retreat into Pennsylvania could be
effected, neither is it possible, in the face of an enemy, to pass a
river of such extent. The roads were broken and rugged with the frost,
and the main road was occupied by the enemy.

About four o'clock a party of the British approached the bridge, with
a design to gain it, but were repulsed. They made no more attempts,
though the creek itself is passable anywhere between the bridge and
the Delaware. It runs in a rugged, natural-made ditch, over which a
person may pass with little difficulty, the stream being rapid and
shallow. Evening was now coming on, and the British, believing they
had all the advantages they could wish for, and that they could use
them when they pleased, discontinued all further operations, and held
themselves prepared to make the attack next morning.

But the next morning produced a scene as elegant as it was unexpected.
The British were under arms and ready to march to action, when one of
their light-horse from Princeton came furiously down the street, with
an account that General Washington had that morning attacked and
carried the British post at that place, and was proceeding on to seize
the magazine at Brunswick; on which the British, who were then on the
point of making an assault on the evacuated camp of the Americans,
wheeled about, and in a fit of consternation marched for Princeton.

This retreat is one of those extraordinary circumstances, that in
future ages may probably pass for fable. For it will with difficulty
be believed that two armies, on which such important consequences
depended, should be crouded into so small a space as Trenton; and that
the one, on the eve of an engagement, when every ear is supposed to be
open, and every watchfulness employed, should move completely from the
ground, with all its stores, baggage and artillery, unknown and even
unsuspected by the other. And so entirely were the British deceived,
that when they heard the report of the cannon and small arms at
Princeton, they supposed it to be thunder, though in the depth of
winter.

General Washington, the better to cover and disguise his retreat from
Trenton, had ordered a line of fires to be lighted up in front of his
camp. These not only served to give an appearance of going to rest,
and continuing that deception, but they effectually concealed from the
British whatever was acting behind them, for flame can no more be seen
through than a wall, and in his situation,