- HISTORY OF VERMONT. 155 



potence, and mortified by distress, pride and 

 sensibility. Gates humoured his feelings, and 

 seems to have wished to leave to him all the 

 comforts of punctilio, ceremony, and vanity ; 

 while he took from his troops all their arms, 

 importance, and power. And to give the soft- 

 est name to the most humiliating of all acts, the 

 capitulation was styled, A convention betxveen 

 lieutenant general Burg oyne and major general 

 Gates. 



On October the sixteenth, the terms of the 

 treaty were adjusted, and it was agreed that the 

 articles should be signed the next day at nine 

 o'clock in the morning. In the night, the offi- 

 cer who had been sent to general Clinton re- 

 turned, and brought intelligence to general 

 Burgoyne, that the British had taken fort Mont- 

 gomery, were then at Kingston, and were com- 

 ing up the river to Albany. From this intelli- 

 gence, Burgoyne entertained some slight hope 

 of a distant relief ; and as the articles were riot 

 signed, he submitted it to his officers, whether 

 the public faith was already fully plighted, and 

 whether it was expedient to suspend the execu- 

 tion, and to trust to events. The majority of 

 the council determined that the public faith 

 was already bonajide plighted, and that it was ' 

 best to complete the execution. Burgoyne 

 himself voted against the majority in this deci- 

 sion, JDut the vote being carried against him, it 

 was unanimously agreed to sign the treaty. 

 Gates had full intelligence of the progress the 

 British w^re making on Hudson's river, of the 

 destruction they had made at Kingston, and 

 that thev threatened to be at Albany in a few 



