the time Sir William Howe crossed the Schuylkill, and were
employed in the removal of stores. On the approach of the
British army, they were directed to avoid it by moving up
the Frankford road; but the commanding officer, having
separated himself from his corps, was taken by a party of
British horse employed in scouring the country; on which the
regiment dispersed, and returned by different roads to
Jersey. With much labour General Dickinson assembled two
other corps amounting to about nine hundred men, with whom
he was about to cross the Delaware when intelligence was
received of the arrival at New York of a reinforcement from
Europe. He was detained in Jersey for the defence of the
state, and the militia designed to serve in Pennsylvania
were placed under General Forman. About six hundred of them
reached the army a few days before the battle of Germantown,
immediately after which they were permitted to return.]

The attention of both armies was most principally directed to the
forts below Philadelphia.

The loss of the Delaware frigate, and of Billingsport, greatly
discouraged the seamen by whom the galleys and floating batteries were
manned. Believing the fate of America to be decided, an opinion
strengthened by the intelligence received from their connexions in
Philadelphia, they manifested the most alarming defection, and several
officers as well as sailors deserted to the enemy. This desponding
temper was checked by the battle of Germantown, and by throwing a
garrison of continental troops into the fort at Red Bank, called fort
Mercer, the defence of which had been entrusted to militia. This fort
commanded the channel between the Jersey shore and Mud Island; and the