not to risk the certain triumph which his success
had already secured for him. He harassed the English with skirmishes,
but attempted no regular attack. Meanwhile he detached bodies of troops
on both sides of the Hudson to prevent the British from recrossing that
river and to bar their retreat. When night fell it became absolutely
necessary for Burgoyne to retire again, and, accordingly, the troops
were marched through a stormy and rainy night toward Saratoga,
abandoning their sick and wounded, and the greater part of their baggage
to the enemy.

Before the rear-guard quitted the camp, the last sad honors were paid to
the brave General Frazer, who had been mortally wounded on the 7th, and
expired on the following day. The funeral of this gallant soldier is
thus described by the Italian historian Botta:

"Toward midnight the body of General Frazer was buried in the British
camp. His brother-officers assembled sadly round while the funeral
service was read over the remains of their brave comrade, and his body
was committed to the hostile earth. The ceremony, always mournful and
solemn of itself, was rendered even terrible by the sense of recent
losses, of present and future dangers, and of regret for the deceased.
Meanwhile the blaze and roar of the American artillery amid the natural
darkness and stillness of the night came on the senses with startling
awe. The grave had been dug within range of the enemy's batteries, and,
while the service was proceeding, a cannon-ball struck the ground close
to the coffin, and spattered earth over the face of the officiating
chaplain."

Burgoyne now took up his last position on the heights near Saratoga; and
hemmed in by the enemy, who refused any encounter, and baffled in all
his attempts at finding a path of escape, he there lingered until famine
compelled him to capitulate. The fortitude of the British army during
this melancholy period has been justly eulogized by many native
historians, but I prefer quoting the testimony of a foreign writer, as
free from all possibility of partiality. Botta says:

"It exceeds the power of words to describe the pitiable condition to
which the British army was now reduced. The troops were worn down by a
series of toil, privation, sickness, and desperate fighting. They were
abandoned by the Indians and Canadians, and the effective force of the
whole army was now diminished by repeated and heavy losses, which had
principally fallen on the best so