was mortally wounded; in the agonies of death, all his inquiry was if the enemy had been beaten. Notwithstanding the loss of their leaders, the men resolutely continued the engagement. Washington advanced to their support part of two Maryland regiments, with detachments of New Englanders; Putnam and Greene, as well as Tilghman and others of the general's staff, joined in the action to animate the troops, who charged with the greatest intrepidity. The British, worsted a third time, fell back into an orchard, and from thence across a hollow and up the hill which lies east of the Eighth avenue and overlooks the country far and wide. Their condition was desperate: they had lost seventy killed and two hundred and ten wounded; the Highlanders had fired their last cartridge; without speedy relief, they must certainly be cut off. The Hessian yagers were the first reinforcements that reached the hill, and were in season to share in the action, suffering a loss of one officer and seven men wounded. "Columns of English infantry, ordered at eleven to stand to their arms, were trotted about three miles, without a halt to take breath;" and the Linsing battalion was seen to draw near, while two other German battalions occupied Macgowan's pass. Washington, unwilling to risk a general action, ordered a retreat. This skirmish restored the spirit and confidence of the Americans. Their loss was about sixty killed and wounded; but among these was Knowlton, who would have been an honor to any country, and Leitch, one of Virginia's worthiest sons.

Howe would never own how much he had suffered; his general orders rebuked Leslie for imprudence. The result confirmed him in his caution. The ground in front of the Americans was so difficult and so well fortified that he could not hope to carry it by storm; he therefore waited more than three weeks, partly to collect means of transportation, and partly to form redoubts across the island.

During the delay, Lord Howe and his brother, on the nineteenth, in a joint declaration, going far beyond the form prepared by the solicitor-general, promised in the king's name a revision of his instructions, and his concurrence in the revision of all acts by which his subjects in the colonies might think themselves aggrieved; and, appealing from congress,

they invited all well-affected subjects to a conference. The paper was disingenuous; for the instructions to the commissioners, which were kept secret, demanded as preliminary conditions grants of revenue and further changes of charters.

About one o'clock in the morning of the twenty-first, more than five days after New York had been in the exclusive possession of the British, a fire chanced to break out in a small wooden public-house of low character near Whitehall slip. The weather had been hot and dry; a fresh gale was blowing from the south-west; the flames spread rapidly; and the east side of Broadway, as far as Exchange place, became a heap of ruins. The wind veering to the south-east, the fire crossed Broadway above Morris street, destroyed Trinity church and the Lutheran church, and extended to Barclay street. The flames were arrested, not so much by the English guard as by the sailors whom the admiral sent on shore. Of the four thousand tenements of the city, more than four hundred were burnt down. In his report, Howe, without the slightest ground, attributed the accident to a conspiracy.

When, after the disasters on Long Island, Washington needed to know in what quarter the attack of the British was to be expected, Nathan Hale, a captain in Knowlton's regiment, a graduate of Yale college, an excellent scholar, comparatively a veteran, but three months beyond one-and-twenty yet already betrothed, volunteered to venture, under a disguise, within the British lines. Just at the moment of his return he was seized and carried before General Howe, in New York; he frankly avowed his name, rank, and purpose; and, without a trial, Howe ordered him to be executed the following morning as a spy. That night he was exposed to the insolent cruelty of his jailer. The consolation of seeing a clergyman was denied him; his request for a Bible was refused. A more humane British officer, who was deputed to superintend his execution, furnished him means to write to his mother and to a comrade in arms. On the morning of the twenty-second, as he ascended the gallows, he said: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." The provost-marshal destroyed his letters, as if grudging his friends a knowledge of the firmness with which he had contemplated death. His

countrymen never pretended that the beauty of his character should have exempted him from the penalty which the laws of war of that day imposed; they complained that the hours of his imprisonment were imbittered by barbarous harshness.

The Americans kept up the system of wearing out their enemy by continual skirmishes and alarms. On the twentythird, at the glimmer of dawn, in a well-planned but unsuccessful attempt to recapture Randall's Island, Thomas Henly of Charlestown, Massachusetts, "one of the best officers in the army," lost his life. He was buried by the side of Knowlton, within the present Trinity cemetery.

