Arnold's conduct in the city of Philadelphia, the preceding winter, had been censured, and the treatment he received in consequence had given him offense. He determined to have revenge and for this purpose he entered into a negotiation with Sir Henry Clinton, to deliver West Point and the army into the hands of the British. 22. While General Washington was absent, he dismounted the cannon in some of the forts, and took other steps to render the taking of the post easy for the enemy. But by a providential discovery. the whole plan was defeated. Ma jor Andre, aid to General Clinton, a brave officer, who had been up the river as a spy, to concert the plan of operations with Arnold, was taken, condemned by a court-martial, and executed. Arnold made his escape by getting on board the Vulture, a British vessel which lay in the river. His conduct has stamped him with infamy, and, like all traitors, he is despised by all mankind. General Washington arrived in camp just after Arnold had made his escape, and restored order in the garrison. 23. After the defeat of General Gates, in Carolina, Genera! Greene was appointed to the command in the southern department. From this period, things in this quarter wore a more favorable aspect. Colonel Tarleton, the active commander of the British legion, was defeated by General Morgan, the intrepid commander of the riflemen. After a variety of movements, the two armies met at Guilford, in North Carolina. Here was one of the best fought actions during the war. General Greene and Lord Cornwallis exerted hemselves, at the head of their respective armies; and although the Americans were obliged to retire from the field of battle, yet the British army suffered an immense loss, and could not pursue the victory. This action happened on the 15th of March, 1781. 21. In the spring, Arnold, who was made a brigadier-general in the British service, with a small number of troops, sailed for Virginia, and plundered the country. This called the attention of the French fleet to that quarter, and a naval engagement took place, between the English and French, in which some of the English ships were much damaged, and one entirely disabled. 25. After the battle at Guilford, General Greene moved toward South Carolina, to drive the British from their posts in that state. Here Lord Rawdon obtained an inconsiderable advantage over the Americans, near Camden. But Genera Greene more than recovered this disadvantage, by the brilliant and successful action at the Eutaw Springs, where General Marion distinguished himself, and the brave Colone Washington was wounded and taken prisoner. Lord Corn wallis, finding General Greene successful in Carolina, marched to Virginia, collected his forces, and fortified himself in Yorktown. 26. In the mean time, Arnold made an incursion into Connecticut, burnt a part of New London, took Fort Griswold by storm, and put the garrison to the sword. The garrison consisted chiefly of men suddenly collected from the little town of Groton, which, by the savage cruelty of the British officer who commanded the attack, lost, in one hour, almost all its heads of families. The brave Colonel Ledyard, wha commanded the fort, was slain with his own sword after he had surrendered. 27. The Marquis de la Fayette, the brave and generous nobleman, whose services command the gratitude of every American, had been despatched from the main army to watch the motions of Lord Cornwallis, in Virginia. About the last of August, Count de Grasse arrived with a large fleet in the Chesapeake, and blocked up the British troops at Yorktown Admiral Greaves, with a British fleet, appeared off the Capes, and an action succeeded, but it was not decisive. 28. General Washington had before this time moved the main body of his army, together with the French troops, to the southward; and, as soon as he heard of the arrival of the French flect in the Chesapeake, he made rapid marches to the head of the Elk, where, embarking, the troops soon arrived at Yorktown. A close siege immediately commenced, and was carried on with such vigor by the combined forces of America and France, that Lord Cornwallis was obliged to surrender. 29. This glorious event, which took place on the 19th of October, 1781, decided the contest in favor of America, and laid the foundation of a general peace. A few months after the surrender of Cornwallis, the British evacuated all their posts in South Carolina and Georgia, and retired to the main army in New York. 30. The next spring, (1782,) Sir Guy Carlton arrived in New York, and took command of the British army in America. Immediately after his arrival, he acquainted General Washington and congress, that negotiations for a peace had been commenced at Paris. On the 30th of November, 1782, the provisional articles of peace were signed at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the independence and Sovereignty of the United States of America. 31. Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great with a Britain expended near a hundred millions of money, hundred thousand lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and distress from her enemies-lost many lives and much treasure-but delivered herself from a foreign do minion, and gained a rank among the nations of the earth. QUESTIONS. When was the declaration of Independence published? What tended to raise the desponding hopes of America in the latter par of 1776 ? What splendid advantages did the Americans gain in 1777 ? When was a treaty of alliance formed between the French and Americans? Who took the command of the English army on the return of Gen. Howe} Why was Gen. Lee suspended? What took place on the 15th July, 1779? Where and under what circunstances was Count Polaski mortally wounded What prevented West Point from falling into the possession of the English? What distinguished French military and naval commanders were sent to the aid of America } a What event is reckoned to have decided the contest between England and America? flow much money did England expend, and how many lives did she sacrifice in the war? CHAPTER II DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, By the representatives of the United States of America, în Congress assembled, July 4, 1776. WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the pow ers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires, that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident-that all men are treated equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accord ingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former system of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct ohject the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature—a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies, at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into com pliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalizaJon of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of offices, and sent here swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. ile has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdicon, foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murder they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jurz: For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English law in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our govern ments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever: He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become |