d over
when they were once on the bank of the river which was to be the channel
of communication between them and the British army in the South. But
their feelings, and those of the English nation in general, when their
successes were announced, may best be learned from a contemporary
writer. Burke, in the _Annual Register_ for 1777, describes them thus:

"Such was the rapid torrent of success, which swept everything away
before the Northern army in its onset. It is not to be wondered at if
both officers and private men were highly elated with their
good-fortune, and deemed that and their prowess to be irresistible; if
they regarded their enemy with the greatest contempt; considered their
own toils to be nearly at an end; Albany to be already in their hands;
and the reduction of the Northern provinces to be rather a matter of
some time than an arduous task full of difficulty and danger.

"At home the joy and exultation were extreme; not only at court, but
with all those who hoped or wished the unqualified subjugation and
unconditional submission of the colonies. The loss in reputation was
greater to the Americans, and capable of more fatal consequences, than
even that of ground, of posts, of artillery, or of men. All the
contemptuous and most degrading charges which had been made by their
enemies, of their wanting the resolution and abilities of men, even in
their defence of whatever was dear to them, were now repeated and
believed.

"Those who still regarded them as men, and who had not yet lost all
affection for them as brethren; who also retained hopes that a happy
reconciliation upon constitutional principles, without sacrificing the
dignity of the just authority of government on the one side or a
dereliction of the rights of freedmen on the other, was not even now
impossible, notwithstanding their favorable dispositions in general,
could not help feeling upon this occasion that the Americans sunk not a
little in their estimation. It was not difficult to diffuse an opinion
that the war in effect was over, and that any further resistance could
serve only to render the terms of their submission the worse. Such were
some of the immediate effects of the loss of those grand keys of North
America--Ticonderoga and the Lakes."

The astonishment and alarm which these events produced among the
Americans were naturally great; but in the midst of their disasters,
none of the colonists showed any disposition to submit. The l