The prisoners of war, five hundred in number, whom Carleton had sent from Quebec on parole, were landed on the twenty-fourth from shallops at Elizabeth point. It wanted but an hour or two of midnight; the moon, nearly full, shone cloudlessly; Morgan, as he sprung from the bow of the boat, fell on the earth as if to clasp it, and cried: "O my country!" They all ran a race to Elizabethtown, where, too happy to sleep, they passed the night in singing, dancing, screaming, and raising the Indian halloo from excess of joy. Washington hastened Morgan's exchange, and recommended his promotion. After the commander-in-chief, he was the best officer whom Virginia sent into the field.

Seemingly irreconcilable differences of opinion delayed the continental congress in the work of confederation; Edward Rutledge despaired of success, except through a special convention of the states, chosen for this purpose alone.

On the seventeenth, after many weeks of deliberation, the members of congress adopted an elaborate plan of treaty to be proposed to France. They wished France to engage in a separate war with Great Britain, and by this diversion to leave America the opportunity of establishing her independence. They were willing to assure to Spain freedom from molestation in its territories; they renounced in favor of France all eventual conquests in the West Indies; but they claimed the sole right of acquiring British continental America, the Bermudas, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland. The king of France might retain his exclusive rights in Newfoundland, as recognised by England in the treaty of 1763; but his subjects

were not to fish "in the havens, bays, creeks, roads, coasts, or places," which the United States were to win. The rising nation avowed the principle that free ships impart freedom to goods; that a neutral power may lawfully trade with a belligerent. Privateering was to be much restricted. The young republic, in this moment of her greatest need, was not willing to make one common cause with France; she only offered not to assist Great Britain in the war on France, nor trade with that power in contraband goods. The commissioners might stipulate that the United States would never again be subject to the crown or the parliament of Great Britain; and, in case France should become involved in the war, that neither party should make a definitive treaty of peace without six months' notice to the other. They were further instructed to solicit muskets and bayonets, ammunition and brass field-pieces, to be sent under convoy by France; and it was added: "It will be proper for you to press for the immediate and explicit declaration of France in our favor, upon a suggestion that a reunion with Great Britain may be the consequence of a delay."

In the selection of the three members of the commission, Franklin was placed at its head; Deane, with whom Robert Morris had associated an unworthy member of his own family as a joint commercial agent in France, was chosen next; to them was added Jefferson, who, early in August, had retired from congress to assist his native state in adapting its code of laws to its new life as a republic. When Jefferson declared himself constrained to decline the appointment, it was given to Arthur Lee. Franklin proposed that the commission should have power to treat forthwith for peace with England.

The conduct of the war ever met increasing difficulties. The attempt to raise up a navy was baffled by a want of guns, canvas, and ammunition. In the preceding December congress had ordered the construction of thirteen ships-of-war, each of which was to carry from twenty-four to thirty-two guns; but not one of them was ready for sea, and the national cruisers consisted of about twelve merchant vessels, purchased and equipped at intervals. The officers, of whom the first formal appointment was made on the twenty-second of De

cember 1775, and included the names of Nicholas Biddle and John Paul Jones, were necessarily taken from merchant ships. American privateers, in the year 1776, captured three hundred and forty-two British vessels; and these volunteer adventures were so lucrative that few sailors would enlist in the public service for more than a twelvemonth, and most of them only for one cruise.

Before the middle of June, the committee on spies, of which John Adams and Edward Rutledge were members, were desired to revise the articles of war; after more than three months an improved code, formed on the British regulations, was adopted.

The country was upon the eve of a dissolution of its army; Washington, almost a year before, had foretold to congress the evils of their system with as much accuracy as if he "had spoken with a prophetic spirit." His condition at present was more critical than before, for a larger force was arrayed against him. He borrowed hours allotted to sleep to convey to congress with sincerity and freedom his thoughts on the proper organization of the army, saying: "Experience, which is the best criterion to work by, so fully, clearly, and decisively reprobates the practice of trusting to militia that no man who regards order, regularity, and economy, or his own honor, character, or peace of mind, will risk them upon this issue. The evils to be apprehended from a standing army are remote, and, situated as we are, not at all to be dreaded; but the consequence of wanting one is certain and inevitable ruin. This contest is not likely to be the work of a day; and, to carry on the war systematically, you must establish your army upon a permanent footing." The materials, he said, were excellent; to induce enlistments for the continuance of the war, he urged the offer of a sufficient bounty; for the officers he advised proper care in their nomination, and such pay as would encourage "gentlemen " and persons of liberal sentiments to engage in this manner they would in a little time have an army able to cope with any adversary. But congress, without wait ing for his advice, framed a plan of their own.

On the sixteenth of September they resolved that eightyeight battalions be enlisted as soon as possible to serve during