Gambier, until the arrival of admiral Byron upon that station, which took place the sixteenth of September. Lord Howe soon after returned to England. This illustrious seamen rendered important services to his country, in the campaigns of Pennsylvania, New York and Rhode Island, services which would have had more brilliant results, if the ability of the commanders on shore had equalled his own. Even to say nothing of the activity he displayed in transporting to a distant country so numerous an army as that of his brother sir William, the talent and firmness with which he surmounted the obstacles that opposed his entrance into the Delaware, deserve the highest commendation. When the count d'Estaing made his appearance with a formidable fleet, and much superior to his own, he nevertheless prepared to receive him at Sandy Hook; afterwards by offering him battle he baffled his designs against Newport; and then the French admiral, disabled by the tempest, forced to seek refuge in the port of Boston, issued no more, except to make the best of his way to the West Indies; thus totally abandoning the execution of the plan concerted by the allies for the campaign of this year upon the coasts of America. Finding Newport secure, general Clinton returned to New York He afterwards detached general Grey, who was at New London, upon an expedition of much importance, towards the east. Buzzards Bay, and the adjacent rivers, served as a retreat for a multitude of privateers, the number and boldness of which occasioned infinite prejudice to the British commerce of New York, Long Island and Rhode Island. Clinton resolved to chastise an enemy that seemed to defy him, and to put: an end to his maritime excursions. This task was committed to the charge of general Grey. He arrived with some transports, effected his landing in the bay, and destroyed about sixty large vessels, besides a number of small craft. Proceeding then to New Bedford and Fair Havep, upon the banks of the river Acushnet, and conducting himself more like a pirate than a real soldier, he destroyed or burned warehouses of immense value, full of sugar, rum, molasses, tobacco, drugs and other merchandise. Not content with these ravages, he passed into the neighboring island, called Martha's Vineyard, the soil of which is very fertile. and which served as a refuge for the most daring cruisers. He levied on the inhabitants a contribution of live stock, to the great refreshment of the garrisons of New York. He carried off, besides, a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition.

Returned to New York, he soon undertook another expedition, against the village of Old Tappan, where he surprised a regiment of American light horse. His conduct on this occasion was not exempt from the reproach of cruelty. A few days after, the English made an incursion against Little Egg Harbor, upon the coast of New Jersey, where they destroyed inuch shipping, and brought off a

considerable booty. They afterwards attacked by surprise the legion of Pulaski, and made great slaughter of it. The carnage would have been still greater, if Pulaski had not come up, with his usual bravery, at the head of his cavalry. The English reembarked, and returned to New York.

It was at this epoch that the French and American generals meditated a new expedition against Canada. Besides the possession of so important a province, there appeared a possibility of ruining the British fisheries upon the banks of Newfoundland, and, by reducing the cities of Quebec and Halifax, of putting an end to the maritime power of England upon those shores. The French were the principal movers of this enterprise; their minister, and d'Estaing, perhaps, with covert views; the marquis de la Fayette, whose youth answered for his ignorance of these political wiles, with frankness, and from the love of glory. He was to have been employed in the expedition as one of the first generals. The count d'Estaing published a manifesto, addressed to the Canadians in the name of his king, inwhich, after reminding them of their French origin, their ancient exploits, and happiness they had enjoyed under the paternal sceptre of the Bourbons, he declared that all the ancient subjects of the king in North America, who should cease to acknowledge the English domination, should find safety and protection. But Washington showed himself opposed to this project, and he developed his motives to the Congress; his opinion prevailed.

The Congress alleged that their finances, their arsenals, their magazines, their armies, were not in a state to warrant the undertaking of so vast an enterprise; and that they should experience too pungent regrets to find themselves in the event unable to fulfill their engagements towards their allies. Such was their public language; but the truth is, they apprehended a snare, and that the conquest of Canada would have been made for France, and not for America.

The retreat of the count d' Estaing, at the moment when Newport was about to fall into the power of the combined armies, had greatly irritated the minds of the Americans, particularly in the northern provinces. Many began to entertain a loathing towards allies who seemed to forget all interests except their own. To this motive of aversion was added the remembrance, still recent, especially with the lower classes, of ancient quarrels and national jealousies, which the new alliance, and the need of French succours, had not sufficed to obliterate. Washington and other leading Americans endeavored to appease these discontents, which, they foresaw, might lead to serious mischief. The count d'Estaing, on his part, was no less careful during his stay in the port of Boston, not only to avoid all occasion of misunderstanding, but also to conciliate by every means in his power the affection of his new allies. The conduct of the French officers, and even of the common sailors, was truly exemplary. This extreme

circumspection, however, did not prevent the occurrence, on the thirteenth of September, of a violent affray between some Bostonians and the French. The latter were overpowered by number, and the chevalier de saint Sauveur lost his life in it. The selectmen of the town, to allay the resentment of the French, showed themselves very solicitous to punish the offenders. They published a reward to whoever should make known the authors of the tumult. They declared, at the same time, that the citizens had not been in fault, but English sailors made prisoners by the cruisers, and deserters from the army of Burgoyne, who had enlisted in the Boston priva teers. Tranquillity was restored. The count d'Estaing, whether he was satisfied, or that from prudence he chose to appear so, made no further inquiry into this affair. No offender was discovered. The government of Massachusetts decreed a monument to be erected to saint Sauveur.

