even into Essex county, where, by scizing Newark, Elizabeth Town, and Woodbridge, they became masters of the coast, opposite to Staten Island. Their principal posts were taken, and strengthened with so much judgment, that it was not practicable to dislodge them. The royal army retained only the two posts of Brunswick and Amboy, the one situated a few miles up the Rariton, the other on a point of land at its mouth, and both holding an open communication with New York by sea. Thus, by a few well-concerted and spirited actions, was Philadelphia saved, Pennsylvania freed from danger, the Jerseys nearly recovered, and a victorious and far superior army reduced to act upon the defensive, and for several months restrained within very narrow and inconvenient limits. These actions, and the sudden recovery from the lowest state of weakness and distress, to become a formidable enemy in the field, raised the character of General Washington, as a commander, very high, both in Europe and America; and with his preceding and subsequent conduct serve, all together, to give a sanction to that appellation, which is now pretty generally applied to him, of the American Fabius. Nor was this change of affairs to be attributed to any error in the British Generals, or fault in the troops, which they commanded; but depended entirely upon the happy application of a number of powerful and concurring circumstances, which were far beyond their reach or controul. Though many of these were foreseen and pointed out, by those who from the beginning, either opposed in public, or regretted in private, this war, and that others are now obvious to every body, it may not, however, be amiss to specify some of those causes which clogged it with particular difficulties. The Among the principal of these may be considered the vast extent of that continent, with its unusual distribution into great tracts of cultivated and savage territory; the long extent of sea coast in front, and the boundless wastes at the back of the inhabited countries, affording resource or shelter in all circumstances; the numberless inaccessible posts, and strong natural barriers, formed by the various combinations of woods, mountains, rivers, lakes, and marshes. All these properties and circumstances, with others appertaining to the climates and seasons, may be said to fight the battles of the inhabitants of such countries, in a defensive war. To these may be added others less local. unexpected union, and unknown strength of the colonies; the judicious application of that strength, by suiting the defence to the nature, genius, and ability of the people, as well as to the natural advantages of the country, thereby rendering it a war of posts, surprizes, and skirmishes, instead of a war of battles. To all these may be added, the people's not being bridled by strong cities, nor fettered by luxu ry to those which were otherwise, so that the reduction of a capital had no effect upon the rest of the province, and the army could retain no more territory than what it occupied, which was again lost as soon as it departed to another quarter. During During the remaining winter, and the whole of the spring, the army under Lord Cornwallis continued much straightened, at Brunswick and Amboy, the troops undergoing, with the greatest perseverance and resolution, the hardships of a most severe and unremitting duty, whilst their ranks were thined by a continual series of skirmishes, which were productive of no real advantage on either side, other than that of inuring the Americans to military service. In a word, every load of forage which was procured, and every article of provision, which did not come from New York, was sought or purchased at the price of blood. The consequences of the late military outrages in the Jerseys, were severely felt in the present change of circumstances. As soon as fortune turned, and the means were in their power, the sufferers of all parties, the well-disposed to the royal cause, as well as the neutrals and wavering, now rose as a man to revenge their personal injuries and particular oppressions, and being goaded by a keener spur, than any which a public cause, or general motive, could have excited, became its bitterest and most determined enemies. Thus the whole country, with too few exceptions, became hostile; those who were incapable of arms, acting as spies, and keep ing a continual watch for those who bore them; so that the smallest motion could not be made, without its being exposed and discovered, before it could produce its intended effect. Such were the untoward events, that in the winter damped the hopes of a victorious army, and nipped the laurels of a foregoing prosperous campaign. We have formerly had occasion to shew the bad success, which invariably attended the repeated attempts that had been made, of calling off the attention and force of the southern colonies from the support of the general alliance to their own immediate defence, by involving them effectually in civil war and domestic contention, either through the means of the well-affected in general, the Regugulators and Highland Emigrants in the Carolina's, or of the Ne groes in Virginia. We have also taken some small notice of the charges made by the insurgents, in some of these provinces against their governors, of endeavouring to bring the savages down to further those designs. The failure in these attempts was not sufficient to damp the zeal of the British agents among the Indian nations, nor to render them hopeless of still performing some essential service, by engaging these people to make a diversion, and to attack the southern colonies in their back and defenceless parts. The Indians, ever light in act and faith, greedy of presents, and eager for spoil, were not difficultly induced, by a proper application of the one, and the hope of the other, concurring with their own natural disposition, to forget the treaties which they had lately confirmed or renewed with the colonists, and to engage in the design. It was held out to them, that a British army was to land in West Florida, and after penetrating through the Creek, Chickesaw, and Cherokee countries, and being joined by the warriors of those nations, they were jointly to ins vade the Carolinas and Virginia, a whilst another formidable force by sea and land was to make powerful impression on the coasts. Circular letters, to the same import, were sent by Mr. Stuart, the principal agent for Indian affairs, to the inhabitants of the back settlements, requiring all the well-affected, as well as all those, who are willing to preserve themselves and their families from the inevitable calamities and destruction of an Indian war, to be in readiness to repair to the royal standard, as soon as it was erected in the Cherokee country, and to bring with them their horses, cattle, and provisions, for all of which they were promised payment. They were likewise required, for their present security, and future distinction from the King's enemies, to subscribe immediately to a written paper, declaratory of their allegiance. The scheme was so plausible, and carried such a probability of success, that it seemed to have had a very extensive operation upon the dispositions of the Indians, and to have prepared them in a great measure for a general confederacy against the colonies. Even