" He asked North: "Are you
resolved at the hour of danger to desert me?" North remained in
office. Chatham soon died and, during four years still, George
III was master of England. Throughout the long history of that
nation there is no crisis in which one man took a heavier and
more disastrous responsibility.
News came to Valley Forge of the alliance with France and there
were great rejoicings. We are told that, to celebrate the
occasion, Washington dined in public. We are not given the bill
of fare in that scene of famine; but by the springtime tension in
regard to supplies had been relieved and we may hope that Valley
Forge really feasted in honor of the great event. The same news
brought gloom to the British in Philadelphia, for it had the
stern meaning that the effort and loss involved in the capture of
that city were in vain. Washington held most of the surrounding
country so that supplies must come chiefly by sea. With a French
fleet and a French army on the way to America, the British
realized that they must concentrate their defenses. Thus the
cheers at Valley Forge were really the sign that the British must
go.
Sir William Howe, having taken Philadelphia, was determined not
to be the one who should give it up.
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