Yes Sir, yes Sir,--they are flocking
in from all quarters--the insurgents are laying down their arms by
hundreds. It must be a miserable fragment that Schuyler has with him by
this.
_St. L_. General Burgoyne, is not it a singular circumstance, that the
enemy should allow us to take possession of a point like that without
opposition,--so trifling a detachment, too? Why, that hill commands the
fort,--certainly it does.
_Bur_. Well--well. They are pretty much reduced, I fancy, Sir. We shall
hardly hear much more from them. Let me see,--this is the hill.
_St. L_. A pity we could not provoke them into an engagement, though!
They depend so entirely upon the popular feeling for supplies and
troops, and the whole machinery of their warfare, that it is rather
hazardous reckoning upon them, after all. If we could draw them into an
engagement _now_, the result would be certain.
_Bur_. Yes, yes; we must contrive to do that ere long. Rather
troublesome travelling companions they make, that's certain. Like those
insects that swarm about us here,--no great honor in fighting them, but
a good deal of discomfort in letting them alone.
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