On their existence everything hinged, and when Howe got back to Philadelphia, there they were still existent, still coherent, hovering on his flank, cooping him up in his lines, and leaving him master of little more than the ground his men encamped upon, and the streets his sentinels patrolled.

When Franklin was told in Paris that Howe had taken Philadelphia, his reply was, "Philadelphia has taken Howe." But, with the exception of Franklin, contemporary opinion in the month of December, 1777, was very different from that of to-day, and the cabal had been at work ever since the commander-in-chief had stepped between Conway and the exorbitant rank he coveted.

Washington, indeed, was perfectly aware of what was going on.

He was quiet and dignified, impassive and silent, but he knew when men, whether great or small, were plotting against him, and he watched them with the same keenness as he did Howe and the British.
In the midst of his struggle to hold the Delaware forts, and of his efforts to get back his troops from the north, a story came to him that arrested his attention.

Wilkinson, of Gates's staff, had come to Congress with the news of the surrender.