CHAPTER LVI.

CHAP. IMPORTANT as may be deemed the transactions LVI. of this year in Pennsylvania, they are well-nigh 1777. cast into the shade by the campaign of the

Northern armies. There, with less of talent, and fewer numbers, engaged on either side, a brighter laurel was gathered, a more decisive result was attained.

The design of invading the United States from the side of Canada has been already mentioned. It was an object of the highest importance to the British, and one which they had far too long delayed, to dissever New England from the other insurgent colonies, by carrying their posts along the Hudson, and the intermediate lakes between Crown Point and New York. With this view, there were assembled in Canada upwards of 7000 regular troops, German and English; the German under General Riedesel; the English under General Burgoyne, who held the supreme command. An excellent train of brass artillery had been provided. Several hundred Indians, of various tribes,

had been persuaded to engage.

From the side of CHA P.

New York, Sir Henry Clinton, with the regiments left behind by Howe, might, it was expected, afford a strenuous and successful co-operation.

With such forces and such hopes, Burgoyne commenced the campaign from Crown Point at the close of June. Here follow some words from his General Orders of that day: "The army "embarks to-morrow, to approach the enemy. "The services required of this particular expedition are critical and conspicuous. During our progress, occasions may occur in which nor difficulty, nor labour, nor life, are to be regarded. "This army must not retreat!"

Ticonderoga was Burgoyne's first point. The Americans, not unprepared for an invasion from this side, had greatly strengthened the fort by new works on Mount Independence. But the troops, dispirited and ill-equipped, and not exceeding 3,400 men, were inadequate to the defence of this position. Accordingly, no sooner was the place invested, than their General, St. Clair, called a Council of War; and the officers, agreeing in opinion, drew off the troops by night, leaving Ticonderoga to the occupation of the British. Next morning, when their retreat was discovered, they were hotly pursued; and two of their divisions being overtaken, were put to the rout, or cut to pieces, in skirmishes at Huberton and Fort Anne. The remainder made their way to General

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CHAP. Schuyler, at Fort Edward, upon the Hudson

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river.

Fort Edward was now, in like manner, the aim of General Burgoyne. He rejected, as circuitous, the ordinary route by Ticonderoga and Lake George, and with his main body, pushed forward across the country from Skenesborough. Here he found himself harassed by almost every obstacle that either art or nature could supply. The Americans had felled large trees on both sides of the track, so as to fall across it with their branches mingled. The face of the country was likewise so broken with streams or swamps, that in this moderate distance, the British had no less than forty bridges to construct; one of these, a log-work over a morass, two miles in length.* When at last, through all these impediments, Burgoyne did appear before Fort Edward, he found that the enemy had relinquished it on his approach, and fallen back towards Stillwater, lower down the Hudson. But the delays in his march had afforded them what they chiefly needed - further time to mature their preparations for defence.

At Fort Edward it was Burgoyne's first care to open the communications by Lake George, and thus, for the time, secure his supplies from Canada. He found himself unable to obtain adequate supplies around him; and his principal dependence was upon the stores of salt provisions brought from

Ramsay's History, vol. ii. p. 34.

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England into the St. Lawrence, and conveyed CHAP. from thence across Lake Champlain. He found, also, that he must no longer reckon on the cooperation which he had hoped, on the side of the Mohawk river. Colonel St. Leger had been despatched from Canada with a small body of light troops, to reduce Fort Stanwix (or Fort Schuyler, as the Americans termed it), and from thence make his way to Burgoyne; but St. Leger was baffled by the steadiness of the garrison, and compelled to retire with loss. Perhaps, however, the principal disappointment of Burgoyne lay in the ill conduct of his Indians. So early as the 11th of July we may observe him complain as follows, to the Secretary of State: "Confidentially to your Lordship, I may acknowledge that in "several instances, I have found the Indians little 66 more than a name. If, under the management "of their conductors, they are indulged for in"terested reasons in all the caprices and humours "of spoiled children, like them they grow more "unreasonable and importunate upon every new "favour. Were they left to themselves, enor"mities too horrid to think of would ensue;

66

guilty and innocent, women and infants, would "be a common prey."

It is due to Burgoyne to state, that from the first he had made most strenuous exertions, both by word and deed, to prevent any such enormities. The testimony, for example, of his aide-de-camp, Lord Petersham, when examined before the

CHAP. House of Commons, is clear and precise upon that LVI. point.* But in spite of all restraints, the cruel 1777. temper and the lawless habits of these savages would sometimes burst forth-sometimes not more fatally to their enemies than to their friends. The tragical fate of Miss Mac Rea raised one loud cry of pity and of indignation on both sides of the Atlantic. This lady, in the bloom of youth and beauty, the daughter of an American loyalist, was betrothed to an officer in the British provincial troops. Anxious for her security, the officer engaged some Indians to escort her from her home, and convey her to the British camp, where her marriage would be solemnised. As a further precaution, he promised to reward the person who should bring her safe to him, with a barrel of rum. But this very precaution, as it seemed to be, was the cause of the disaster which ensued. Two of the Indians, who took charge of her, began a quarrel on the way, which of them should first present her to her bridegroom. Each was eager for the rum; each resolute that his companion should not receive it in his place. At last one of them, in sudden fury, raising his tomahawk, struck Miss Mac Rea upon the head, and laid her a

* See Burgoyne's Narrative and Collection of Documents, pp. 65, 66. second ed. Charles Stanhope, Lord Petersham, succeeded as third Earl of Harrington, in 1779, and survived till 1829. Let me say—what all who knew him would, I believe, most readily attest that in his long career, and many high commands, few officers were ever more respected and beloved.

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