vi                   Preface.

           party of the enemy's dragoons; but his force kept on their march and

           joined Washington.

             Washington's army, all told, now did not exceed 6000 men, but with

           this small force he resolved to strike a blow that, if successful, would

           check the enemy's victorious course, and hearten the despondent

           soldiery. On Christmas night he recrossed the Delaware, and at early

           morning surprised and captured a party of about a thousand Hessians

           posted at Trenton, where he entrenched himself. With this brilliant

           exploit, of no great moment, it is true, from a strategic point of view,

           but which by restoring confidence in the cause, and the abilities of the

           Commander-in-Chief, really proved the turning-point of the war, the

           year 1776 closed.

             In these letters we note the first appearance of a question which

           afterwards became of high importance—that of the public lands. The

           case was this: Virginia, by her Constitution adopted in June, 1776,

           asserted a right to all the territory to the north and west included in

           her charter of 1609, as modified by the treaty of Paris in 1763;

           renouncing, however, all claim on the chartered territories of Maryland,

           Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. This extraordinary claim, if allowed,

           would have given her a vast domain extending to the Pacific Ocean,

           according to the charter of 1609, or to the Mississippi, according to the

           treaty. Of course, to this she had no title whatever. The charter of

           1609 had been revoked by due process of law in 1624, to the great

           satisfaction of the whole colony, except the patentees, and no new

           charter had been granted. Charter boundaries she had none. A claim

           resting on victories over the Indians in 1774 was quite as nugatory, for

           the Virginians at that time being subjects of Great Britain, all lands

           they might acquire by conquest inured, not to themselves, but to the

           crown. Nor could they claim by possession, for the lands had not been

           occupied.

             What brought the matter into prominence at this early stage of the

           war was the question of bounty-lands. As the terms of enlistments

           were expiring, and the late reverses had much discouraged the people,

           Congress resolved to offer a bounty of twenty dollars and one hundred

           acres of land to every soldier that would enlist for the war. But where

           were these bounty-lands to be obtained? Maryland, with a strictly

           limited boundary, and no vast domains west of the Alleghanies, had no

           such lands to offer. The Convention, in October, protested against

           these extravagant claims of Virginia, not only as unfounded, but as

           unjust to the other States, and as constituting a standing menace to

           them. If this western territory should be wrested from Great Britain,

           this could only be done by the exertion of the States conjointly, and it

           should therefore be held as the common property of all. As matters

           now stood, if the resolutions of Congress bound Maryland to provide

           bounty-lands for her soldiers, she, and other States in similar circum

           stances, would be compelled to buy of Virginia, at her own price, lands