was on the march to intercept or attack the foraging parties of the enemy. These were cut off or driven in so constantly that the British commander found it impossible to sustain his army except at those places which had open water communication with New York. Soon all New Jersey, but Brunswick and Amboy, were cleared of the enemy, and Philadelphia relieved from immediate danger.

Thus in less than a single fortnight Washington, by a succession of the most brilliant and daring manoeuvres on record, had lifted the nation out of the depths of despond ency, gave confidence to the government, turned the tide of misfortune, and covered his tattered troops with glory. The shout of exultation that followed rung round the civilized world till even kings learned to reverence the name of Washington, and baptized him the "American Fabius." Such unexpected, sudden results, took friends and foes equally by surprise. The British commander was stunned. He had been chasing Washington all the autumn, endeavoring by every means in his power to provoke him to battle. He had taken more than four thousand prisoners-divided and reduced his army, till, without shelter and almost without clothing, it lay shivering on the banks of the Delaware. To this downward point he had forced it in mid-winter, when he thought it could not possibly resume successful operations. But just at this moment, when Washington was never so little able even to defend himself, the British commander saw him suddenly wheel about and breaking into one of the most furious offensives on record, fall like successive thunder-claps on his strong battalions, and roll them back at every point. He found that Washington, with all the wariness of the fox, had the terrible spring of the lion.

The amount of suffering Washington endured in this long and tedious retreat, the noble struggles he had passed through to bear up against the want of supplies, of arms, and even

of ammunition-against a murmuring, rebellious, and, worse than all, cowardly army-against the suspicion of his own officers and neglect of the very States he was striving to defend--against the jealousy of Congress-against poverty, destitution and wholesale desertion, will never be known. It remained locked up in his great heart, and even in after years was never spoken of. Neither shall we know what dreadful anxiety weighed him down after he had taken the desperate resolution he did, until success crowned his efforts. With his almost infallible judgment he had evidently measured in its length and breadth the cause of the colonies, and knew that if he should continue to retreat, and Philadelphia fall into the hands of the enemy, his demoralized army would disband, and spring find the current setting so strongly back toward the mother country that it would be impossible to offer any effectual resistance to the enemy. The moral effect of a victory he must have, or be lost, and he determined to risk all to gain it. It is evident he had made up his mind never to survive defeat. He felt he had reached the turning point in the struggle-beyond lay both hope and despair. In this crisis of his country's destiny, he resolved to occupy the post of greatest danger himself, and if the decree had gone out against his country, receive the first blow on his own breast. He was too noble, too great, to peril so fearfully his army and the cause of freedom, and wish to survive their overthrow. Hence, although commander-in-chief, he became in fact leader of the advance guard, both in the march on Trenton and Princeton. To the remonstrance of his officers in the first battle, not to expose his person so recklessly, he scarcely deigned a reply. At Princeton he planted himself where his death must inevitably follow the desertion of his troops, and where it was almost certain to happen whatever the issue might be. He had reached a crisis demanding a sacrifice, and he cast himself and his little band on the altar, and by that sacri

fice, great as it was glorious, redeemed his country. The triumph was complete, but the officers trembled when they reflected at what peril to Washington it had been achieved, and besought him in future to be more prudent, for too great interests were bound up in his life to have it so lavishly exposed.