--Byron.

THE BATTLE OF TRENTON

In December, 1776, the American Revolution was at its lowest ebb.
The first burst of enthusiasm, which drove the British back from
Concord and met them hand to hand at Bunker Hill, which forced
them to abandon Boston and repulsed their attack at Charleston,
had spent its force. The undisciplined American forces called
suddenly from the workshop and the farm had given way, under the
strain of a prolonged contest, and had been greatly scattered,
many of the soldiers returning to their homes. The power of
England, on the other hand, with her disciplined army and
abundant resources, had begun to tell. Washington, fighting
stubbornly, had been driven during the summer and autumn from
Long Island up the Hudson, and New York had passed into the hands
of the British. Then Forts Lee and Washington had been lost, and
finally the Continental army had retreated to New Jersey. On the
second of December Washington was at Princeton with some three
thousand ragged soldiers, and had escaped destruction only by the
rapidity of his movements. By the middle of the month General
Howe felt that the American army, unable as he believed either to
fight or to withstand the winter, must soon dissolve, and,
posting strong detachments at various points, he took up his
winter quarters in New York. The British general had under his
command in his various divisions twenty-five thousand
well-disciplined soldiers, and the conclusion he had reached was
not an unreasonable one; everything, in fact, seemed to confirm
his opinion. Thousands of the colonists were coming in and
accepting his amnesty. The American militia had left the field,