followed was he able to advance more than twenty-five
miles from Fort Edward. The moment he needed transport by land he
found himself almost helpless. Sometimes his men were without food and
equipment because he had not the horses and carts to bring supplies from
the head of water at Fort Anne or Fort George, a score of miles
away. Sometimes he had no food to transport. He was dependent on his
communications for every form of supplies. Even hay had to be brought
from Canada, since, in the forest country, there was little food for his
horses. The perennial problem for the British in all operations was this
one of food. The inland regions were too sparsely populated to make it
possible for more than a few soldiers to live on local supplies. The
wheat for the bread of the British soldier, his beef and his pork, even
the oats for his horse, came, for the most part, from England, at vast
expense for transport, which made fortunes for contractors. It is said
that the cost of a pound of salted meat delivered to Burgoyne on the
Hudson was thirty shillings. Burgoyne had been told that the inhabitants
needed only protection to make them openly loyal and had counted on them
for supplies. He found instead the great mass of the people hostile and
he doubted the sincerity even of those who professed their loyalty.

After Burgoyne had been a month at Fort Edward he was face to face with
starvation. If he advanced he lengthened his line to flank attack. As
it was he had difficulty in holding it against New Englanders, the most
resolute of all his foes, eager to assert by hard fighting, if need be,
their right to hold the invaded territory which was claimed also by New
York. Burgoyne's instructions forbade him to turn aside and strike them
a heavy blow. He must go on to meet Howe who was not there to be met.
A being who could see the movements of men as we watch a game of chess,
might think that madness had seized the British leaders; Burgoyne on
the upper Hudson plunging forward resolutely to meet Howe; Howe at sea
sailing away, as it might well seem, to get as far from Burgoyne as he
could; Clinton in command at New York without instructions, puzzled what
to do and not hearing from his leader, Howe, for six weeks at a time;
and across the sea a complacent minister, Germain, who believed that he
knew what to do in a scene three thousand miles away, and had drawn up
exact instructions as to the way of doing it, and who was now eagerly
aw