BOOK 1777, In all the complex and hazardous operations of the Canadian war, general Carleton had conducted himself with equal judgment, vigor, and success, and h and his generous and humane treatment of the prisoners which had fallen into his hands formed a striking contrast to the barbarity which pervaded the military prisons of New York. Of the Indians in his service general Carleton had made a very sparing use, and at the end of the campaign they were dismissed on a general promise of returning when called for. But it was believed that he had, in his dispatches to England, strongly remonstrated against the employment of savages in any shape whatever in the farther prosecution of this war. Whether on this or on other accounts offence was taken at his conduct, cannot certainly be known; but, to the surprise, and no doubt to the chagrin, of the governor, general Burgoyne, who had passed the winter in England, arrived early in the spring of 1777 in America, with a commission appointing him general of the northern army beyond the limits of the province of Canada. The plan of the intended expedition southward of the Lakes had been entirely concerted between the American secretary and general Burgoyne, who, to use his own courtly language, "had thrown himself at his majesty's FEET, ta XVIII. 1777. be employed in any way that he thought pro- BOOK per In pursuance of this plan, general Burgoyne proceeded up Lake Champlain, and landed a little to the northward of Crown Point, where he met the Indians in congress, and in compliance with their customs gave them a WAR FEAST; and in an harangue which he afterwards made to these savages, he endeavoured to excite their ardor, and at the same time to repress their barbarity-incompatibilities which no art or eloquence could hope to reconcile. This was followed (June 1777) by a manifesto, in which the general, in language approaching the oriental style of exaggeration and bombast, strove to inspire the Americans with terror, by a representation of the irresistible force which he commanded, and to awe them into submission by menaces, which produced no other effect than, *This is such a mode of expression as might become the mouth of a Persian satrap, in addressing a Sha Abbas or a Sha Nadir; unworthy of a mind ennobled by the conscious sense of freedom, virtue, and dignity! "Go, vassal souls! Go cringe and wait, Bend when he speaks, and Kiss the GROUND; Ye base-born minds! But as for me, I can and will be free: My soul grows firm upright: Let slaves and asses stoop and bow ; I cannot make this stubborn knee Bend to a meaner power than that which formed it free." BOOK by exciting their utmost resentment and detestation, to rouse them more strongly into action. XVIII. 1777. After a short stay at Crown Point the army proceeded under convoy of the shipping on the Lake to Ticonderoga, a post of uncommon natural strength, and rendered famous by the disastrous attack made upon it by general Abercrombie in the preceding war. Here the Americans appeared to be in great force, and they had bestowed infinite labor in repairing the old works and in adding new, so that the siege of Such was the sanguine and savage spirit which breathed throughout this famous proclamation, unparalleled except in ONE very recent instance, that the following lines from Shakspeare's Timon of Athens were not unhappily applied to it as a kind of comment or paraphrase: Let not thy sword skip one. Pity not honored age for his white beard. Strike me the matron-Let not the virgin's cheek The style and phraseology of this strange declaration seem modelled upon those of Antient Pistol. A slight specimen will evince how contemptible it is in a literary, how detestable in a political view. "In consciousness of Christianity," thus it concludes," my royal master's clemency, and the honor of soldiership, I have dwelt upon this invitation, and wished for more persuasive terms to give it impression. And let not people be led to disregard it, by considering their distance from the immediate situation of my camp. I have but to give stretch to the Indian forces under my direction, and they XVIII. 1777. this fortress was considered as an enterprise of BOOK great hazard and difficulty; but, on the first approach of the English, it was suddenly and unaccountably evacuated by the garrison on the night of the 5th of July, by direction of the commander General St. Clair, leaving behind them their artillery, provisions, and stores. No sooner had the first dawn of the morning discovered the flight of the enemy, than preparations were made for a vigorous pursuit both by land and water. The main body of the Americans amount to thousands, to overtake the hardened enemies of Great Britain and, America. I consider them the same whereever they may lurk. If, notwithstanding these endeavours and sincere inclination to effect them, the phrensy of hostility should remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the eyes of God and man, in denouncing and executing the vengeance of the state against the wilful outcasts. The messengers of justice and of wrath await them in the field; and devastation, famine, and every concomitant horror that a reluctant but indispensable prosecution of military duty must occasion, will bar the way to their return."-General Burgoyne, at the head of the northern army, engaged in this impious warfare against liberty, may be compared to Crassus marching out of the gates of Rome on his unjust expedition against the Parthians, upon whom, at the moment of his departure, we are told that Atteius, the Roman tribune, arrayed in the consecrated vestments used in the dreadful ceremonies of the auspices, and scattering incense from the sacred vessels, denounced curses and execrations, solemnly devoting his legious to utter and remediless destruction. BOOK were quickly overtaken and entirely defeated XVIII by general Frazer; and their remaining naval 1777. force, which had rendezvoused at Skenesborough, was destroyed by general Burgoyne. The fugitive Americans retreated with the utmost precipitation to Fort Edward, on the North or Hudson's River, where general Schuyler, commander in chief of the American northern army, had fixed his head-quarters. The British army, highly clated at the rapid series of successes which had hitherto attended them, now exerted indefatigable industry in clearing the Wood Creek, which is a continuation of Lake Champlain, from the obstacles which impeded the passage of the batteaux ; and in conveying gun-boats, provision-vessels, and batteaux, over land into Lake George. From Fort Anné, at the extremity of the Wood Creek, where the batteaux-navigation ends, to Fort Edward, a distance scarcely exceeding twenty miles, the difficulties attending the march of the army were inconceivably great. In this short space they had no less than forty bridges to construct, one of which was over a morass two miles in extent, and the roads were every where obstructed by large timber trees laid across with their branches interwoven. The heavy train of artillery which accompanied the army was also found a great incumbrance, and it was not |