A smaller mutiny in the same month by the New Jersey line was summarily ended by hanging its chief promoters. Toward the end of January a bold and successful raid was made by Lieutenant-Colonel Hull from the Westchester lines upon de Lancey's corps at Morrisania. A number of tin1 British were killed and fifty were captured, some of their huts were burned, and the pontoon bridge across the Harlem River was cut away; and in another engagement, which occurred during the retreat of the Americans, the British suffered a further loss of thirty-five. Thacher, in his Military Journal, speaks of this affair with the greatest praise, saying that it "is calculated to raise the spirits of our troops and to divert their minds from the unhappy occurrences which have recently taken place in the camp." The episode of the mutinies shows more vividly than can be done by any formal recital of the circumstances of the times what fundamental difficult ies Washington had to contend against in entering

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upon his arrangements for the general military proceedings of 1781. The time had now arrived when something decisive must indispensably be undertaken. A large and perfectly appointed French cooperative army was at hand, and additional land forces from France were sure to come, together with a powerful fleet. All that was required was for the Americans to prove themselves worthy of this assistance by respectably matching it with forces of their own; whereas they appeared almost unequal to the task of maintaining any army at all! Moreover, the situation at the South was weekly becoming more desperate. In December Clinton sent Arnold to Virginia with a large expedition, and in the spring Oornwallis also began aggressions in that quarter. The Southern emergencies were so extreme that Washington's individual command, wretchedly weak ami neglected though it was, could not be strengthened or receive any fostering attention without prejudicing interests at the seat of war.