CHAP, xxvin A SECRET MISSIVE 349 



the cause was dark indeed. 1 The British, though badly 

 led and often supine, occupied one city after another, 

 overran the Jerseys, and at length, after defeating Washing- 

 ton at Brandywine, established themselves in Philadelphia 

 on September 26, a city already half disaffected to the 

 republicans. 



Fothergill sent a message to Franklin in June, bidding 

 him remember that if he had enemies he had also friends 

 in England. He told him that the general language held 

 there was that the American resistance was all at an end : 

 that the authority of Congress scarce existed : that 

 troops were deserting by shoals, and the officers were 

 discontented : that neither France nor Spain would 

 afford more than a kind of paralytic aid ; and that 

 nothing could withstand the British forces nor prevent 

 them from mastering the whole continent. In short the 

 war, so people said, was at an end, and nothing remained 

 to be done but to divide the country among the con- 

 querors. 2 Towards the close of the year there came a 

 revulsion ; and General Burgoyne with a considerable 

 British army surrendered to the Americans on October 17 

 at Saratoga. After this event the French, who had long 

 been giving them secret assistance, entered into an open 

 alliance with the Americans. 



A remarkable letter written in Fothergill's hand to 

 Franklin seems to belong to this period. It is undated 

 and unsigned, the names of persons and places are dis- 

 guised, and it must have been sent by some means to 

 Paris after France had declared war on England and 

 whilst the British held Philadelphia. The letter is as 

 follows : 



There is, I doubt, one man in this kingdom who was 

 permitted to be born for its chastisement, if not destruction. 

 By education, by flattery, by disposition, capable of supposing 



1 News trickled slowly into England. A report on 'Change in London in 

 May that the Congress and General Howe had entered into a treaty was 

 credited to " Mr. Fox of Falmouth." MS. Letter, R. W. Fox to G. C. Fox, 

 May 26, 1777. 



8 Letter to John Chorley (Fothergill's nephew) in Memoirs of Franklin (by 

 W. T. Franklin), 1833, ii. 58. 



