit to lead you into war. Brothers of the Mohawks, you will be no more a people from the time you quit your ancient habitations; if there is any wretch so bad as to think of prevailing upon you to leave the sweet stream so beloved by your forefathers, he is your bitterest enemy. Before many moons pass away, the pride of England will be laid low; then how happy will it make you to reflect that you have preserved the neutrality so earnestly recommended to you from the beginning of the war! Brothers of the Six Nations, the Americans well know your great fame and power as warriors; the only reason

why they did not ask your help against the cruelty of the king was, that they thought it ungenerous to desire you to suffer in a quarrel in which you had no concern. Brothers, treasure all I have now said in your hearts; for the day will come when you will hold my memory in veneration for the good advice contained in this speech."

The settlers in the land which this year took the name of Vermont refused by a great majority to come under the jurisdiction of New York; on the fifteenth of January 1777, their convention declared the independence of their state. At Windsor, on the second of June, they appointed a committee to prepare a constitution; and they hoped to be received into the American union. But, as New York opposed, congress, by an uncertain majority against a determined minority, disclaimed the intention of recognising Vermont as a separate state.

Gates charged Saint-Clair to "call lustily for aid of all kinds, for no general ever lost by surplus numbers or overpreparation ;" and he then repaired to Philadelphia, to intrigue for his reinstatement.

On the twelfth, Saint-Clair, the best of the brigadiers then in the North, reached Ticonderoga. Five days later Schuyler visited his army. Mount Defiance, which overhangs the outlet of Lake George and was the "key of the position," was left unoccupied. From the old French intrenchments to the southeastern works on the Vermont side the wretchedly planned and unfinished defences extended more than two miles and a half; and from end to end of the straggling lines and misplaced block-houses there was no spot which could be held against a superior force. The British could reach the place by the lake more swiftly than the Americans through the forest. A necessity for evacuating the post might arise; but Schuyler shrunk from giving definite instructions, and, returning to Albany, busied himself with forwarding to Ticonderoga supplies for a long siege.

On the sixth of May, Burgoyne arrived at Quebec. Carleton received with amazement despatches censuring his conduct in the last campaign, and ordering him, for "the speedy quelling of the rebellion," to make over to an inferior officer the command of the Canadian army as soon as it should cross the

boundary of the province of Quebec. Answering with passionate recrimination the just reproaches of Germain and of his adviser Lord Amherst, he at once yielded up the chief military authority, and, as civil governor, paid a haughty but unquestioning obedience to the requisitions of Burgoyne. Contracts were made for fifteen hundred horses and five hundred carts; a thousand Canadians, reluctant and prone to desertion, were called out as road-makers and wagoners; and six weeks' supplies for the army were crowded forward upon the one line of communication by the Sorel. Burgoyne had very nearly all the force which he had represented as sufficient. His officers were well chosen, especially Phillips and Riedesel as major-generals and the Highlander Fraser as an acting brigadier. A diversion, from which great consequences were expected, was to proceed by way of Lake Ontario to the Mohawk river. Sir William Howe was notified that Burgoyne had orders to force a junction with his army.

On the fifteenth of June, Burgoyne advanced from St. John's, as he thought, to easy victories and high promotion. Officers' wives attended their husbands, promising themselves an agreeable trip. On the twentieth some of the Indians, shedding the first blood, brought in ten scalps and as many prisoners. The next day, at the camp near the river Bouquet, a little north of Crown Point, Burgoyne, the applauded writer of plays for the stage, gathering round him the chief officers of his army in their gala uniforms, met in congress about four hundred Iroquois, Algonkin, and Ottawa savages, and thus appealed to what he called "their wild honor":

"Warriors, you are free; go forth in might of your valor and your cause; strike at the common enemies of Great Britain and America, distúrbers of public order, peace, and happiness, destroyers of commerce, parricides of the state. The circle round you, the chiefs of his majesty's European forces, and of those of the princes, his allies, esteem you as brothers in the war; emulous in glory and in friendship, we will reciprocally give and receive examples. Be it our task to regulate your passions when they overbear. I positively forbid bloodshed, when you are not opposed in arms. Aged men, women, children, and prisoners must be held sacred from the knife and the

hatchet, even in the time of actual conflict. You shall receive compensation for the prisoners you take, but you shall be called to account for scalps. Your customs have affixed an idea of honor to such badges of victory: you shall be allowed to take the scalps of the dead, when killed by your fire in fair opposition; but on no pretence are they to be taken from the wounded or even dying. Should the enemy, on their part, dare to countenance acts of barbarity toward those who may fall into their hands, it shall be yours to retaliate."

An old Iroquois chief replied: "When you speak, we hear the voice of our great father beyond the great lake. We have been tried and tempted by the Bostonians; but we loved our father, and our hatchets have been sharpened upon our affections. In proof of sincerity, our whole villages, able to go to war, are come forth. The old and infirm, our infants and wives, alone remain at home. With one common assent we promise a constant obedience to all you have ordered and all you shall order; and may the Father of days give you many, and success."

Having feasted the Indians according to their custom, Burgoyne published his speech, which reflected his instructions. Edmund Burke, who had learned that the natural ferocity of those tribes far exceeded the ferocity of all barbarians mentioned in history, pronounced that they were not fit allies for the king in a war with his people; that Englishmen should never confirm their evil habits by fleshing them in the slaughter of British colonists. In the house of commons Fox censured the king for suffering them in his camp, when it was well known that "brutality, murder, and destruction were ever inseparable from Indian warriors." When Suffolk, before the lords, contended that it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means which God and nature had put into their hands, Chatham called down "the most decisive indignation at these abominable principles and this more abominable avowal of them."

In a proclamation issued at Crown Point, Burgoyne, claiming to speak "in consciousness of Christianity and the honor of soldiership," enforced his persuasions to the Americans by menaces like these: "Let not people consider their distance