the Commander in Chief was not displeased at the difimiffal of a man fo haughty and impracticable; nor did the army, in whofe eftimation he had been vifibly leffened fince the difafter which had befallen him, appear much to regret his lofs. For though the capture of General Lee was merely fortuitous, misfortune is in the minds of men nearly allied to difgrace, difgrace produces contempt, and contempt verges towards alienation and hatred.

No fooner had Sir Henry Clinton and the army evacuated Philadelphia, than Lord Howe prepared to fail with the fleet to New York. Repeated calms retarded his paffage down the Delawar, so that he could not clear the Cape till the evening of the 28th of June: and on the 29th his Lordship reached Sandy Hook, whence he convoyed the army to New York. In a few days after the departure of Lord Howe, Count d'Estaing arrived off the coaft, and anchored in the night of the 8th of July at the mouth of the Delawar; so that Lord Howe narrowly efcaped a furprife, which would probably have been attended with very fatal confequences.

On the 11th the French fleet, confifting of fifteen fail of the line, appeared off Sandy Hook, to which Lord Howe could oppofs only eleven fhips of very inferior magnitude and weight of metal. These were ranged with great skill and judgment in the harbor, in full expectation of an attack from X 2 the

the French fleet, which feemed refolutely bent upon the attempt. But the American pilots on board declared it impoffible for the large fhips of D'Eftaing's fquadron to pafs the bar-so that after eleven days tarriance he failed to Rhode Island, in order to co-operate with General Sullivan in an enterprise against Newport.

The approach of the French fleet created the unpleasant neceffity of burning the Orpheus, Lark, Juno, and Cerberus frigates; and of finking the Flora and Falcon. The commander of the garrifon, Sir Robert Pigot, made every preparation for a vigorous defence; and Lord Howe, being at length reinforced by feveral fhips from Englandpart of a fquadron commanded by Admiral Byron, tardily dispatched after the Toulon fleet-immediately ftood out to fea, though ftill inferior in force, in order to give battle to the French admiral, who seemed not unwilling to accept the challenge. After much manoeuvring for the weather-gage, the fleets were feparated by a violent tempeft, by which the great fhips of the French fquadron were fo much damaged that it was deemed by Count d'Estaing abfolutely neceffary to fteer for the port of Bofton to refit. General Sullivan was in confequence compelled with chagrin and reluctance to withdraw his troops from Rhode Island.

After the ftorm, or rather during the ftorm, when the fury of it had in fome degree fubfided,

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the Renown of fifty guns, Captain Dawson, fell in with the Languedoc of ninety guns, D'Eftaing's own fhip, which had loft both her rudder and her mafts, whom he engaged with such advantage as to flatter him with the profpect of an immediate capture, when the appearance of feveral other fhips of the fquadron compelled him to defift. Captain Raynor in the Ifis, and Captain Hotham in the Prefton, both of fifty guns, fought with great gallantry the Zelé of feventy-four, and the Tonnant of eighty-but no fhip on either fide ftruck her colors. Lord Howe, with all poffible expedition, followed his antagonist to Boston, in the hope of a favorable opportunity of attack; but found the French fleet lying in Nantasket Road, fo well defended by the forts and batteries erected on the points of land and the islands adjacent, that it was adjudged abfolutely impracticable. Soon after this (October 1778) Lord Howe quitted the command to Admiral Gambier, having acquired in the courfe of the campaign much reputation by his skilful and vigorous exertions in a fituation peculiarly critical and hazardous.

The projects of Count d'Estaing being effectually difconcerted in America, he failed in the beginning of November to the West Indies, in order to fecond the operations of the Marquis de Bouillé, Governor of Martinico, who had already captured the important island of Dominique,

to which he granted terms fo favorable that the inhabitants had little reafon to regret the change of masters. On the very fame day that the French fleet left Boston, a detachment of five thoufand troops under convoy of a fmall fquadron commanded by Commodore Hotham, failed from Sandy Hook, and arrived, fortunately without encountering the enemy in their courfe, at Barbadoes, December 10 (1778). Without fuffering the troops to difembark, an expedition was immediately refolved upon against the island of St. Lucia, where on the 13th a landing was effected. By the active exertions of General Meadows and Admiral Barrington, upon whom the command had now devolved, several of the advanced posts were carried, when Count d'Estaing appeared in view with a far fuperior force, having on board a large body of troops, with which he hoped to effect the entire reduction of the English iflands. The fquadron of Admiral Barrington confifted only of three fhips of the line, two of fifty guns, and three frigates, which he ftationed across the entrance of the Careenage, fupported by feveral batteries erected on fhore. On the morning of the 15th of December the French Admiral bore down with ten fail of the line, but met with fo gallant a reception that he thought proper in a fhort time to draw off. In the afternoon he renewed the attack with his whole squadron, and a furious cannonade, directed chiefly againft

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against Admiral Barrington's divifion, was kept up for feveral hours, without making any impreffion upon the English line; and the French Admiral was again obliged to defift from his attack. He now landed a body of five thousand troops, and putting himself at their head marched with great refolution to the affault of the British lines: but they were received by General Meadows with the fame determined valor as they had before experienced from Admiral Barrington; and being repulfed with great lofs, the Count re-embarked his troops, and left the island to its fate. It foon after furrendered to the British arms on honorable terms of capitulation, and this conquest was confidered as much more than an equivalent for the lofs of Dominique.

On the continent of America the war ftill raged with dreadful and unremitted malignity. In confequence of the horrid mode of warfare adopted by the Court of Great Britain, which in the midft of pleasure and feftivity iffued its orders to defolate and deftroy, an expedition was undertaken by a Colonel Butler, in conjunction with one Brandt, an half Indian by birth, and a man beyond example cruel and ferocious, against the beautiful and flourishing settlement of Wyoming. This was an infant rifing colony, fituated on the eastern branch of the Sufquehanna, confifting of eight townships, in a country and climate luxuriantly fertile.