my, under Washington, was occupied in watching over
Pennsylvania and the South. At any rate, it was believed that, in order
to oppose the plan intended for the new campaign, the insurgents must
risk a pitched battle, in which the superiority of the royalists in
numbers, in discipline, and in equipment seemed to promise to the latter
a crowning victory. Without question, the plan was ably formed; and had
the success of the execution been equal to the ingenuity of the design,
the reconquest or submission of the thirteen United States must in all
human probability have followed, and the independence which they
proclaimed in 1776 would have been extinguished before it existed a
second year.

No European power had as yet come forward to aid America. It is true
that England was generally regarded with jealousy and ill-will, and was
thought to have acquired, at the Treaty of Paris, a preponderance of
dominion which was perilous to the balance of power; but, though many
were willing to wound, none had yet ventured to strike; and America, if
defeated in 1777, would have been suffered to fall unaided.

Burgoyne had gained celebrity by some bold and dashing exploits in
Portugal during the last war; he was personally as brave an officer as
ever headed British troops, he had considerable skill as a tactician;
and his general intellectual abilities and acquirements were of a high
order. He had several very able and experienced officers under him,
among whom were Major-General Philips and Brigadier-General Frazer. His
regular troops amounted, exclusively of the corps of artillery, to about
seven thousand two hundred men, rank and file. Nearly half of these were
Germans.

He had also an auxiliary force of from two to three thousand Canadians.
He summoned the warriors of several tribes of the red Indians near the
Western Lakes to join his army. Much eloquence was poured forth both in
America and in England in denouncing the use of these savage
auxiliaries. Yet Burgoyne seems to have done no more than Montcalm,
Wolfe, and other French, American, and English generals had done before
him. But, in truth, the lawless ferocity of the Indians, their
unskilfulness in regular action, and the utter impossibility of bringing
them under any discipline made their services of little or no value in
times of difficulty; while the indignation which their outrages inspired
went far to rouse the whole population of the invaded districts into
active hos