n New York.
Under these conditions nothing remained but to put the Delaware also
between himself and the enemy. He therefore retreated rapidly through
New Jersey, and on the 8th of December crossed into Pennsylvania
with an army reduced to three thousand by expiry of enlistments. The
detachment beyond the Hudson, diminishing daily by the same cause,
gradually worked its way to him; its commander luckily being captured
on the road. At the time it joined, a few battalions also arrived
from Ticonderoga, released by Carleton's retirement to the foot of
Champlain. Washington's force on the west bank of the Delaware was
thus increased to six thousand men.

In this series of operations, extending from August 22d to December
14th, when Howe went into winter-quarters in New Jersey, the British
had met with no serious mishaps, beyond the inevitable losses
undergone by the assailants of well-chosen positions. Nevertheless,
having in view the superiority of numbers, of equipment, and of
discipline, and the command of the water, the mere existence of the
enemy's army as an organised body, its mere escape, deprives the
campaign of the claim to be considered successful. The red ribbon of
the Bath probably never was earned more cheaply than by Sir William
Howe that year. Had he displayed anything like the energy of his two
elder brothers, Washington, with all his vigilance, firmness,
and enterprise, could scarcely have brought off the force, vastly
diminished but still a living organism, around which American
resistance again crystallised and hardened. As it was, within a month
he took the offensive, and recovered a great part of New Jersey.

Whatever verdict may be passed upon the merit of the military conduct
of affairs, there is no doubt of the value, or of the unflagging
energy, of the naval support given. Sir William Howe alludes to it
frequently, both in general and specifically; while the Admiral sums
up his always guarded and often cumbrous expressions of opinion in
these words: "It is incumbent upon me to represent to your Lordships,
and I cannot too pointedly express, the unabating perseverance and
alacrity with which the several classes of officers and seamen have
supported a long attendance and unusual degree of fatigue, consequent
of these different movements of the army."

The final achievement of the campaign, and a very important one, was
the occupation of Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay by a combined
expedition,