seizing a unique occasion which the ages will perhaps never reproduce, should succeed in striking England a blow sufficient to lower her pride and to confine her pretensions within just limits, he will for many years be master of peace, and will have the precious glory of becoming the benefactor not of his people only, but of all the nations.

"Should his majesty, on the other hand, prefer a doubtful and ill-assured peace to a war which necessity and reason can justify, the defence of our possessions will exact almost as great an expenditure as war, without any of the alleviations and resources which war authorizes. Even could we be passive spectators of the revolution in North America, can we look unmoved at that which is preparing in Hindostan, and which will be as fatal to us as that in America to England? The revolution in Hindostan, once begun, will console England for her losses by increasing her means and her riches tenfold. This we are still able to prevent."

After these sharp and penetrating words Vergennes" awaited in respectful silence the command which might please the wisdom of the king." The result was what Vergennes desired; the conduct of the British ministry in 1768, during the insurrection of the Corsican people against France in defence of their liberty, was adopted as the precedent for France in rendering aid to the Americans.

Meantime, Beaumarchais, with the connivance of Vergennes, used delicate flattery to awaken in the temporizing Maurepas a passion for glory. The profligate Count d'Artois, younger brother of the king, and the prodigal Duke de Chartres, better known as the duke of Orleans, innovators in manners, throwing aside the stiff etiquette and rich dress of former days for the English fashion of plain attire, daring riders and charioteers, eager patrons of the race-course which was still a novelty in France, gave their voices for war. The Count de Broglie was an early partisan of the Americans. A large part of the nobility of France panted for an opportunity to tame the haughtiness of England, which, as they said to one another, after having crowned itself with laurels, and grown rich by conquests, and mastered all the seas, and insulted every nation, now turned its insatiable pride against its own colonies. First among these

was the Marquis de Lafayette, then just nineteen, master of two hundred thousand livres a year, and happy in a wife who had the spirit to approve his enthusiasm. He whispered his purpose of joining the Americans to two young friends, the Count de Ségur and the Viscount de Noailles, who wished, though in vain, to be his companions. At first the Count de Broglie opposed his project, saying: "I have seen your uncle die in the wars of Italy; I was present when your father fell at the battle of Minden; and I will not be accessory to the ruin of the only remaining branch of the family." But when it appeared that the young man's heart was enrolled, and that he took thought of nothing but how to join the flag of his choice, the count respected his unalterable resolution.

Like Louis XVI., Charles III., then king of Spain, opposed open hostilities; Grimaldi, his chief minister, wished only to let England exhaust herself by a long civil war. American ships were received in Spanish harbors, and every remonstrance was met by the plea that, as they hoisted British colors, their real character could not be known. Privateers fitted out at Salem, Cape Ann, and Newburyport hovered off the rock of Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, or ventured into the Bay of Biscay, sure of not being harmed when they ran into Corunna or Bilbao; but Grimaldi adhered to the principle that nothing could be more alarming to Spain than American independence.

The new attitude of the United States as a nation changed the nature of the conflict in England. The friends to the rights of Americans as fellow-subjects were not as yet friends to their separate existence; and all parties were summoned, as Englishmen, to unanimity. The virtue of patriotism is more attractive than that of justice; and the minority opposed to the government, dwindling almost to nothing, was now to have against them king, lords, and commons, nearly the whole body of the law, the more considerable part of the landed and mercantile interests, and the political weight of the church. The archbishop of Canterbury, in his proclamation for a fast, to be read in all the churches, charged the "rebel" congress with uttering "specious falsehoods;" young Jeremy Bentham rejected the case of the insurgents as "founded on the assumption of natural rights, claimed without the slightest evidence

for their existence, and supported by vague and declamatory generalities."

"Can Britain fail?" asked the poet-laureate of England, in his birthday ode. "Every man," said the wise political economist Tucker, "is thoroughly convinced that the colonies will and must become independent some time or other; I entirely agree with Franklin and Adams, to make the separation there is no time like the present." David Hume from his death-bed advised his country to give up the war with America, in which defeat would destroy its credit, and success its liberties. "A tough business, indeed," said Gibbon; "they have passed the Rubicon, and rendered a treaty infinitely more difficult; the thinking friends of government are by no means sanguine." Lord North had declared his intention to resign. if his conciliatory proposition should fail. Lord George Germain was imbittered against the admiralty for having delayed the embarkations of troops, and against Carleton for his lenity and slowness. "I have my own opinions in respect to the disputes in America," said Barrington, the British secretary at war, imploringly to the king; "I am summoned to meetings, where I sometimes think it my duty to declare them openly before twenty or thirty persons; and the next day I am forced either to vote contrary to them, or to vote with an opposition. which I abhor." Yet, when the king chose that he should remain secretary at war and member of the house of commons, he added: "I shall continue to serve your majesty in both capacities." The prospect of the interference of France excited in George III. such restless anxiety, that he had an interview with every Englishman of distinction who returned from Paris or Versailles; and he was impatient to hear from America that General Howe had struck decisive blows.

The conquest of the United States presented appalling difficulties. The task was no less than to recover by force of arms the region which lies between Nova Scotia and Florida; the first campaign had ended in the expulsion of the British from New England; the second had already been marked by a repulse from South Carolina. The old system of tactics was out of place; nor could the capacity of the Americans for resistance be determined by any known rule of war; the

depth of their passions had not been fathomed: they will long shun an open battle-ground; every thicket will be an ambuscade of partisans; every stone wall a hiding-place for sharpshooters; every swamp a fortress; the boundless woods an impracticable barrier; the farmer's house a garrison. A country over which they may march in victory wil rise up in their rear. Nothing is harder than to beat down a people who are resolved never to yield; and the English were unfit for the task, for in abridging the liberties of their colonies they were at war with their own.

CHAPTER II.

THE RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND.

AUGUST 1776.

THE works for the defence of New York Island, including the fortifications in Brooklyn, had been planned by Lee in concert with a New York committee and a committee from congress. Jay thought it proper to lay Long Island waste, burn New York, and retire to the Highlands; but, as it was the maxim of congress not to give up a foot of territory, Washington promised "his utmost exertions under every disadvantage;" "the appeal," he said, "may not terminate so happily as I could wish, yet any advantage the enemy may gain I trust will cost them dear." To protect New York city he was compelled to hold King's Bridge, Governor's Island, Paulus Hook, and the heights of Brooklyn. For all these posts, divided by water, and some of them fifteen miles apart, he had in the first week of August but ten thousand five hundred and fourteen men fit for duty. Of these, many were often obliged to sleep without cover, exposed to the dews. There was a want of good physicians, medicines, and hospitals; more than three thousand lay sick, and their number was increasing.

Of the effective men, less than six thousand had had any experience, and none had seen more than one year's service. Some were wholly without arms; not one regiment of infantry was properly equipped. The regiment of artillery, five hundred and eighty-eight in number, including officers, had no skilled gunners or engineers. Knox, its colonel, had been a Boston bookseller. Most of the cannon in the field-works