mind by an address to the States in which every argument was suggested which could rouse them to vigorous action. They made the most strenuous efforts to animate the militia and impel them to the field by the agency of those whose popular eloquence best fitted them for such a service.

The magnanimous conduct of Congress was favorably contrasted in the public mind with that of the represen tatives of royalty, and those who acted under their authority, in the colonies. We have already repeatedly noticed the proclamation of the Howes, promising pardon and protection to those who would desert the standard of their country. These promises were anything but faithfully observed.

When the royal army entered the Jerseys, says Gordon, the inhabitants pretty generally remained in their houses, and many thousands received printed protections, signed by order of General Howe. But neither the proclamation of the commissioners, nor protections, saved the people from plunder any more than from insult. Their property was taken or destroyed without distinction of persons. They showed their protections; Hessians could not read them, and would not understand them; and the British soldiers thought they had as good a right to a share of booty as the Hessians.

The Loyalists were plundered even at New York. General De Heister may be pronounced the arch-plunderer. He offered the house he lived in at New York at public sale, though the property of a very loyal subject, who had voluntarily and hospitably accommodated him with it. The goods of others, suffering restraint or imprisonment among the Americans, were sold by auction. The carriages of gentlemen of the first rank were seized, their arms de

faced, and the plunderer's arms blazoned in their place; and this, too, by British officers.

Discontents and murmurs increased every hour at the licentious ravages of the soldiery, both British and foreigners, who, at this period of the war, were shamefully permitted, with unrelenting hand, to pillage friend and foe in the Jerseys. Neither age, nor sex, was spared. Infants, children, old men and women, were left in their shirts, without a blanket to cover them, under the inclemency of winter. Every kind of furniture was destroyed and burnt; windows and doors were broken to pieces; in short, the houses were left uninhabitable, and the people without provisions; for every horse, cow, ox, and fowl was carried off.

Depredations and abuses were committed by that part of the army which was stationed at or near Pennytown.* Sixteen young women fled to the woods to avoid the brutality of the soldiers where they were seized and carried off. One father was murdered for attempting to defend his daughter's honor. Other brutalities towards women, recorded by contemporary writers, are too gross for recital.

These enormities, though too frequently practiced in a time of war by the military, unless restrained by the severest discipline, so exasperated the people of the Jerseys that they flew to arms immediately upon the army's hurrying from Trenton, and forming themselves into parties they waylaid their enemies and cut them off as they had opportunity. The militia collected. The Americans in a few days overran the Jerseys. The enemy was forced from Woodbridge. General Maxwell surprised Elizabethtown, and took near one hundred prisoners, with a quan

* Pennington.

tity of baggage. Newark was abandoned. The royal troops were confined to the narrow compass of Brunswick and Amboy, both holding an open communication with New York by water. They could not even stir out to forage but in large parties, which seldom returned without loss. General Dickinson,* with about 400 militia and 50 Pennsylvania riflemen, defeated, near Somerset courthouse, on Millstone river, January 20th (1777), a foraging party of the enemy of equal number; and took 40 wagons, upwards of 100 horses, besides sheep and cattle which they had collected. They retreated with such precipitation that he could make only nine prisoners; but they were observed to carry off many dead and wounded in light wagons. The General's behavior reflected the highest honor upon him, for, though his troops were all raw, he led them through the river middle deep, and gave the enemy so severe a charge that, although supported by three field pieces, they gave way and left their convoy.

But among all the officers who were engaged in watching and harassing the British with a view to their expulsion from the Jerseys, none rendered more important service than the veteran General Putnam. He had been at Washington's side during the whole of the retreat through the Jerseys, and had been appointed to the command at Philadelphia, on their arrival there, where he was presently employed in superintending a line of redoubts above the city, extending from the Delaware to the Schuylkill, to resist any approach of the enemy to the city by land. When the recent offensive operations in Jersey had taken place he

*This brave and able officer, Gen. Philemon Dickinson, was brother to the celebrated John Dickinson, author of the "Farmer's Letters." General Dickinson was afterward a Senator of the United States.

had been left in the city by Washington to quell an anticipated insurrection of the Tories.

General Putnam, says Peabody,* had, therefore, no share in the victory at Trenton, nor in that of Princeton, by which it was succeeded.

So great was the effect of these enterprises on the enemy that Washington began to entertain the hope of driving them beyond the limits of New Jersey. On the 5th of January (1777) he ordered General Putnam to march with the troops under his command to Crosswick, a few miles southeast of Trenton using the utmost precaution to guard against surprise, and laboring to create an impression that his force was twice as great as it actually was. The object of the Commander-in-Chief was partially accomplished by the concentration of the British forces at New Brunswick and Amboy and General Putnam was soon after ordered to take post at Princeton, where he passed the remainder of the winter. This position was scarcely fifteen miles from the enemy's camp at New Brunswick, but the troops of Putnam at no time exceeded a few hundred, and were once fewer in number than the miles of frontier he was expected to guard.

Captain Macpherson, a Scotch officer of the Seventeenth British regiment, had received in the battle of Princeton a severe wound which was thought likely to prove fatal. When General Putnam reached that place he found that it had been deemed inexpedient to provide medical aid and other comforts for one who was likely to require them for so short a period, but by his orders the captain was attended with the utmost care and at length recovered. He was warm in the expression of his gratitude, and one day when Putnam, in reply to his inquiries, assured him that

* Life of General Putnam, in Sparks' "American Biography."