the six nations, who had before agreed to the observance of a strict neutrality, now committed several small acts of hostility, which were afterwards disowned by their elders and chiefs. The Creek Indians, more violent, began the southern war, with all their usual barbarity, until finding that the expected succours did not arrive, they, with a foresight, uncommon among Indians, stopped suddenly short, and repenting of what they had done, were, in the present state of affairs, easily excused; and being afterward ap plied to for assistance, by the Cherokees, returned for answer, that they, the latter, had plucked the thorn out of their foot, and were welcome to keep it. But the Cherokees fell upon the adjoining colonies, with determined fury, carrying for a part of the summer, ruin and desolation, wherever they came, scalping and slaughtering the people, and totally destroying their settlements. They were soon, however, checked, and severely experienced, that things were much altered, since the time of their former warfare, upon the same ground, and that the martial spirit now prevalent in the colonies, was extended to their remotest frontiers. They were not only repulsed or defeated in every action, by the neighbouring militia of Virginia and the Carolinas, but pursued into their own country, where their towns were demolished, their corn destroyed, and their warriors thinned in repeated engagements, until the nation was nearly exterminated, and the wretched survivors were obliged to submit to any terms prescribed by the victors; whilst the neighbouring nations of Indians were silent and passive spectators of their calamities. Nor was this Indian war more fortunate, with respect to its effect on the well-affected in those quarters; who are not only said, to a man, to have expressed the utmost aversion to the authors, and abhorrence of the cruelty of that measure, but that some of the chief leaders of the tories, avowed a recantation of their former principles, merely upon that account. It was in the midst of the bustle and danger of the war, and when the the scale of fortune seemed to hang heavily against them, by the defeat on Long Island, and the reduction of New York, at a time when a great and invincible force by sea and land, carried dismay and conquest wherever it directed its course, that all the members of the Congress ventured to sign that remarkable treaty of perpetual compact and union, between the thirteen revolted colonies, which lays down an invariable system of rules or laws for their government in all public cases with Oct. 4. respect to each other in peace or war, and is also extended to their commerce with foreign states. This piece, which may be considered as a most dangerous supplement to the declaration of independency, was published under the title of articles of confederation and perpetual union between the thirteen specified states, and has since res ceived, as the necessary forms would permit, the separate ratification of each colony. Such was in general the state of affairs in America, aj the close of the year 1776. CHAP. II. State of affairs precious to the meeting of parliament. New peers. Change in the department for the education of the Royal Brothers. Extraordinary augmentation of the peerage in Ireland. Distresses of the West-India islands. Depredations of the American cruizers. Conduct observed in the French and Spanish ports. Armaments. Several men of war commissioned. Press. Dispute between the city of London and the Admiralty. Account of John the Painter; he burns the hemp-house at Portsmouth; sets fire to some houses at Bristol. Speech from the throne, Addresses. Amendments moved. Great Debates, sion being swallowed up in the final decision, public affairs seemed to be scarcely thought of, and a degree of stillness prevailed among the people, perhaps unequalled in any country or age, during the rage of a foreign or domestic war fare. War is seldom unpopular in this country; and this war was attended with some circumstances which seldom have accompanied any other. The high language of authority, dignity, and supremacy which had filled the mouths of many for some years, fed the va [B] 4 nity nity of those who could not easily define, or who perhaps had never fully considered, the extent of the terms, or of the consequences which they were capable of producing; and the flattering idea of lessening the national burdens, by an American revenue, whilst it was fitted to the comprehension of the meanest capacity, was not less effective in its operations upon those of a superior class and order. To the powerful principles of national pride and avarice, was added a laudable disposition to support those national rights which were supposed to be invaded, and a proper indignation and resentment to that ingratitude and insolence which were charged upon the Americans, and to which only the present troubles were attributed, by those who were most active in fomenting the principles of hostility, which at that time prevailed, far more than they had done at the beginning of this contest. In such circumstances, it is not to be wondered at, if a majority of the people gave at least a kind of tacit approbation to the war; but as it was not attended with national antipathy or rivalship, established enmity, or even a present competition for glory, they did not feel themselves so much interested in its success, or altogether so anxious about its consequences, as they would in those of another nature. On the other hand, that great body of the people, who had at all times reprobated the measures which led to the present troubles, and who considered them as not less dangerous to the constitution, than ruinous to the power and glory of the nation, could not be supposed sanguine in their wishes for a success, which they deemed dia ble to more fatal consequences than any loss or defeat. The great distance of the seat of war also rendered its effect less interesting. For distance produces, in some degree, the effect of time, with respect to sensibility; and the slaughter, cruelties, and calamities, which would wring the heart, if they happened in the next county, are slightly felt at three or four thousand miles distance, The distance also prevented all apprehension of immediate danger; the expences of the contest were not yet sensibly felt; and the bulk of mankind never think of remote consequences. From these, and other causes, a general, and perhaps blameable carelessness and indifference prevail throughout the nation.Nor was it easily roused from this drowsy apathy, which like all other habits, was confirmed by time. For when, at length, the American cruizers not only scoured the Atlantic ocean, but spreading their depredations through the European seas, brought alarm and hostility home to our doors; when the destruction which befel the homeward bound richly laden West India fleets, poured equal ruin upon the planters in the islands, and the merchants at home; when an account of the failure of some capital house in the city, was almost the news of every morning; even in that state of public loss and private distress, an unusual phlegm prevailed, and the same tranquil countenance and careless unconcern was preserved, by those who had not yet partaken of the calamity. A circumstance which is not sufficiently accounted |