by engaging the enemy on disadvantageous terms. The numbers of the
British exceeded his, even counting his militia as regulars; and he
determined to wait for Glover's brigade, which was marching from the
north. Before its arrival, Lord Cornwallis took post on Gloucester
Point, a point of land making deep into the Delaware, which was
entirely under cover of the guns of the ships, from which place he was
embarking his baggage and the provisions he had collected for
Philadelphia.[73]

[Footnote 73: While Lord Cornwallis lay on Gloucester Point,
about one hundred and fifty men of Morgan's rifle corps
under Lieutenant Colonel Butler, and an equal number of
militia, the whole under the Marquis de la Fayette, who
still served as a volunteer, attacked a picket consisting of
about three hundred men, and drove them with the loss of
twenty or thirty killed, and a greater number wounded, quite
into their camp; after which the Americans retired without
being pursued.]

Believing that Lord Cornwallis would immediately follow the magazines
he had collected, and that the purpose of Sir William Howe was, with
his united forces, to attack the American army while divided, General
Washington ordered Greene to recross the Delaware, and join the army.

[Sidenote: The enemy succeeds in opening a free communication with his
fleet.]

Thus after one continued struggle of more than six weeks, in which the
continental troops displayed great military virtues, the army in
Philadelphia secured itself in the possession of that city, by opening