[146] It is not easy to make out the details of the fighting. After the battle of September 19, the two armies were said to be only about half a mile distant from each other, but on October 7, according to Burgoyne’s dispatch, after advancing for some time he formed his troops within three-quarters of a mile of the enemy. The advance was apparently not direct but diagonal against the extreme left of the Americans. The main English camp near the river, where there was a bridge of boats, does not seem to have been at all molested, though it was presumably drawn back in the following night. Breyman’s camp which was stormed is shown on the plan appended to the _State of the Expedition from Canada_, as well in the rear of the extreme right of the English line. [147] Horace Walpole, writing to the Countess of Upper Ossory on November 3, 1777, seems to be referring to reports of the battle at Freeman’s Farm. ‘If your angel would be seeing, why did he not put on his spectacles and hover over Arnold, who has beaten the vapouring Burgoyne and destroyed his magazines? Carleton, who was set aside for General Hurlothrumbo, is gone to save him and the remains of his army if he can.’ On November 13 he writes to the same, ‘General Swagger is said to be entrenched at Saratoga, but I question whether he will be left at leisure to continue his Commentaries: one Arnold is mighty apt to interrupt him.’ Authentic news of Burgoyne’s surrender did not reach England till December 1. Writing to Sir Horace Mann on December 4, Walpole says: ‘On Tuesday night came news from Carleton at Quebec, which indeed had come from France earlier, announcing the total annihilation (as to America) of Burgoyne’s army.... Burgoyne is said to be wounded in three places, his vanquisher, Arnold, is supposed to be dead of his wounds.’ It will be noted that Arnold is made the hero on the American side, and that there is no mention of Walpole’s godson, Gates. Walpole contemplated invasion of Canada and possible loss of Quebec as the result of the disaster. [148] The above account has been taken almost entirely from the original dispatches, documents, and evidence published in _A State of the Expedition from Canada as laid before the House of Commons by Lieutenant-General Burgoyne_. London, 1780. Burgoyne, in a private letter to Howe of 20th October, attributed the surrender in part to the fact that his troops were not all British. See _Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution_ (1904), vol. i, p. 140.