With this the campaign of 1777 came to an end, decidedly to the disadvantage of the British, who had lost the whole of Burgoyne’s division and gained nothing but Philadelphia. The winter of 1777–78 the British army spent in the city of Philadelphia, where it was kept inactive, and allowed to grow slack in discipline and efficiency; and this although Washington lay for five whole months but 26 miles distant, at Valley Forge--his position weak, his guns frozen into the entrenchments, his army worn to a shadow by sickness and desertion, and absolutely destitute of clothing, stores, and equipment. Howe had 14,000 men, and Washington a bare 4000, yet for the fourth time Howe allowed him to escape; and this time inaction was fatal, for the new year was to bring with it an event which changed the whole aspect and conduct of operations. [Sidenote: 1778.] In February 1778 the French Government, still smarting under the loss of Canada, concluded a treaty of defensive alliance with the young American Republic, and despatched a fleet under D’Estaing to operate on the American coast. The British Government no sooner heard the news than it sent instructions for the army to evacuate Philadelphia and retire to New York, from whence half of it was to be forthwith despatched to attack the French possessions in the West Indies. The burden of this duty fell, not upon Howe, to whom it would have been a just retribution, but upon Clinton, who succeeded to the command on Howe’s resignation in the spring of 1778. During the winter the Seventeenth had been moved down from New York to join the main army at Philadelphia, where, in March 1778, we find them reduced to a nominal total of 363 men, of whom no fewer than 67 were in hospital, and 162 horses. Fortunately for its own sake the regiment was busily employed during the spring in the duty of opening communications and bringing in supplies, by which it was prepared for the heavy work that lay before it. On the 3rd of May a strong detachment of the [Sidenote: 1778.] Seventeenth formed part of a mixed force of 1000 men which was sent out to reduce a hostile post at Crooked Billet, seventeen miles from Philadelphia. The business was neatly managed, for the British, with trifling loss, killed, wounded, or captured 150 of the Americans, and, thanks to the Seventeenth, took the whole of their baggage. Three weeks later the regiment was again employed in a small expedition against 3000 Americans, who had been posted by Washington in an advanced and isolated position at Barren Hill under the command of Marquis Lafayette. This time the affair was sadly bungled, and the Americans, who should have been captured in a body, would have got off scot free but for a dash made on the rear-guard by the light Dragoons, wherein 40 or 50 American prisoners were taken.