to North Carolina and Tennessee. As such it still con- CHAPTER XXXIX. The Senecas, meanwhile, and the refugees among 1779. them, continued their depredations on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. The Onondagas, though professing neutrality, were believed to share in these hostilities, and a detachment from Fort Stanwix, moving suddenly upon them, destroyed their villages. The In- April. dians retorted by assailing the settlements of Schoharie, in New York, and the western borders of Ulster county. The frontiers of Pennsylvania, particularly the vicinity of Pittsburg, were exposed to similar assaults. Owing to the thinness of the Continental army, and to the low state of the finances, the proposed enterprise against Detroit had been abandoned. That against the Six Nations, of which the main object was the capture of Fort Niagara, was a good deal delayed for want of means to put the troops in motion. The officers of one of the New Jersey regiments ordered on this expedition. sent a memorial to the Legislature of that state, demand- May. ing, in very peremptory style, a provision, within three days, for the pressing wants of the officers and men. This memorial, which looked very much like a threat, placed the Legislature in an awkward predicament. Their honor was partially saved by the officers agreeing to withdraw their memorial, it being understood that the Legislature should at once take into consideration the demands contained in it. The sum of £200 was accordingly voted to each officer, and $40 to each man, and the money forwarded at once. The command of the enterprise against the Indians, declined by Gates, was given to Sullivan. Three brigades from the main army, under Poor, Hand, and Maxwell, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey CHAPTER troops, were assembled at Wyoming. A New York brigXXXIX. ade, under James Clinton, hitherto employed in guarding 1779. the frontier of that state, crossed from the Mohawk to Lake Otsego, dammed the lake, and so raised its level, and then, by breaking away the dam, produced an artificial flood, by the aid of which the boats were rapidly carried down the northeast branch of the Susquehanna to form a junction with Sullivan. While this junction was still delayed, Brant surprised, plundered, and burned the village of Minisink, near the northwest corner of New Jersey. A detachment of the Orange County militia, to the number of a hundred and fifty men, marched in pursuit, but they fell into an amJuly 22. bush from which only thirty escaped. Sullivan's army, amounting to five thousand men, Aug. 22. passed up the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna. At Newtown, now Elmira, they encountered a strong body of the enemy, partly Indians and partly Tories, under Brant, the Butlers, and Johnson, intrenched on a rising ground, and disposed in ambuscade. Sullivan deAug. 22. tached Poor to gain their rear, while he attacked them in front with artillery. Having put them to rout, he crossed to the hitherto unexplored valley of the Genesee. That want of food might compel the Indians and their Tory allies to emigrate, every thing was ravaged. The ancient Indian orchards were cut down; many bushels of corn were destroyed; and eighteen villages, composed largely of frame houses, were burned. This expedition through an unknown country, covered, for the most part, with thick forests, was extremely laborious; provisions failed-such, at least, was the reason that Sullivan gave -and the attack upon Niagara, the great object of the enterprise, was abandoned. A simultaneous expedition from Pittsburg ascended the XXXIX. Allegany, and visited with similar devastation all the CHAPTER Indian villages along that river. Pending these operations, and to prevent any aid from Canada, divers arti- 1779. fices were employed by Washington to create the belief of an intended invasion of that province. The expedition of Sullivan did not accomplish its main object. The Indians and Tories of western New York, though dispersed for the moment, soon renewed their depredations an annoyance which continued as long as the war lasted, and to which the fury of revenge added new ferocity. Sullivan had complained, during the expedition, of the insufficiency of the means at his disposal; his temper was hot and quick; and the freedom with which he expressed his opinions strengthened the party against him in Congress. On the score of ill health, he offered to resign his commission; and all the efforts of his friends to procure him a temporary relief from active service did not avail to prevent its acceptance. He presently took his seat in Congress as a delegate from New Hampshire. The Spanish court had come forward, early in the year, as a mediator between France and Great Britain; and, pending this offer, the French embassador had been urgent with Congress to fix what terms of peace they would accept, and to appoint ministers authorized to negotiate. The Spanish offer of mediation being first evaded and then rejected by Great Britain, the Spanish court had published a manifesto, equivalent, in fact, to a dec- June. laration of war. Though rapidly sinking in the scale of European importance, Spain still possessed a powerful navy, equipped from the proceeds of her American mines. With her vast colonial empire, not liking the example of transatlantic rebellion, she had looked but coldly on the American cause. Yet she was anxious to recover Flori XXXIX. CHAPTER da; and she hoped to acquire, as a part of that province, a large tract east of the Mississippi. She was also espe1779. cially anxious to regain the fortress of Gibraltar, the possession of which by the British gave a severe shock to the national pride. But, though she joined France in the war against Great Britain, Spain did not yet acknowledge the independence of the United States. The state of the French finances was such as to make the French court very anxious for a speedy termination of the war; and hence the suggestions of M. Gerard to Congress, repeated by his successor, the Chevalier Luzerne, that the Americans ought, perhaps, to be satisfied, as the Swiss and Dutch had been, with an indirect acknowledgment of their independence; and to be moderate, also, in their other demands. Any pretensions to Canada or Nova Scotia were emphatically discouraged. It was suggested that the right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland should not be too pertinaciously claimed ; and, especially, that such concessions should be made to Spain, on the subject of the Mississippi' and the country on its banks, as would induce her to come heartily into the alliance. In all these suggestions something very unpalatable was found; what the delegates from one section of the States were inclined to yield, those from another section as pertinaciously resisted. After a full discussion of the whole subject, at different times, from February to August, with much warmth, and a great display of sectional feeling, it was finally resolved to insist upon the Mississippi as low down as the thirty-first degree of north latitude for a western boundary. A southern boundary was demanded along that same thirty-first degree east to the Appalachicola, and down that river to meet a due west line drawn from the head of the St. 4 ་ INSTRUCTIONS FOR NEGOTIATING A PEACE. 291 1 XXXIX. Mary's, and through the St. Mary's to the Atlantic Ocean CHAPTER -the northern boundary of Florida, as fixed by the proclamation of 1763. The original limits of the province 1779. of Quebec, as established by that same proclamation, were adopted, for the northern boundary-a line drawn. from the outlet of Lake Nepissing to the St. Lawrence at the forty-fifth degree of north latitude; thence along that parallel across the foot of Lake Champlain to the head of the Connecticut; thence by the height of land separating the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the sea, to meet a due north line drawn from the head of the St. Croix; which line and the St. Croix itself, from its source to its mouth, were to form the northeastern boundary. But, rather than to continue the war, the peninsula included between Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Huron was to be yielded up. The explicit acknowledgment of the independence of the United States was made an indispensable condition. Massachusetts was very urgent that the right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland should be placed on the same footing. Virginia was equally zealous for the free navigation of the Mississippi. But, in the instructions, finally agreed to, neither was insisted on as absolutely indispensable. In separate instructions, however, for the negotiation of a treaty of commerce with Great Britain, the right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland was made indispensable. On the question of appointing a minister to negotiate for peace and commerce under these instructions, the same sectional feeling displayed itself. The ordinary division of parties in Congress was between New England and Pennsylvania on the one side, and New York and the South on the other. Adams, who had returned from France in the same ship with Luzerne, the new French minister, was the Eastern candidate; Jay was proposed and |