men, for
little rain had fallen for a long time except on the 26th of August--and
now the September sun was pouring down, so that in the hillside fields
roundabout the ploughman, preparing his ground for winter wheat, rested
his sweating horses at the end of each furrow and wiped his own beaded
face with the handkerchief from his hat. The upland pastures were brown;
dust had settled on the forest foliage; the whole face of Nature was
athirst; and the Brandywine, flowing from north to south half a mile
away, was shrunken and narrow.

As the Friends sat in the shop, hats on heads, the elders and overseers
"facing the meeting," women on one side, men on the other, all on
hastily-arranged benches of wheelwright planks, their silent serenity
must have been inwardly disturbed, for the spiritual ear surely heard
wild voices of conflict in the air. The shock of a near battle was
impending; the very tread of the advancing invaders could almost be
heard; already, indeed, as the Friends gathered in meeting, the fighting
had begun six miles down the creek, near the ford at John and Amos
Chad's.

On the preceding 20th of July--a Sunday--General David Forman, who had
been patiently watching from the shores of New York Bay the embarkation
of the British army upon the fleet of Lord Howe, and anxiously wondering
from day to day whither the armada, with its eighteen thousand soldiers,
would sail, observed an increased activity amongst the ships. One
hundred and sixty sail lay inside of Sandy Hook. Next morning fifteen
more came down from the city, and in the afternoon yet eighty
more--mostly small brigs, schooners and sloops--came out of the Narrows
and joined the fleet, so that it numbered two hundred and fifty-five
sail.

On Wednesday the wind favored their departure. At half-past six in the
morning the admiral's signal-gun was fired, and at seven they began to
get under way. All day the vigilant Forman watched them as they passed
out of the bay and moved down the Jersey coast. In three divisions they
stretched away, steering mostly south-east, and moving like an immense
flock of white waterfowl over the placid summer seas. He riding on shore
as they sailed on the water, night found him at Shrewsbury, and thence,
with all speed, he sent couriers to General Washington and to the
Executive Council of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. The council, in whose
archives we find his despatch, at once sent another scout, Captain John
Hunn, to th