served with great distinction as governor-general of India, reached the grade of field-marshal, the highest in the British army, was made a knight of the garter and raised in the peerage to a marquisate. In our Revolutionary War he played the most important part among the British generals, though he did not hold the chief command. It is worthy of note that, like General Howe, he felt great sympathy for the Americans, and disapproved of the harsh measures of the British government which had driven them to rebellion.

On the arrival of Parker's fleet it was decided to capture the city of Charleston and overrun South Carolina. To ward off the blow General Charles Lee had been sent to Charleston, but did little more than to meddle and hinder. He laughed loudly at a fortress of palmetto logs which Colonel William Moultrie built on Sullivan's Island and manned with twelve hundred troops. Lee had never seen anything of the sort in Europe, and would have ordered Moultrie to dismantle and abandon it, but Governor Rutledge overruled him. On the 28th of June a furious attack was made by the fleet, and kept up for ten hours, but the palmetto fort was victorious. At the end of the fight only one of its guns had been dismounted, while the British ships were badly cut up, and several of them rendered quite unseaworthy. Clinton then sailed away to take part in the operations around New York, and the southern states were left unmolested for two years. By many of the people, especially at the North, Lee got all the credit for this brilliant victory, and his reputation was much increased thereby.

§ 5. FIRST GREAT DEFENSIVE CAMPAIGN.

Arrival of Lord Howe. When General Howe was driven from Boston, he steered for Halifax, there to await the arrival of reinforcements from England, and the fleet of his brother Richard, Earl Howe, who had been appointed admiral of the fleet for North America, and commissioner to arrange matters peaceably, if possible, and prevent the further continuance of the war. The two brothers were widely different in their habits and dispositions.

William was easy and indolent; Richard was energetic and enterprising. His name ranks high in the list of England's great sailors. He was a skilful seaman and brave commander, and his men used to say of him, "Give us Black Dick, and we fear nothing."

Lord Howe arrived in New York harbor on the 12th of July. His brother had arrived a few days before, with twenty-five thousand troops, whose white tents might now be seen dotted about over the picturesque hills of Staten Island. It had been expected that New York would be the first point to be attacked by the British, and Washington had moved his army thither from Boston early in April. Fortifications had been erected by Lee, and the American troops, some eighteen thousand in number, were guarding as well as they could the exposed water front of New York Island. On the Hudson river there were garrisons at Forts Washington and Lee, and at Paulus Hook, now known as Jersey City. From across the East river the heights of Brooklyn commanded New York, just as Dorchester Heights commanded Boston, and here nine thousand men were posted under Putnam. General Howe decided to strike at this point, and disperse or capture this force. Battle of Long Island. The village of Brooklyn stood on a kind of peninsula, formed by the deep inlets of Wallabout Bay on the north, and Gowanus Cove on the south. A line of entrenchments and strong redoubts extended across the neck of the peninsula, from the bay to a swamp and creek emptying into the cove. To protect the rear of the works from the enemy's ships, a battery was erected at Red Hook, the southwest corner of the peninsula, and a fort on Governor's Island, nearly opposite. About two miles and a half in front of the line of entrenchments, a range of hills, densely wooded, extended from southwest to northeast, forming a natural barrier across the island. It was traversed by three roads. One, on the left of the works, stretched eastwardly to Bedford, and then by a pass through the Bedford Hills to the village of Jamaica; another, central and direct, led through the woody heights to Flatbush; a third, on the right of the lines, passed by Gowanus Cove to the Narrows and Gravesend Bay. The occupation of this range of hills, and the protection of its passes, was entrusted to General Sullivan.

From the 22d to the 25th of August, General Howe sent twenty thousand men over to Long Island, where they landed at Gravesend Bay and prepared to attack the American position. Sir Henry Clinton, with the vanguard, composed of the choicest troops, was by a circuitous march in the night, to throw himself into the road leading from Jamaica to Bedford, seize upon a pass through the Bedford Hills, within three miles of that village, and thus turn the left of the American advanced posts.

To divert the attention of the Americans from this stealthy march on their left, General Grant was to menace their right flank toward Gravesend before daybreak, and General von Heister to cannonade their centre, where Colonel Hand was stationed. Neither, however, was to press an attack until the guns of Sir Henry Clinton should give notice that he had effected his purpose, and turned the left flank of the Americans; then the latter were to be assailed at all points with the utmost vigor.

About nine o'clock in the evening of the 26th, Sir Henry Clinton began his march from Flatlands with the vanguard, composed of light infantry. Lord Percy followed with the grenadiers, artillery, and light dragoons, forming the centre. Lord Cornwallis brought up the rear-guard with the heavy ordnance. General Howe accompanied this division.

It was a silent march, without beat of drum or sound of trumpet, under guidance of a Long Island Tory, along by-roads traversing a swamp by a narrow causeway, and so across the country to the Jamaica road. About two hours before daybreak, they arrived within half a mile of the pass through the Bedford Hills, and halted to prepare for an attack. At this juncture they captured an American patrol, and learnt, to their surprise, that the Bedford pass was unoccupied. In fact, the whole road beyond Bedford, leading to Jamaica, was left unguarded, excepting by some light volunteer troops. Colonels Williams and Miles, who were stationed to the left of Colonel Hand, among the wooded hills, had been instructed to send out parties occasionally to patrol the road, but no troops had been stationed at the Bedford pass. The road and pass may have been thought too far out of the way to need special precau