simply with rebellious
populations, and Washington was soldier enough to know that an army can
always in time break up and keep down a mere population, however eager
and courageous.

And now England at last did what, if she were determined to enforce her
will upon the colonists, she ought to have done at least five years
before. She sent out an army on a scale at least reasonably adequate to
the business for which it was designed. It consisted partly of excellent
British troops and partly of those mercenaries whom the smaller German
princes let out for hire to those who chose to employ them. It was
commanded by Lord Howe. The objective of the new invasion--for the
procrastination of the British Government had allowed the war to assume
that character--was the city of New York.

New York harbour possesses, as anyone who enters it can see, excellent
natural defences. Manhattan Island, upon which the city is built, lies
at the mouth of the Hudson between two arms of that river. At the
estuary are a number of small islets well suited for the emplacement of
powerful guns. The southern bank runs northward into a sharp promontory,
at the end of which now stands the most formidable of American
fortresses. The northern approach is covered by Long Island. The British
command decided on the reduction of Long Island as a preliminary to an
assault upon the city. The island is long and narrow, and a ridge of
high ground runs down it like a backbone. This ridge Washington's army
sought to hold against the attack of the British forces. It was the
first real battle of the war, and it resulted in a defeat so
overwhelming that it might well have decided the fate of America had not
Washington, as soon as he saw how the day was going, bent all his
energies to the tough task of saving his army. It narrowly escaped
complete destruction, but ultimately a great part succeeded, though with
great loss and not a little demoralization, in reaching Brooklyn in
safety.

The Americans still held New York, the right bank of the Hudson; but
their flank was dangerously threatened, and Washington, true to his
policy, preferred the damaging loss of New York to the risk of his army.
He retired inland, again offered battle, was again defeated and forced
back into Pennsylvania. So decided did the superiority of the British
army prove to be that eventually Philadelphia itself, then the capital
of the Confederacy, had to be abandoned.

Meanwhile another Br