memoir it is said that Lee delayed so strangely in order
to intercept the enemy in pursuit of Washington; and it is added:

"If General Lee had anticipated General Washington in cutting the cordon
of the enemy between New York and the Delaware, the commander-in-chief
would probably have been superseded. In this case Lee would have
succeeded him."

Washington was too magnanimous to exult over the fall of Lee.
Notwithstanding his knowledge of Lee's plans to supersede him, he wrote
to his brother:

"Before you receive this letter, you will undoubtedly have heard of the
capture of General Lee. This is an additional misfortune; and the more
vexatious, as it was by his own folly and imprudence, and without a view
to effect any good, that he was taken. As he went to lodge three miles
out of his own camp, and within twenty miles of the enemy, a rascally
Tory rode in the night to give notice of it to the enemy, who sent a
party of light-horse, who seized him, and carried him off with every
mark of triumph and indignity."

XX.

BATTLES OF TRENTON AND PRINCETON.

Washington was so anxious for the safety of Philadelphia, that he
appointed General Putnam to command the post, with instructions to
fortify the city at once. At the same time he advised Congress to remove
to Baltimore; and that body, after hastily completing the business
before them, adjourned to meet in the latter city on the 20th of
December.

By this time his army numbered about five thousand available men. One
thousand militia from New Jersey, and fifteen hundred from Pennsylvania,
with five hundred Germans from the latter State, was a very encouraging
increase of his worn and wasted army. Then he had word that General
Gates was coming on with seven regiments detached by Schuyler from the
northern department. Washington was hopeful again, and began to plan an
attack upon the enemy.

Before Congress adjourned to meet at Baltimore, they clothed Washington
with unusual powers. They voted:

"Until Congress orders otherwise, General Washington shall be possessed
of all power to order and direct all things relative to the department
and to the operations of war."

In the days of ancient Rome, such power would have constituted him a
military dictator. It was conferred in answer to a remarkable
communication from Washington himself, one of the most able, practical,
and faithful public documents extant, in which he said:

"It may be thought that I am go