CHAP. "liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid LIV. "aside when those liberties are firmly established. "I shall instantly set about making the most necessary reforms in the army."

1777.

When, however, the day of Princeton had been fought, when the Jerseys were recovered, and when, a few weeks afterwards, the Congress were enabled to return from Baltimore to Philadelphia, -they passed from their late dismay to overweening confidence. They seemed to think that it was only the caution of their General which prolonged the war, as if he need only lift his hand to annihilate and exterminate the entire British army! To their suggestions on this subject Washington replies on the 14th of March, with his usual clear good sense, and not without a touch of humour. He declares that he should be happy indeed if he could accomplish the important objects so eagerly wished by Congress, namely, "confining the enemy within their present quarters; preventing their getting supplies from "the country; and totally subduing them before they are reinforced." "But," adds Washington,

66

66

* Letter, January 1. 1777. Even in England, at that time, the new Dictator came to be surnamed, in compliment, the American Fabius. (See Annual Regist. 1777, p. 20.) The American writers add, and are well justified in adding, that to no man more truly than to Washington might be applied these lines on Fabius, which Ennius wrote, and Cicero records :

"Unus qui nobis cunctando restituit rem :

"Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem;

"Ergo magisque, magisque Viri nunc gloria claret."

66

LIV.

1777.

"what prospect or hope can there be of my CHAP. effecting so desirable a work at this time? The "whole force I have in Jersey is but a handful:" and he then proceeds to explain why his force in Jersey was was not only small, but ill-appointed. Perhaps we may suspect that, in the high-flown hopes which they formed, some at least of the members of Congress were misled by the highflown terms which they employed. Like the Spanish chiefs and statesmen of old, and down to the present day, they had grown fond of bestowing exalted epithets upon their cause and country, until at last they wrought themselves into believing all their own compliments realities.*

General Howe, and consequently General Washington, remained nearly at rest during several months. A division of the British army under General Clinton had been sent some time before to winter in Rhode Island. As Clinton approached, the enemy retired from the island, of which, therefore, he took peaceable possession, while the ships that brought him blockaded an American squadron under Commodore Hopkins, in the Providence river. It was, however, on the

* In a lively work of our own time-"Les Soirées de Neuilly" - may be seen described the weariness of the French officers under the Duke d'Angoulême, in 1823, at the oft-recurring phrase of each Spanish Alcalde: "Seigneur commandant, je "viens vous complimenter au nom des heroiques habitans de "cette ville!" (p. 298.) Several towns, Madrid especially, rejoice in the official title of Eroica.

LIV.

CHAP. whole, an ill-judged expedition, which answered little purpose but to keep a large body of troops 1777. unemployed during three years. In February Washington took measures for inoculating, systematically, and by successive detachments, his whole force, the small-pox having proved a dreadful scourge to the Americans in their previous warfare. In March a detachment from New York destroyed the American barracks and stores at Peek's Hill. In April another detachment did similar service on a larger scale, and with a greater resistance, at Danbury. On the other hand, the Americans succeeded in burning some brigs and sloops belonging to the British at Sagg's Harbour in Long Island. But, until the return of summer, nothing of more importance was achieved on either side.

CHAPTER LV.

LV.

1777.

THE Session of Parliament, which had commenced CHA P. on the last day of October, 1776, continued till June 1777. In it, as in the previous ones, America formed the principal topic of discussion. Even at the outset, an amendment to the Address upon this ground was moved by Lord Rockingham in one House, by Lord John Cavendish in the other. So small were then the minorities, - no more than 26 of the Peers, no more than 87 of the Commons, and even these 87 on a subsequent motion dwindling to one-half, that the members, especially of the Rockingham section, lost heart and hope. Without any formal secession, they began to relax in their Parliamentary attendance, declaring that there was no such thing as saving a people against its will. One of their warmest partisans and defenders - in all probability no other than Burke himself-declares of them at this juncture that they appeared in their places, "only upon such matters of private Bills in "which they had some particular concern or inte

LV.

CHAP. "rest."* In other words, they neglected the public business, but applied themselves to their personal affairs. And such conduct was called patriotism!

1777.

It is worthy of remark throughout these debates how greatly Fox had risen in importance. A report being spread at Arthur's Club that he intended to go for a few weeks to Paris, and that report being carried to the King, his Majesty wrote forthwith to Lord North, advising the Minister to bring forward his measures as quickly as he could during the absence of so much "noisy declamation."†

Later in the Session, there was certainly no point on which Fox and his friends had greater scope for their abilities, than when Lord North found himself under the necessity of announcing the new debts which had accrued upon the Civil List, and which amounted to more than 600,000l. Some part of this expense, as Lord North explained it, might, like other evils, be ascribed to the struggle in America, since there so many loyalists had been stripped of their property, and driven from their homes, without any means of sustenance beyond the bounty of the Crown. But another, and, probably, still more effective cause, as in an earlier Chapter I have shown, was the ill-regulated state of several departments in the Royal Household. The profusion and extortion which

Annual Register, 1777, p. 48.

† Letter, November 15. 1776.