wn outside their own States. They refused to
enlist for longer than a few months, since they felt it imperative to
return to look after their farms. They had little regard for men from
different districts, distrusted commanders from any State but their
own, and had no loyalty of any description to the Continental Congress.
They were, in short, still colonists, such as generations of training
had made them; very angry with Great Britain, infuriated at Tories, and
glad to be independent, but unable to realize the meaning of it all
even under the terrible stress of war.

Under the circumstances, the task of the men to whose lot it fell to
lead the American forces was such as to tax to the utmost not only
their military skill, but their ability to control, inspire, and
persuade the most refractory and unreliable of material. When to this
were added the facts that the colonies were almost wholly lacking in
manufactures except of the most rudimentary sort, that they had little
capital except in the form of land, buildings, vessels, and crops, and
that whatever revenue they had been in the habit of deriving from
commerce was {81} liable to be destroyed by the British naval
supremacy, it is easily seen that the disadvantages of the home country
were actually counterbalanced by the still more crushing disadvantages
of the revolting colonies.

In the summer of 1776, the British advanced from two quarters. In the
north, as soon as navigation opened, men-of-war sailed up the St.
Lawrence and brought reinforcements to Quebec. The relics of the
American force, unable to maintain themselves in Canada, abandoned
their conquests without a blow, and retreated into the Lake Champlain
region, there intending to hold the forts at Crown Point and
Ticonderoga. Col. Guy Carleton, the new commander, was soon able to
move southward with overwhelming numbers; but, after reaching the
northern end of Lake Champlain, he found that body of water commanded
by a small squadron of gunboats under Benedict Arnold, and, deeming it
impossible to advance, delayed all summer in order to construct a rival
fleet. Meanwhile, all operations came to a standstill in that region.
Eleven thousand men, chiefly regular troops, were thus kept inactive
for months.

The principal British force gathered at Halifax, and sailed directly
against New York. It was there joined by the remains of a naval
expedition which had endeavoured in June, {82} 1776, to capture