e plight, but he will not come out and meet us in the open. He
continues to lean upon the strength of the hills. But there are
indications that he will be abandoned by his own army."

Those "indications" were the letters of one John Anderson, who
described himself as a prominent officer in the American army. The
letters were written to Sir Henry Clinton. They asked for a command in
the British army and hinted at the advantage to be derived from facts,
of prime importance, in the writer's possession.

Margaret and her mother sailed with Sir Roger Waite and his regiments
on the tenth of March and arrived in New York on the twenty-sixth of
April. _Rivington's Gazette_ of the twenty-eighth of that month
describes an elaborate dinner given by Major John Andre,
Adjutant-General of the British Army, at the City Hotel to General Sir
Benjamin Hare and Lady Hare and their daughter Margaret. Indeed the
conditions in New York differed from those in the camp of Washington as
the day differs from the night.

A Committee of Congress had just finished a visit to Washington's
Highland camp. They reported that the army had received no pay in five
months; that it often went "sundry successive days without meat"; that
it had scarcely six days' provisions ahead; that no forage was
available; that the medical department had neither sugar, tea,
chocolate, wine nor spirits.

The month of May, 1780, gave Washington about the worst pinch in his
career. It was the pinch of hunger. Supplies had not arrived. Famine
had entered the camp and begun to threaten its life. Soldiers can get
along without pay but they must have food. Mutiny broke out among the
recruits.

In the midst of this trouble, Lafayette, the handsome French Marquis,
then twenty-three years old, arrived on his white horse, after a winter
in Paris, bringing word that a fleet and army from France were heading
across the sea. This news revived the drooping spirit of the army.
Soon boats began to arrive from down the river with food from the east.
The crisis passed. In the north a quiet summer followed. The French
fleet with six thousand men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport, July
tenth, and were immediately blockaded by the British as was a like
expedition fitting out at Brest. So Washington could only hold to his
plan of prudent waiting.

2

On a clear, warm day, late in July, 1780, a handsome coach drawn by
four horses crossed King's Ferry and toiled up