from my camp; I have but to give stretch to the Indian forces under my direction, and they amount to thousands, to overtake the hardened enemies of Great Britain. If the frenzy of hostility should remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the eyes of God and man in executing the vengeance of the state against the wilful outcasts."

On the last day of June, Burgoyne declared in general orders: "This army must not retreat;" while Saint-Clair wrote to Schuyler: "Should the enemy attack us, they will go back faster than they came." On the first of July the invading army moved up the lake. As they encamped at evening before Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, the rank and file, exclusive of Indians, numbered three thousand seven hundred and twenty-four British, three thousand and sixteen Germans, two hundred and fifty provincials, besides four hundred and seventy-three skilful artillerists, with an excessive supply of artillery. On the third, one of Saint-Clair's aids promised Washington "the total defeat of the enemy." On that day Riedesel was studying how to invest Mount Independence. On the fourth, Phillips seized the mills near the outlet of Lake George, and hemmed in Ticonderoga on that side. In the following night a party of infantry, following the intimation of Lieutenant Twiss of the engineers, took possession of Mount Defiance. In one day more, batteries from that hill would play on both forts, and Riedesel complete the investment of Mount Independence. "We must away," said SaintClair; his council of war were all of the same mind, and the retreat must be made the very next night. The garrison, according to his low estimate, consisted of thirty-three hundred men, of whom two thirds were effective, but with scarcely more than one bayonet to every tenth soldier. One regiment, the invalids, and such stores as there was time to lade, were sent in boats up the lake to Whitehall, while the great body of the troops, under Saint-Clair, took the new road through the wilderness to Hubbardton.

They left ample stores of ammunition, flour, salt meat, and herds of oxen, more than seventy cannon, and a large number of tents. Burgoyne, who came up in the fleet, sent Fraser with twenty companies of English grenadiers, followed by

Riedesel's infantry and reserve corps, in pursuit of the army of Saint-Clair; and, as soon as the channel between Ticonderoga and Mount Independence could be cleared, the fleet, bearing Burgoyne and the rest of his forces, chased after the detachment which had escaped by water. The Americans, burning three of their vessels, abandoned two others and the fort at Whitehall. Everything which they brought from Ticonderoga was destroyed, or fell a prey to their pursuers.

On the same day Burgoyne reported to his government that the army of Ticonderoga was "disbanded and totally ruined." Germain cited to General Howe this example of "rapid progress," and predicted an early junction of the two armies. Men disputed in England whether most to admire the sword or the pen of Burgoyne; and were sure of the entire conquest of the confederate provinces before Christmas.

Public opinion rose against Schuyler. Of the evacuation of Ticonderoga, Hamilton reasoned rightly: "If the post was untenable, or required a larger number of troops to defend it than could be spared for the purpose, it ought long ago to have been foreseen and given up. Instead of that, we have kept a large quantity of cannon in it, and have been heaping up very valuable magazines of stores and provisions, that in the critical moment of defence are abandoned and lost." So judged the public and congress. Schuyler had, as the condition of his reappointment to the command, taken upon himself the responsibility of the defence of Ticonderoga, and had claimed praise for having piled up ample stores within its walls. He sought to escape from condemnation by insisting that the retreat was made without the least hint from himself, and was "ill-judged and not warranted by necessity." With manly frankness SaintClair assumed as his own the praiseworthy act which had saved to the country many of its bravest defenders.

On the second of July the convention of Vermont reassembled at Windsor. The organic law which they adopted, blending the culture of their age with the traditions of Protestantism, assumed that all men are born free and with inalienable rights; that they may emigrate from one state to another, or form a new state in vacant countries; that "every sect should observe * Hamilton's works, i., 31.

VOL. V.-11

the Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious worship;" that every man may choose that form of religious worship "which shall seem to him most agreeable to the revealed will of God." They provided for a school in each town, a grammarschool in each county, and a university in the state. All officers, alike executive and legislative, were to be chosen annually and by ballot; the freemen of every town and all oneyear's residents were electors. Every member of the house of representatives must declare "his belief in one God, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked; in the divine inspiration of the scriptures; and in the Protestant religion." The legislative power was vested in one general assembly, subject to no veto, though an advisory power was given to a board consisting of the governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve councillors. Slavery was forbidden and forever; and there could be no imprisonment for debt. Once in seven years an elective council of censors was to take care that freedom and the constitution were preserved in purity.

