Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/252

 220 Paul Jones. Indian raids. [i 778-9 During the summer of 1779 other operations of a desultory kind went on against the northern and middle colonies. The British, using New York as their base, made a raid into Connecticut, carrying off and destroying stores. A naval expedition of the same kind against Virginia was even more successful, the captures in stores and shipping being reckoned at half a million of money. Clinton also, by the capture of various posts, established his control on the Hudson for about fifty miles above New York. One of these however, Stony Point, was recaptured by a display of great daring on the part of Anthony Wayne, one of Washington's best officers ; and, though the place could not be held, yet the exploit did much to restore the confidence of the Americans, and to destroy the moral effect of Clinton's successes. Though the American navy had never from the outset of the war been sufficiently strong or numerous to contend for the control of the sea, yet it had done much, by intercepting convoys and merchantmen, to increase the difficulties of the British. In the spring of 1778 one of the most daring of the American sea-captains, Paul Jones, had landed on the coast of Scotland, doing some damage to private property, and in a sea-fight off Scarborough had captured two British vessels. In July, 1779, the government of Massachusetts organised an expedition of 19 sail, with 3000 troops in transports, to attack the British settlement at Penobscot, on the coast of what is now Maine. The attack was frustrated by the appearance of a British squadron. The invading force was driven ashore, and suffered heavily in their retreat through a wild and ill-provided country. Throughout the whole course of the war the ferocity displayed increased in proportion to the remoteness of the locality. Not only were the outlying inhabitants on the frontier less amenable to control, but they had grown up in habits of violence and had learnt to hold their own lives and those of others cheap. Moreover it was on the frontier that the Indian alliance really became an effective aid ; and, when the spirit of savagery had been once introduced, the desire for retaliation made it wholly impossible to keep within the bounds of civilised warfare. During 1778 parties of Indians, assisted by frontier men hardly less barbarous, harried the western portions of New York and Pennsylvania. Few incidents of the war did more to embitter American feeling against the British. In 1779 Congress took resolute measures to deal with this trouble. A force of 2100 men was sent into the Wyoming valley, the scene of the worst Indian outrage. The Five Nations, against whom the attack was directed, came nearer than any other Indian tribes to the condition of a settled community, and were therefore more open to injury by invasion. They occupied substantial fortified villages of wood, surrounded by orchards and cultivated fields. But the American array met with no effective resistance, and the country was turned into a wilderness.