shopkeepers, who advertise “Tobacco, as good as the
best imported,” and represents the arts and manufactures
as being in a very backward state. No sort of
work is done in ivory, steel, stucco, bone, embroidery,
or silk. “The English send them all that, and all that
they send is welcome. And, moreover, the American,
and particularly the Philadelphian, is so conceited as
to think that no country on earth is more beautiful,
happier, richer, or more flourishing than his hardly
budding state.” Such, however, is not the feeling of
the writer of the letter. “If the honorable Count
Pen,” says he, “would give me the whole country in
exchange for my commission, with the condition that
I should live here all my life, I would hardly take it.”[1]
In the early part of December, Sir William Howe marched out from Philadelphia to bring on a general engagement. The armies were opposite each other in the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill, about eleven miles from the town, for three days, apparently preparing for a battle—marching, countermarching, and skirmishing; and then the English general, thinking Washington's position too strong to be attacked, slipped very quietly back to Philadelphia.
Two foraging expeditions were made during this month, at the end of which the British army went into winter quarters. Eleven redoubts were built between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, the line running over Morris's Heights, and each of them was occupied by a captain and fifty men, who were relieved every twenty-four hours. The picket line was intrusted to Provincials near the Schuylkill, and to the Hessian chasseurs
- ↑ Schlözer's “Briefwechsel,” vol. iii. p. 149-153; vol. iv. p. 115-117.
