He made every arrangement possible to maintain the forts, and the first assaults upon them were repulsed with great slaughter, the British in the attack on Fort Mercer losing Count Donop, the leader, and four hundred men.

Then came a breathing space, and then the attacks were renewed, supported by vessels, and both forts were abandoned after the works had been leveled to the ground by the enemy's fire.

Meanwhile Hamilton, sent to the north, had done his work; Gates had been stirred, and Putnam, well-meaning but stubborn, had been sharply brought to his bearings.

Reinforcements had come, and Washington meditated an attack on Philadelphia.

There was a good deal of clamor for something brilliant and decisive, for both the army and the public were a little dizzy from the effects of Saratoga, and with sublime blindness to different conditions, could not see why the same performance should not be repeated to order everywhere else.