Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/141

 Rh Here he maintained an unequal fight on the 11th, and hence he escaped on the following night by boldly slipping through the line of the British fleet. On the 13th he was overtaken by Carleton near the Island of the Four Winds. Some of the boats struck; some were run ashore and burned; only five escaped. Arnold and his crews behaved with the greatest courage throughout; but courage alone could not compensate for want of seamanship and for inferior numbers. Some of the Germans took part in the naval engagement of the 11th, and one of the batteaux on which were the Hanau artillery was sunk by the American fire. The soldiers and sailors that manned it, however, were saved by another boat.

Presently, after this naval battle, Carleton occupied Crown Point without opposition. Scouting parties were pushed out into the neighborhood of Ticonderoga. Riedesel was so near that fortress on the 22d or 23d of October as to see it plainly from a hill. He thought it might easily be taken by the British army in Canada, were the whole of that army to be brought forward, yet he reckoned the numbers of the effective garrison decidedly too high. Sir Guy Carleton chose to think it too late to undertake further conquests that autumn. He even abandoned Crown Point and retired to the northern end of the lake.

The troops were ordered into winter quarters; the Germans along the Richelieu River and in the neighborhood of Lake St. Pierre. Riedesel's headquarters were at Trois Rivières. Pains were taken that the