Hook in like fashion, and the British were nowhere very easy within their lines. But, for the rest, there was little to break the monotony of waiting for news of the war at England’s door, where the fleets of the allies threatened her. Privateersmen were as busy as ever, and as much to be feared, almost, as the French cruisers themselves; but the formal operations of the war seemed vaguely postponed. Without the co-operation of a naval force it was impossible for Washington to do anything against Sir Henry at New York. [Illustration: CHARLES JAMES FOX] While he waited, therefore, he despatched General Sullivan with five thousand men into the forest country of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna to make an end of the cruel mischief wrought upon defenceless homes by the bitter Tories and their red allies. The little army, sent forward in divisions, swept through the country it was bidden clear like men who searched stream and valley upon a journey of discovery; converged to meet their hunted foes, but fifteen hundred strong, where they lay at bay within a bend of the Chemung,—the full rally of the forest country, British regulars, Tory rangers, Indian braves, Johnson, the Butlers, Joseph Brant, every leader they acknowledged, united to direct them,—and overwhelmed them; ravaged the seats of Seneca and Cayuga far and near, till neither village nor any growing thing that they could find upon which men could subsist was left this side the Genesee; stopped short only of the final thing they had been bidden attempt, the capture of the stronghold at Niagara itself. [Illustration: JOHN SULLIVAN] That was a summer’s reckoning which redmen far and near were not likely to forget. In April a little army of frontiersmen under Colonel Evan Shelby, that stout pioneer out of Maryland who brought hot Welsh blood to the task, swept suddenly along the northward reaches of the Tennessee and harried the country of the Chickamaugas, among whom Tories and British alike had been stirring war. In August, Colonel Brodhead, ordered to co-operate with General Sullivan, had taken six hundred men from his post at Fort Pitt, whence Clark had made his exit into the west, and had destroyed the Indian settlements by the Alleghany and upon French Creek, the old routes of the French from the lakes to the Ohio. Such work was never finished. The Indians were for a little dislodged, disconcerted, and put to sad straits to live; but they were not conquered. The terror bred a deeper thirst for vengeance among them, and a short respite of peace was sure to be followed when a new year came in with fresh flashes of war on the border, as lurid and ominous as ever. The danger was lessened, nevertheless. The final conquest of the Indian country was at least begun. The backwoodsmen were within sight of ultimate mastery when once peace should bring settlers crowding westward again. [Illustration: CASIMIR PULASKI]