ave been covered, up to Albany, by
a navigable stream on either side of which he could operate by that
flying bridge which the presence and control of the navy continually
constituted. Save the fortifications, which Clinton easily carried,
there was no threat to his communications or to his flank, such as the
hill country of New Jersey had offered and Washington had skilfully
utilised.

The campaign of 1777 thus ended for the British with a conspicuous
disaster, and with an apparent success which was as disastrous as a
failure. At its close they held Narragansett Bay, the city and harbour
of New York, and the city of Philadelphia. The first was an admirable
naval base, especially for sailing ships, for the reasons given by
Rodney. The second was then, as it is now, the greatest military
position on the Atlantic coast of the United States; and although
the two could not communicate by land, they did support each other
as naval stations in a war essentially dependent upon maritime power.
Philadelphia served no purpose but to divide and distract British
enterprise. Absolutely dependent for maintenance upon the sea, the
forces in it and in New York could not cooeperate; they could not even
unite except by sea. When Clinton relieved Howe as commander-in-chief,
though less than a hundred miles away by land, he had to take a voyage
of over two hundred miles, from New York to Philadelphia, half of
it up a difficult river, to reach his station; and troops were
transferred by the same tedious process. In consequence of these
conditions, the place had to be abandoned the instant that war with
France made control of the sea even doubtful. The British held it for
less than nine months in all.

During 1777 a number of raids were made by British combined land and
sea forces, for the purpose of destroying American depots and other
resources. Taken together, such operations are subsidiary to, and aid,
the great object of interrupting or harassing the communications of
an enemy. In so far, they have a standing place among the major
operations of war; but taken singly they cannot be so reckoned, and
the fact, therefore, is simply noted, without going into details.
It may be remarked, however, that in them, although the scale was
smaller, the Navy played the same part that it now does in the many
expeditions and small wars undertaken by Great Britain in various
parts of the world; the same that it did in Wellington's campaigns
in the Sp