The marked similarity of this system to that of Pennsylvania is ascribed in part to the influence of Thomas Young of Philadelphia, who had published an address to the people of Vermont. After the loss of Ticonderoga, the introduction of the constitution was postponed, lest the process of change should interfere with the public defence, for which the Vermont council of safety supplicated aid from the New Hampshire committee at Exeter and from Massachusetts.

On the night of the sixth, Fraser and his party made their bivouac seventeen miles from the lake, with that of Riedesel three miles in their rear. At three in the morning of the seventh both detachments were in motion. The savages having discovered the rear-guard of Saint-Clair's army, which Warner, contrary to his instructions, had encamped for the night at Hubbardton, six miles short of Castleton, Fraser, at five, ordered his troops to advance. To their great surprise, Warner, who was nobly assisted by Colonel Eben Francis and his New Hampshire regiment, turned and began the attack. The English were like to be worsted, when Riedesel with his vanguard and company of yagers came up, their music playing, the men singing a battle-hymn. Francis for a third time

charged at the head of his regiment, and held his enemies at bay till he fell. On the approach of the three German battalions, his men retreated toward the south. Fraser, taking Riedesel by the hand, thanked him for the timely rescue. Of the Americans, few were killed, and most of those engaged in the fight made good their retreat; but during the day the British took more than two hundred stragglers, wounded men, and invalids. Of the Brunswickers twenty-two were killed or wounded, of the British one hundred and fifty-five. The heavy loss stopped the pursuit; and Saint-Clair, with two thousand continental troops, marched unmolested to Fort Edward.

The British regiment which chased the fugitives from Whitehall took ground within a mile of Fort Ann. On the morning of the eighth its garrison drove them nearly three miles, took a captain and three privates, and inflicted a loss of at least fifty in killed and wounded. Reinforced by a brigade, the English returned only to find the fort burned down, and the garrison beyond reach.

Burgoyne chose to celebrate these events by a day of thanksgiving. Another disappointment awaited him. He asked Carleton to hold Ticonderoga with a part of the three thousand troops left in Canada; Carleton, pleading his instructions which confined him to his own province, refused, and left Burgoyne "to drain the life-blood of his army" for the garrison. Supplies of provisions came tardily. Of the Canadian horses contracted for, not more than one third arrived in good condition over the wild mountain roads. The wagons were made of green wood, and were deficient in number. Further, Burgoyne should have turned back from Whitehall and moved to the Hudson river by way of Lake George and the old road; but the word was: "Britons never recede;" and after the halt of a fortnight he took the short cut to Fort Edward, through a wilderness bristling with woods, broken by numerous creeks, and treacherous with morasses. He reports with complacency the construction of more than forty bridges, a "log-work over a morass two miles in extent, and the removal of layers of fallen timber-trees. But this persistent toil in the heat of midsummer, among myriads of insects, dispirited his troops.

Early in July, Burgoyne confessed to Germain that, "were the Indians left to themselves, enormities too horrid to think of would ensue; guilty and innocent, women and infants, would be a common prey." The general, nevertheless, resolved to use them as instruments of "terror," and promised, after arriving at Albany, to send them "toward Connecticut and Boston," knowing full well that they were left to themselves by La Corne Saint-Luc, their leader, who was impatient of control in the use of the scalping-knife. Every day the savages brought in scalps as well as prisoners. On the twenty-seventh, Jane Maccrea, a young woman of twenty, betrothed to a loyalist in the British service and esteeming herself under the protection of British arms, was riding from Fort Edward to the British camp at Sandy Hill, escorted by two Indians. The Indians quarrelled about the reward promised on her safe arrival, and at a half-mile from Fort Edward one of them sunk his tomahawk in her skull. The incident was not of unusual barbarity; but this massacre of a betrothed girl on her way to her lover touched all who heard the story. Burgoyne, from fear of "the total defection of the Indians," pardoned the assassin.

Schuyler owed his place to his social position, not to military talents. Anxious, and suspected of a want of personal courage, he found everything go ill under his command. To the continental troops of Saint-Clair, who were suffering from the loss of their clothes and tents, he was unable to restore confidence; nor could he rouse the people. The choice for governor of New York fell on George Clinton; "his character," said Washington to the council of safety, "will make him peculiarly useful at the head of your state." Schuyler wrote: "His family and connections do not entitle him to so distinguished a pre-eminence." There could be no hope of a successful campaign but with the hearty co-operation of New England. Of the militia of New England the British commander-in-chief has left his testimony that, "when brought to action, they were the most persevering of any in all North America;" yet Schuyler gave leave for one half of them to go home at once, the rest to follow in three weeks, and then called upon Washington to supply their places by troops from the south of Hud