FORE:Two British columns advancing by nightone by the shore road and the other over the hillsmanaged to capture the patrols and approach the outposts of the Americans. Washington having been all day engaged in strengthening his lines, had returned to New York. Putnam was posted on the left; and General Stirling was posted on the right on the seashore, near the part called the Narrows. On the hills Sullivan occupied one of the passes towards the left. The column on the British right, consisting of Hessians, under General Von Heister, seized on the village of Flat Bush, nearly opposite to Sullivan. At the same time, Sir Henry Clinton and Sir William Erskine reconnoitred Sullivan's position and the rest of the line of hills, and sent word to General Howe that it would not be difficult to turn Sullivan's position where the hills were low, near the village of Bedford. Howe immediately ordered Lord Percy to support Clinton with his brigades, in the direction of Bedford, and General Grant to endeavour to turn the position of General Stirling, whilst the Hessians were ready to attack Sullivan in front. At a signal, Howe himself marched along with one of the divisions. In order to draw the enemy's attention from the movements of General Clinton, Grant made a direct attack upon Stirling's position, which brought to his aid a great part of Sullivan's forces, thus deserting their own ground. Grant maintained his attack till daylight, by which time Clinton had, by a slight skirmish, crossed the line on his side. The attention from his march was diverted by Von Heister attacking Putnam's position on the direct way to Brooklyn, and Lord Howe, from his ships, opening a cannonade on Governor's Island and Red Hook, in the rear of that town. About eight o'clock came a fire from Clinton's column, which had now forced its way into the rear of Putnam and between the Americans and Brooklyn. On this discovery they endeavoured to make a way to their lines before that town, but were driven back by Clinton only to find themselves assailed in the rear by Von Heister. Thus hemmed in, they fled in confusion. This action in their rear alarmed both Sullivan and Stirling, yet they maintained their ground against Grant till they learned the total rout of their comrades opposed to Clinton and Heister, when they laid down their arms and ran for it. Knowing the ground better than the British, many of them managed to escape to Brooklyn; but one thousand and ninety-seven prisoners were taken, and from one thousand two hundred to one thousand five hundred Americans were killed or wounded. The English lost only about four hundred killed and wounded.On the 8th of May, 1777, Ministers moved for more money for the insatiable Landgrave of Hesse, whose troops were at this very time exhibiting the most scandalous state of defiance of discipline, of consequent inefficiency, and of plunder of the inhabitants of America. This grant, though violently opposed, was carried, but only by a majority of eight. All parties now began to denounce the shameless rapacity of these German princes. Nor did Chatham, ill as he was, allow the Session to pass without making one more energetic protest against the continuance of the war with America. On the 30th of May he moved an address to his Majesty for the immediate cessation of hostilities. Notwithstanding all that had been said on our successes over the Americans, Chatham contended as positively as ever that we could never conquer them. "You have," he said, "ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony, but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times the number of British freemen. You may ravage, you cannot conquerit is impossibleyou cannot conquer America. You talk of your numerous funds to annihilate the Congress, and your powerful forces to disperse their army; I might as well talk of driving them before me with my crutch! But what would you conquer? The map of America? I am ready to meet any general officer on the subject" (looking at Lord Amherst)"What will you do out of the protection of your fleet? In the winter, if together, they are starved; and if dispersed, they are taken off in detail. I am experienced in spring hopes and vernal promises. I know what Ministers throw out; but at last will come your equinoctial disappointment. You have got nothing in America but stations. You have been three years teaching them the art of war. They are apt scholars; and I will venture to tell your lordships that the American gentry will make officers enough fit to command the troops of all the European Powers." Chatham's motion was rejected by ninety-nine votes against twenty-eight. Parliament was prorogued by the king on the 6th of June, in a speech in which he indulged the fallacious hope that the American insurrection would be terminated in the present campaign. But Chatham's prophecies were at the very time realising themselves. Had the Howes had the necessary qualities of commanders in such an important causehad they pursued and dispersed[235] the American army, as they ought to have done on defeating it, and as they might readily have done; and had the British Government instantly, whilst in this favourable position, repealed all the obnoxious statutes, they would have thrown Congress and Washington so completely into the wrong, that it would have been impossible for them to have made head again. But neither the Generals nor the Government of that day had the capacity for such strategic and statesmanlike policy. The Generals went comfortably into winter quarters, leaving the embers of war to rekindle and spread; and Government, deaf to the warnings of Chatham, still stolidly refused justice whilst rigorously enforcing their injustice. And, indeed, when Chatham gave his last Cassandra-like remonstrance, it was already too late. We had indeed taught the Americans the art of war. Washington was no longer contented to stand on the defensive, happy if he could preserve his soldiers from running off without fighting at all. His circumstances were desperate, and the energy which springs from despair now urged him to measures of daring and wakefulness just as the English Generals, like northern bears, were entering on their winter's sleep. Benedict Arnold had paid him a visit in his wretched camp beyond the Delaware, and probably from their united counsels sprang a new style of movement, which confounded his unsuspecting enemies.
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