with Burgoyne and St. Leger.

It was thought that such an imposing display of military force would
make the Tory party supreme in New York, put an end to all resistance
there, and effectually cut the United States in two. Then if the
southern states on the one hand and the New England states on the other
did not hasten to submit, they might afterward be attacked separately
and subdued.

In this plan the ministry made the fatal mistake of underrating the
strength of the feeling which, from one end of the United States to the
other, was setting itself every day more and more decidedly against the
Tories and in favour of independence. This feeling grew as fast as the
anti-slavery feeling grew among the northern people during our Civil
War. In 1861 President Lincoln thought it necessary to rebuke his
generals who were too forward in setting free the slaves of persons
engaged in rebellion against the United States. In 1862 he announced his
purpose to emancipate all such slaves; and then it took less than three
years to put an end to slavery forever. It was just so with the
sentiment in favour of separation from Great Britain. In July, 1775,
Thomas Jefferson expressly declared that the Americans had not raised
armies with any intention of declaring their independence of the
mother-country. In July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, written
by Jefferson, was proclaimed to the world, though the consent of the
middle colonies and of South Carolina seemed somewhat reluctant. By the
summer of 1777 the Tories were almost everywhere in a hopeless minority.
Every day of warfare, showing Great Britain more and more clearly as an
enemy to be got rid of, diminished their strength; so that, even in New
York and South Carolina, where they were strongest, it would not do for
the British ministry to count too much upon any support they might give.

It was natural enough that King George and his ministers should fail to
understand all this, but their mistake was their ruin. If they had
understood that Burgoyne's march from Lake Champlain to the Hudson river
was to be a march through a country thoroughly hostile, perhaps they
would not have been so ready to send him on such a dangerous expedition.
It would have been much easier and safer to have sent his army by sea to
New York, to reinforce Sir William Howe. Threatening movements might
have been made by some of the Canada forces against Ticonderoga, so as
to keep Schuyler busy in that