ty than they found it*. The earl of Carlifle had brought with him an order, little calculated to add weight to his miffion, for the immediate evacuation of the city of Philadelphia, and the retreat of the army to New York. This was a measure, however mortifying, which was rendered very necessary by the departure of a strong squadron from the port of Toulon in the month of April, which the naval force under lord Howe was in no condition to oppofe.

On the 18th of June the whole British army passed the Delawar. Some weeks previous to this event, .general Howe had refigned the command to Sir Henry Clinton. Though uniformly in a certain degree successful in his enterprises, this officer acquired little acceffion of military reputation in America. Brave as a soldier, but, in the capacity of a general, flow, cautious, and indecisive, he deviated into an extreme the opposite of general Burgoyne, who was cenfured as rash, presumptuous, and romantic. The march of the British army through the Jerseys was not unattended with difficulty. Encumbered with an enormous train of baggage, extending the length of twelve miles, the whole country hostile, the bridges broken down before, and a vigilant enemy pressing close behind, the utmost prudence and circumfpection of the new general were necessary

necessary to make a vigorous and effectual defence against those attacks to which a retreating army is so peculiarly exposed. Instead of proceeding in a direct route to Brunfwick, the general determined, by bending his march to the right, and approaching the sea-coaft, at once to difappoint the expectation of the enemy, and to avoid the difficulty attending the passage of the Rariton.

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On the evening of the 27th of June the royal army encamped in the vicinity of Monmouth court-house, and early the next morning they recommenced their march. Scarcely were they in motion when the enemy were difcovered moving in force at some distance on both flanks: the first division under general Knyphaufen, proceeding with the escort of carriages to the heights of Middletown, the English commander immediately formed his troops, with a view to bring on a general engagement. General Lee, who had been some time fince exchanged, advanced with the van of the American army to the attack, in conformity to the directions of general Washington; but feveral of the brigades under his command being thrown into confusion by an impetuous affault of the British cavalry, he ordered a retreat, with a view to form anew in an advantageous position behind a ravine and morass. In the interim general Washington arrived at the head of the main army, and expressed in strong terms his afstonishment and indignation at the retrograde motion of the van. General Lee replied with equal warmth; but in the refult the troops of the van were ordered to form in front of the morass, where an obstinate engagement ensued, till the Americans being again worsted and broken, general Lee was again under the necessity of ordering a retreat, which he conducted with great skill and courage, himself being one of the last who remained on the field. The British light infantry and rangers, in the mean time, who had filed off to the left, and attempted an affault on the American main body, where general Washington comGg manded

VOL. I.

manded in person, met with such a reception as compelled them after repeated efforts to desist from the attack; and the day being intensely hot, the action, in which the two armies appear to have sustained nearly equal loss, ceafed, from mere weariness and fatigue, At midnight Sir Henry renewed his march in profound silence, and on the 30th of June arrived in safety at Sandy Hook, from whence he passed over to New York without farther moleftation.

The high spirit of general Lee could not, however, brook the language which general Washington had hastily used, and he wrote him in consequence a passionate letter, which occafioned his being put under immediate arrest; and a court-martial being held upon him for difobedience of orders, misbehaviour in action and disrespect to his commander, he was found guilty upon every charge, and suspended from all his military commands for twelve months. It was suspected that the commander in chief was not displeased at the dismissal of a man fo haughty and impracticable; nor did the army, in whose estimation he had been visibly lessened fince the disaster which had befallen him, appear much to regret his loss. For though the capture of general Lee was merely fortuitous, misfortune is in the minds of men nearly allied to disgrace, difgrace produces contempt, and contempt verges towards alienation and hatred.

No sooner 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 pafsage 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 conveyed the army to New York. In a few days after the departure of lord Howe, count d'Estaing arrived off the coast, and anchored in the night of the 8th of July at the mouth of the Delawar; fo that lord Howe narrowly escaped a furprise, surprise, which would probably have been attended with very fatal consequences.

On the 11th the French fleet, consisting of fifteen fail of the line, appeared off Sandy Hook, to which lord Howe could oppose only eleven ships 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 the French fleet, which seemed refolutely bent upon the attempt. But the American pilots on board declared it impossible for the large ships of D'Estaing's squadron to pass 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 sinking the Flora and Falcon. The commander of the garrison, Sir Robert Pigot, made every preparation for a vigorous defence; and lord Howe, being at length reinforced by several ships from England-part of a squadron commanded by admiral Byron, tardily dispatched after the Toulon fleet-immediately stood out to sea, though still inferior in force, in order to give battle to the French admiral, who seemed not unwilling to accept the challenge. After much manœuvring for the weather-gage, the fleets were separated by a violent tempest, by which the great ships of the French squadron were so much damaged, that it was deemed by Count d'Estaing absolutely necessary to steer for the port of Boston to refit. General Sullivan was in consequence compelled with chagrin and reluctance to withdraw his troops from Rhode Island.

After the storm, or rather during the storm, when the fury of it had in some degree subsided, the Renown of fifty guns, captain Dawson, fell in with the Languedoc of ninety guns, d'Estaing's own ship, which had loft both her rudder and her masts, whom he engaged with such advantage as to flatter him with the profpect of an immediate capture,

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capture, when the appearance of several other ships of the squadron compelled him to desist. Captain Raynor in the Isis, and captain Hotham in the Preston, both of fifty guns, fought with great gallantry the Zelé of seventy-four, and the Tonnant of eighty-but no ship on either side struck 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, so well defended by the forts and batteries erected on the points of land and the islands adjacent, that it was adjudged absolutely impracticable. Soon after this (October 1778) Lord Howe quitted the command to admiral Gambier, having acquired in the course 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 second the operations of the marquis de Bouillé, governor of Martinico, who had already captured the important island of Dominique, to which he granted terins so favorable that the inhabitants had little reason to regret the change of masters. On the very fame day that the French fleet left Boston, a detachment of five thousand troops under convoy of a small squadron commanded by commodore Hotham, failed from Sandy Hook, and arrived, fortunately without encountering the enemy in their course, at Barbadoes, December 10 (1778.) Without suffering the troops to disembark, an expedition was immediately resolved 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 superior force, having on board a large body of troops, with which he hoped to effect the entire reduction of the English islands. The squadron of admiral