The night of the sixth of the same month of September had witnessed a scene far more serious, at Charleston, South Carolina, between the French and American sailors. It terminated in a formal battle. The Americans were the first to provoke their allies by the most reproachful language; the latter resented it. From words it came to blows; the French were soon driven out of the city, and forced to take refuge ou board their ships. Thence they fired with artillery and musketry against the town; the Americans, on their part, fired upon the French vessels from the adjoining wharves and shore. Many lives were lost on both sides. A reward of a thousand pounds sterling was promised, but in vain, to whoever should discover the authors of this broil. The commander-in-chief of the province exhorted the inhabitants, in a proclamation, to consider the French as good and faithful allies, and friends. There was even a law passed, about this time, to prevent the recurrence of similar licentiousness, whether of words or actions. Thus ended the riots of Boston and of Charleston, which were attributed, if not with truth, at least with prudence, to British artifice and instigation. For the chiefs of the American government were not without apprehension that these animosities might deprive them of their new allies, whose resolutions, they knew, were not irrevocable.

The savages took a more active part than ever in the campaign of this year. Though they had been intimidated by the success of general Gates, and had sent him congratulations for himself and the United States, the intrigues and presents of the British agents had not lost their power over them. Moreover, the emigrant colonists, who had retired amongst these barbarians, excited them continually by instigations, which, together with their natural thirst for blood and pillage, determined them without scruple to make incursions upon the northern frontiers, where they spread terror and desolation. The most ruthless chiefs that guided them in these sanguinary expe

ditions, were colonel Butler, who had already signalised himself in this war, and a certain Brandt, born of mixed blood, the most ferocious being ever produced by human nature, often too prodigal of similar monsters. They spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, nor even their own kindred; every where indiscriminately they carried devastation and death. The knowledge which the refugees had of the country, the insulated position of the habitations, scattered here and there in the wilderness, the distance from the seat of government, and the necessity of employing the national force in other remote parts, offered the Indians every facility for executing their enterprises, and retiring with impunity. No means had hitherto been found of repressing the inroads of so cruel an enemy.

But in the midst of this general devastation, there happened an event which, perhaps, would be found without example in the history of inhuman men. Inhabitants of Connecticut, had planted on the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, towards the extremity of Pennsylvania, and upon the road of Oswego, the settlement of Wyoming. Populous and flourishing, its prosperity was the subject of admiration. It consisted of eight townships, each containing a square of five miles, beautifully situated on both sides of the river. The mildness of the climate answered to the fertility of the soil. The inhabitants were strangers alike to excessive wealth, which elates and depraves, and to poverty, which discourages and degrades. All lived in a happy mediocrity, frugal of their own, and coveting nothing from others. Incessantly occupied in rural toils, they avoided idleness, and all the vices of which it is the source. In a word, this little country presented in reality the image of those fabulous times which the poets have described under the name of the Golden Age. But their domestic felicity was no counterpoise to the zeal with which they were animated for the common cause; they took up arms and flew to succour their country. It is said they had furnished to the army no less than a thousand soldiers, a number truly prodigious for so feeble a population, and so happy in their homes. Yet, notwithstanding the drain of all this vigorous youth, the abundance of harvests sustained no diminution. Their crowded granaries, and pastures replenished with fat cattle, offered an exhaustless resource to the American army.

But neither so many advantages, nor even the retired situation of these unfortunate colonists, could exempt them from the baneful influence of party spirit. Although the tories, as they called them, were not so numerous as the partisans of liberty, yet they challenged attention by the arrogance of their character and the extent of their pretensions. Hence, not only families were seen armed against families, but even sons sided against their fathers, brothers against brothers, and, at last, wives against husbands. So true it is, that no virtue is proof against the fanaticism of opinion, and no happiness

against political divisions. The tories were, besides, exasperated at their losses in the incursions they had made in company with the savages in the preceding campaign; but that which envenomed them the most was, that several individuals of the same party, who, having quitted their habitations, were come to claim hospitality, then so much in honor among the Americans, and particularly at Wyoming, had been arrested as suspected persons, and sent to take their trial in Connecticut. Others had been expelled from the colony. Thus hatreds became continually more and more rancorous. The tories swore revenge; they coalesced with the Indians. The time was favorable, as the youth of Wyoming were at the army. In order the better to secure success, and to surprise their enemies before they should think of standing upon their defence, they resorted to artifice. They pretended the most friendly dispositions, while they meditated only war and vengeance.

A few weeks before they purposed to execute their horrible enterprise, they sent several messengers, charged with protestations of their earnest desire to cultivate peace. These perfidies lulled the inhabitants of Wyoming into a deceitful security, while they procured the tories and savages the means of concerting with their partisans, and of observing the immediate state of the colony. Notwithstanding the solemn assurances of the Indians, the colonists, as it often happens when great calamities are about to fall on a people, seemed to have a sort of presentiment of their approaching fate. They wrote to Washington, praying him to send them immediate assistance. Their despatches did not reach him; they were intercepted by the Pennsylvanian loyalists; and they would, besides, have arrived too late. The savages had already made their appearance upon the frontiers of the colony; the plunder they had made there was of little importance, but the cruelties they had perpetrated were affrightful; the mournful prelude of those more terrible scenes which were shortly to follow!

About the commencement of the month of July, the Indians suddenly appeared in force upon the banks of the Susquehanna. They were headed by the John Butler and Brandt already named, with other chiefs of their nation, distinguished by their extreme ferocity in the preceding expeditions. This troop amounted in all to sixteen hundred men, of whom less than a fourth were Indians, and the rest tories, disguised and painted to resemble them. The officers, however, wore the uniforms of their rank, and had the appearance of regulars. The colonists of Wyoming, finding their friends so remote, and their enemies so near, had constructed for their security four forts, in which, and upon different points of the frontier, they had distributed about five hundred men. The whole colony was placed under the command of Zebulon Butler, cousin of John, a man, who with some courage, was totally devoid of capacity. He was even