's papers, that while a
prisoner with the British Lee had suggested to Sir William Howe a plan
for subjugating the Americans. This fact throws a flood of light on Lee's
conduct at Monmouth.

* * *

A few days after the battle of Monmouth occurred the awful massacre of
Wyoming. Tories and Indians, led by Colonel John Butler, descended into
the happy valley, inhabited by settlers from Butler's native Connecticut,
and spread fire, bloodshed and desolation. Hundreds of men, women and
children perished, many of them by torture, and the survivors made their
way back through the wilderness to Connecticut. Among the victims of this
massacre was Anderson Dana, a direct ancestor of Charles Anderson Dana,
the well-known editor. Everywhere throughout the borders Tories and
Indians carried fire and death, the British sparing no effort to stir up
the tribes to hostility. The patriots suffered terribly, but the ferocity
of the savages and of their hardly less savage associates made Americans
all the more resolute in resisting and overcoming the foes of American
independence. General Sullivan invaded the country of the Six Nations,
and inflicted upon them a crushing defeat. In the southwest, the
frontiersmen, not content with resisting the enemy, followed them into
their wilds, and laid the foundations of new States. In the northwest,
Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, who was more
responsible, perhaps, than any other British officer for inciting the
Indians to deeds of barbarity, was defeated and captured by George Rogers
Clark, and the whole country north of the Ohio River, from the
Alleghanies to the Mississippi, became subject to the United States.

The British still held New York and Newport, and Washington planned to
capture the former place with the assistance of a fleet which had arrived
from France. Some of the vessels drew too much water, however, to cross
the bar, and the scheme was abandoned. The French fleet proceeded to
Newport, and compelled the British to burn or sink six frigates in that
harbor. An American force of about 10,000 men had been fathered under
command of General Sullivan to drive the British out of Rhode Island, and
it was expected that the troops, numbering 4000, on board the French
fleet, would assist in the undertaking. The French admiral, D'Estaing,
failed to support Sullivan, and the latter, with a force reduced by the
wholesale desertion of