be the effective signal to all the American Loyalists, the
overwhelming majority of the people, as was believed, that
sedition had failed. A tender parent, the King, was ready to have
the colonies back in their former relation and to give them
secure guarantees of future liberty. Any one who saw the fleet
put out from New York Harbor must have been impressed with the
might of Britain. No less than two hundred and twenty-nine ships
set their sails and covered the sea for miles. When they had
disappeared out of sight of the New Jersey shore their goal was
still unknown. At sea they might turn in any direction.
Washington's uncertainty was partly relieved on the 30th of July
when the fleet appeared at the entrance of Delaware Bay, with
Philadelphia some hundred miles away across the bay and up the
Delaware River. After hovering about the Cape for a day the fleet
again put to sea, and Washington, who had marched his army so as
to be near Philadelphia, thought the whole movement a feint and
knew not where the fleet would next appear. He was preparing to
march to New York to menace General Clinton, who had there seven
thousand men able to help Burgoyne when he heard good news. On
the 22d of August he knew that Howe had really gone southward and
was in Chesapeake Bay. Boston was now certainly safe. On the 25th
of August, after three stormy weeks at sea, Howe arrived at
Elkton, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, and there landed his army.
It was Philadelphia fifty miles away that he intended to have.
Washington wrote gleefully "Now let all New England turn out and
crush Burgoyne." Before the end of September he was writing that
he was certain of complete disaster to Burgoyne.

Howe had, in truth, made a ruinous mistake. Had the date been May
instead of August he might still have saved Burgoyne. But at the