oston. All these things
took time and the summer was slipping away. In the end Washington
realized that Howe intended to make his move not by land but by sea.
Could it be possible that he was not going to make aid to Burgoyne his
chief purpose? Could it be that he would attack Boston? Washington
hoped so for he knew the reception certain at Boston. Or was his goal
Charleston? On the 23d of July, when the summer was more than half gone,
Washington began to see more clearly. On that day Howe had embarked
eighteen thousand men and the fleet put to sea from Staten Island.

Howe was doing what able officers with him, such as Cornwallis, Grey,
and the German Knyphausen, appear to have been unanimous in thinking
he should not do. He was misled not only by the desire to strike at
the very center of the rebellion, but also by the assurance of the
traitorous Lee that to take Philadelphia would be the effective signal
to all the American Loyalists, the overwhelming majority of the people,
as was believed, that sedition had failed. A tender parent, the King,
was ready to have the colonies back in their former relation and to give
them secure guarantees of future liberty. Any one who saw the fleet
put out from New York Harbor must have been impressed with the might of
Britain. No less than two hundred and twenty-nine ships set their sails
and covered the sea for miles. When they had disappeared out of sight
of the New Jersey shore their goal was still unknown. At sea they might
turn in any direction. Washington's uncertainty was partly relieved on
the 30th of July when the fleet appeared at the entrance of Delaware
Bay, with Philadelphia some hundred miles away across the bay and up the
Delaware River. After hovering about the Cape for a day the fleet again
put to sea, and Washington, who had marched his army so as to be near
Philadelphia, thought the whole movement a feint and knew not where the
fleet would next appear. He was preparing to march to New York to menace
General Clinton, who had there seven thousand men able to help Burgoyne
when he heard good news. On the 22d of August he knew that Howe
had really gone southward and was in Chesapeake Bay. Boston was now
certainly safe. On the 25th of August, after three stormy weeks at sea,
Howe arrived at Elkton, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, and there landed
his army. It was Philadelphia fifty miles away that he intended to have.
Washington wrote gleefully "Now let all New England t