THE AMERICANS DRIVEN FROM THE DELAWARE. 2 2 5 XXXVII. twelve hundred picked men, crossed the Delaware at CHAPTER Philadelphia, and marched down the Jersey side, while several British ships of war ascended the river as high 1777. as the obstructions would admit, and opened a furious Oct 22 cannonade on Fort Mifflin and the flotilla. On Donop's approach, Greene abandoned the outworks of Red Bank, and retired into the principal redoubt. The assaulting column was received with a terrible fire of musketry and grape; Donop fell mortally wounded, and the attack was repulsed with a loss to the enemy of four hundred men. This was the first assault in the course of the war which the Americans had repulsed. Of the ships which assailed Fort Mifflin, the Augusta sixty-four was blown up, the Merlin frigate was burned, and the others. retired with heavy damage. Every effort was made to strengthen and supply the forts in the Delaware; but the hopes raised by the defense of Red Bank were doomed to disappointment. The British, re-enforced from New York, took possession of Province Island, a low mud bank similar to Mud Island, and separated from it only by a narrow channel. Here they erected batteries, which kept up a constant fire on Fort Mifflin. The defense was most gallant; the garrison laboring by night to repair the breaches made during the day. But this could not last long; the ramparts crumbled under the continued fire; the enemy's ships approached within a hundred yards of the fort; and the place was pronounced no longer tenable. The garrison was accordingly withdrawn; Red Bank also was Nov. 16. evacuated; the remaining obstructions in the river were removed by the British, and a communication was at last opened between the enemy's fleet and army. During these operations, Washington had written repeatedly to Putnam and Gates to send on re-enforce XXXVII. CHAPTER ments from the Highlands and the northern army When these letters seemed not to be attended to, he dis 1777. patched Hamilton with ample powers and discretionary authority to hasten forward the troops. Gates had sent to the southward more than five thousand men; but these forces were detained by Putnam, who now had nine thousand men, besides the militia which had recently joined him. He seemed to be revolving some scheme for retaliating his late loss of the Highlands by an attack on New York, and it required a very pointed and authoritative letter from Hamilton, who does not seem to have formed a very high opinion of Putnam's military capacity, to put on the march the troops which Washington had demanded. Hamilton then proceeded to Albany, and, not without some reluctance on the part of Gates, obtained two additional brigades. They did not arrive, however, any more than the troops from Putnam's camp, till after the British had gained the command of the Delaware. Some of Washington's more ardent officers were earnest for an attack on Philadelphia; but, after mature consideration by a council of war, that scheme was aban doned. Congress meanwhile, in session at York, on the west side of the Susquehanna, determined to establish a new Board of War, to be composed of persons not members of Congress. John Adams, thus released from his arduous duties as head of the war department, was sent to France as one of the commissioners to that court, Deane being recalled to give an account of his conduct, especially in the matter of the extravagant promises which he had made to foreign officers. Having acted for two years and more as president of Nov. Congress, Hancock resigned, and was succeeded by Henry Laurens, of South Carolina. The Articles of Confedera- CHAPTER XXXVII. tion, the consideration of which had been resumed in April, having been agreed to at last after repeated and warm 1777 debates, were now sent out with a circular letter, urging Nov. 17 the states immediate ratification. But, on the part of some of the states, ratification was long delayed. upon A more urgent subject of deliberation was that of finance. Since the issue of the ten millions of new bills authorized early in the year, to which two millions more had been added in August, the depreciation had become alarming. Anxious to fill their treasury without further issues, Congress had pressed the subject of loans, and, as a new inducement to lenders, had offered to pay the interest on all money advanced before March, 1778, in bills drawn on their commissioners in France. It became necessary, however, to authorize a million more of Nev. Continental bills, and another million soon after, making Dec the amount issued up to the end of the year thirty-four millions. The depreciation, meanwhile, increased so rapidly, that the bills, nearly at par for the first three months of the year, had sunk, by the end of it, to three or four for one. Credit failing at home, Congress looked earnestly abroad, and their commissioners at the courts of France and Spain were instructed anew to exert their utmost endeavors to obtain loans. The scheme for regulating prices by law had proved a complete failure; so much so, that a convention of delegates from New England and New York, assembled at Springfield during the past summer to concert measures July 30 for the defense of Rhode Island and for an attack on Newport, had recommended the repeal of all acts for regulating prices, and to substitute for them laws against forestalling and engrossing, by which was meant the accumulation of stocks in the hands of merchants and CHAPTER speculators. This same convention also recommended XXXVII. the redemption of all state issues, and the levying of 1777. taxes for the support of the war-a policy already adopt. ed by Massachusetts and some other states. The doings of the Springfield Convention being laid Nov. 22. before Congress, that body acknowledged the already excessive issues of paper, and earnestly recommended to the several states to raise by taxation, for the service of the ensuing year, five millions of dollars for the federal treasury, according to a provisional assignment of quotas. Congress also recommended to refrain from the further issue of state bills of credit; to call in and redeem those already out exceeding one dollar in amount; and to provide for state expenses in future by taxes to be levied within the year. Three conventions were also proposedone for the eight northern states, another for Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and a third for South Carolina and Georgia; to meet early the next year, for the purpose of fixing a new scale of prices, to be enacted and enforced by the several state Legislatures; the Continental commissaries to be authorized to seize goods at those prices when the holders of superfluous stocks refused to sell them. Nov. 27. A recommendation followed to make speedy sale of all property belonging to persons "who had forfeited the right to the protection of their several states," the proceeds to be invested in loan-office certificates. So far as forfeiture and sale were concerned, this recommendation was not unheeded. Acts already had been, or soon were passed, in most of the states, proscribing all wealthy absentees by name, and putting their property into the hands of trustees the proceeds, after paying their debts, and making some provision for their families when resi dent, to be paid into the state treasuries. As a finan XXXVII. cial expedient, this procedure proved a complete failure; CHAPTER but it gratified party hatred, and served to enrich some speculators. 1777. The disaffected, it was said, combined to give a preference to the old colonial paper money over that of revolutionary origin; and the states were advised to call in Dec. 3. and replace by their own, or by Continental bills, all circulating paper bearing date prior to the battle of Lexington. The pressing wants of the soldiers occasioned a further recommendation to seize for the army's use all woolens, Dec. 3!. blankets, stockings, shoes, and hats in the hands of any citizen of the United States for the purpose of sale, giving receipts for the same, and to inflict penalties on all who should attempt to evade such seizure; also, to authorize the Continental commissaries to seize, under similar receipts, all stock and provisions necessary for the army, "purchased up or engrossed by any person with a view of selling the same." For the restraint of persons "endeavoring, by every means of oppression, sharping, and extortion, to procure enormous gains," it was recommended to limit the number of retail traders, and to impose bonds upon them to observe all laws made for their regulation. Conscious of the arbitrary harshness of these recommendations, Congress, in the circular letter which proposed them, declared that "laws unworthy the character of infant republics are become necessary to supply the defects of public virtue, and to correct the vices of some of her sons." The immediate occasion of this recommendation was a transaction at Boston, as to which Congress complained that, after their agent had agreed to purchase a certain quantity of clothing "at the most extravagant rate of ten to eighteen hundred per cent.," the sellers even then re |