the retreat of the American army to
Middlebrook.... Lord Cornwallis skirmishes with Lord
Stirling.... General Prescot surprised and taken.... The
British army embarks.

{1777}

The effect of the proclamation published by Lord and General Howe on
taking possession of New Jersey, was, in a great degree, counteracted
by the conduct of the invading army. Fortunately for the United
States, the hope that security was attainable by submission, was soon
dissipated. Whatever may have been the exertions of their General to
restrain his soldiers, they still considered and treated the
inhabitants rather as conquered rebels than returning friends.
Indulging in every species of licentiousness, the plunder and
destruction of property were among the least offensive of the injuries
they inflicted. The persons, not only of the men, but of that sex
through which indignities least to be forgiven, and longest to be
remembered, are received, were exposed to the most irritating outrage.
Nor were these excesses confined to those who had been active in the
American cause. The lukewarm, and even the loyalists, were the victims
of this indiscriminating spirit of rapine and violence.

The effect of such proceedings on a people whose country had never
before been the seat of war, and whose non-resistance had been
occasioned solely by the expectation of that security which had been
promised as the reward of submission to the royal authority, could not
fail to equal the most sanguine hopes of the friends of the
revolution. A sense of personal wrongs produced a temper which
national considerations had proved too weak to excite; and, when the
battles of Trenton and Princeton relieved the inhabitants from fears
inspired by the presence of their invaders, the great body of the
people flew to arms; and numbers who could not be brought into the
field to check the advancing enemy, and prevent the ravages which
uniformly afflict a country that becomes the seat of war, were prompt
in avenging those ravages. Small bodies of militia scoured the
country, seized on stragglers, behaved unexceptionably well in several
slight skirmishes, and were collecting in such numbers as to threaten
the weaker British posts with the fate which had befallen Trenton and
Princeton.

To guard against that spirit of enterprise which his adversary had
displayed to such advantage, General Howe determined to strengthen his
posts by contracting them. The position