Commander-in-chief should be used on the occasion. Lieutenant Colonel
Hamilton, one of the General's aids, a young gentleman already in high
estimation for his talents and zeal, was employed on this delicate
business. "Your own prudence," said the General, in a letter to him
while in Philadelphia, "will point out the least exceptionable means
to be pursued; but remember, delicacy and a strict adherence to the
ordinary mode of application must give place to our necessities. We
must, if possible, accommodate the soldiers with such articles as they
stand in need of, or we shall have just reason to apprehend the most
injurious and alarming consequences from the approaching season."

All the efforts, however, of this very active officer could not obtain
a supply, in any degree, adequate to the pressing and increasing wants
of the army.

[Sidenote: General Howe takes possession of Philadelphia.]

[Sidenote: Congress removes to Lancaster.]

Colonel Hamilton was also directed to cause the military stores which
had been previously collected to a large amount in Philadelphia, and
the vessels which were lying at the wharves, to be removed up the
Delaware. This duty was executed with so much vigilance, that very
little public property fell, with the city, into the hands of the
British general, who entered it on the 26th of September. The members
of congress separated on the eighteenth, in the evening, and
reassembled at Lancaster on the twenty-seventh of the same month.

From the 25th of August, when the British army landed at the Head of
Elk, until the 26th of September when it entered Philadelphia, the