A soldier’s eye could see quickly and plainly enough how the whole aspect of the war had been changed by those brief, sudden, unexpected strokes at Trenton and Princeton. Men near at hand, and looking for what a soldier would deem it no business of his to reckon with, saw that it had not only radically altered the military situation, but also the very atmosphere of the times for all concerned. The fighting at Trenton and Princeton had been of no great consequence in itself, but it had in every way put the war beyond its experimental stage. It had taught the British commanders with what sort of spirit and genius they had to deal, and how certain it was that their task must be carried to a finish not only by conquering marches and a mere occupation of the country, but by careful strategy and the long plans of a set campaign. Moreover, they now obviously had a country, and not an insurgent army merely, to conquer,—and a vast country at that. That surprising winter had set men’s sinews to what they had undertaken, on the one side as on the other. In December (1776) it had looked as if all firmness had been unnerved and all hope turned to foreboding by the success of the British at New York and in the Jerseys. Joseph Galloway, of Pennsylvania, when that crisis came, took advantage of the opportunity to remove within the British lines and cast in his lot there with those who were ready to stake everything upon their loyalty and the success of the British arms. Others followed his example,—some out of panic, but many, it seemed, not out of fear, but out of principle. Only the other day Mr. Galloway had been the chief figure in the Congress of Committees which spoke for the colonies; for many a long day he had been the chief figure in the politics of his own colony; and many of those who made submission when he did were of families of the first dignity and consequence. They, like him, had been champions of colonial rights until it came to the point of rebellion. They would not follow further. Their example was imitated now, moreover, in their act of formal submission, by some who had played the part of patriot more boldly and with less compunction. Mr. Samuel Tucker, even, who until this untoward month had been president of New Jersey’s revolutionary committee of safety, made his submission. It seemed hard to find steadfastness anywhere. [Illustration: LETTER CONCERNING BRITISH OUTRAGES]