Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/495

 the progress of their enemies; and there the pursuit ended. Both armies were completely worn out, the one being as unable to pursue as the other was to retreat. General Washington took a position at Morristown, and Lord Cornwallis reached Brunswick, where no small alarm had been excited by the advance of the Americans, and where every exertion had been made for the removal of the baggage, and for the defence of the place.

Washington fixed his head-quarters at Morristown, situated among hills of difficult access, where he had a fine country in his rear, from which he could easily draw supplies, and was able to retreat across the Delaware, if needful. Giving his troops little repose, he overran both East and West Jersey, spread his army over the Raritan, and penetrated into the county of Essex, where he made himself master of the coast opposite Staten Island. With a greatly inferior army, by judicious movements, he wrested from the British almost all their conquests in the Jerseys. Brunswick and Amboy were the only posts which remained in their hands, and even in these they were not a little harassed and straitened. The American detachments were in a state of unwearied activity, frequently surprising and cutting off the British advanced guards, keeping them in perpetual alarm, and melting down their numbers by a desultory and destructive warfare.

General Howe, as stated on p. 442, had issued a proclamation on the last day of November, calling on the people to yield submission to the British government, and promising them protection as well in person as in property. Taking ad vantage of this proclamation, many Americans in the vicinity of the British troops, and among these Joseph Galloway, who was a member of Congress, in 1774, from Pennsylvania, abandoned their country and joined the British standard. Washington, on the 25th of January, 1777—before the sixty days named by Howe were ended—in virtue of the extraordinary powers with which he was charged, issued a counter proclamation, in which he strictly commanded all persons, who had subscribed the declaration, taken the oaths, and accepted the protections mentioned in the declaration of the British commissioners, to repair to headquarters, or to the quarters of the nearest general officer of the continental army, or militia, and there deliver up such protection and take the oath of allegiance to the United States; granting liberty, however, to such as preferred "the interest and protection of Great Britain to the freedom and happiness of their country," to withdraw themselves and families, within the enemy's lines. He, also, declared, that all those who should neglect or refuse to comply with his order, within thirty days from its date, should be deemed adherents to the king of Great Britain, and be treated as common enemies to the American States.