THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION, 
249 
until tlie evening of the 18th June, when he found the town in flames and 
everything destroyed that could not be carried off. Here the campaign of 
17 7 6 virtually came to an end, for the Americans were masters of Lake 
Champlain, and the difficulties of transporting vessels thither precluded 
General Carleton from pursuing his advantages that season. He was able 
however to seize Isle-au-noix as an advanced post, and to devote himself 
without disturbance to the construction of gun boats and other vessels at 
that station and at St John's. Blomefield resumed his duties as aide-de- 
camp to Lord Townshend on the cessation of active hostilities but rejoined 
Phillips, who had been made Major-General in the army in August, with the 
earliest navigation. The extracts for 1777 commence on the 1st July, the 
day on which General Burgoyne's column reached Ticonderoga, and the day 
preceding a successful operation by which Major-General Phillips obtained 
possession of the very advantageous post of Mount Hope, which besides 
commanding the American lines, cut off their communications with Lake 
George. The field artillery attached to the army had been largely increased 
since the last campaign, and was then considered to be the finest and best 
appointed that had ever been allotted to a corps d?armee of such limited size 
(about 8000 men, including 500 Indians). Phillips commanded a division 
in the engagement which shortly followed, at Whitehall (then called 
Skeenesborough), and here his aide-de-camp was killed. Of the prodigious 
exertions by which the artillery was got over the savage intervening country 
at the rate of about a mile a day we learn nothing from these orders, but we 
know that the royal forces took possession of Port Edward on the 29th July, 
and we find some indications of them in the order of 7th August from that 
post. The army was occupied from the 30th July to the 15th August in 
getting up supplies, when a force of about 500 men with two light guns was 
despatched to the Hoosack river to surprise Bennington, the rest pushed on 
to join Burgoyne at Saratoga. The expedition was a failure, the guns had 
to be abandoned, and the insurgents received an encouragement from this 
success attended as it was by the capture of such trophies, which had the 
most unfortunate moral influence for the royal cause. 
The extracts terminate before Burgoyne's advance from Saratoga in 
September, but the order of the 14th of that month may be regarded as 
giving the artillery arrangements in force at the battle of Stillwater on the 
19th, where Phillips and the artillery were much distinguished. 
The enemy under Arnold had at first made every disposition to turn the 
right wing of the army, but “ being unexpectedly checked by the strong 
position of General Frazer, they immediately counter-marched, and the same 
peculiarity of country which had occasioned their mistake, now operating 
as effectually to prevent the discovery and consequently the taking any 
advantage of their subsequent movement; they directed their principal 
effort to the left of the same wing." Here the brunt of the action was 
sustained for four hours by the 20th, 21st, and 62nd regiments, but Phillips 
who commanded the left wing, hearing the firing, made his w r ay with Major 
Williams and a part of the artillery through a very difficult part of the forest, 
and leading up the 20th regiment at a critical moment - * saved the day. 
* The terms employed in the official record of Phillips’ services are, that “ his presence of mind 
had nearly saved the army,” and this is the expression of the writer of the Annual Register for 
