Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/474

442 of Washington's army. They were well supplied with that efficient arm in the service, cavalry, while the Americans had none whatever, except a few ill-mounted Connecticut militia, under Major Shelden. The Americans were also no better provided with artillery than with horses. The militia from New Jersey, about a thousand in number, were considered quite unreliable, and the time of service of the few regulars in the army expired with the year. In a little while, it was to be feared, there would be no army at all.

Consternation seemed to have seized upon the neighboring states; each trembling for itself, refused to attempt to succor others. There still remained a few regiments of regular troops upon the frontiers of Canada; but they were necessary there to arrest the progress of the enemy; and, besides, the term of their engagement was near its end. Upon the heel of so many trials was the imminent danger of seditions on the part of the disaffected, who, in various places were ready to do all in their power to favor the cause of the British. An insurrection was about to break out in the county of Monmouth, in this very province of New Jersey, so that Washington found himself constrained to detach a part of his army, already a mere skeleton, to overawe the agitators. The presence of a victorious royal army had dissipated the terror with which the patriots at first had inspired the loyalists. They began to abandon themselves without reserve to all the fury which animated them against their adversaries.

The English commissioners, in this gloomy state of American affairs, ventured to assume bolder ground in addressing the people. On the 30th of November, they drew up a third proclamation, in which they charged and commanded all persons assembling in arms, against his majesty's government, to disband themselves and return to their dwellings; and all those who exercised magistracies, or were in anywise concerned in executing orders for levying money, raising troops, fitting out armed vessels, and imprisoning or molesting his majesty's subjects, were commanded "to desist and cease from all such treasonable actings and doings, and to relinquish all such usurped power and authority." They, at the same time, engaged, that all such as should, within sixty days from the date of the proclamation, appear before any governor or lieutenant-governor, or commander-in-chief of the British army in America, or any officer commanding a detachment of the same, and claim the benefit of the proclamation, and subscribe a declaration that they would remain in a peaceable obedience to his majesty, and would not take up arms, or encourage others to take up arms, against his authority, should obtain a full and free pardon of all treasons or misprisions of treason."

On the advance of Lord Cornwallis, Washington abandoned Newark, and retreated to Brunswick, a small village on the Raritan. While there, the term of service of the Maryland and Jersey levies expired, and no remonstrances or entreaties of the commander-in-chief were sufficient to induce them to