In the meantime Washington remained with his army at Morristown, waiting with great anxiety the development of the enemy’s plans of operation, and increasing his own strength by the arrival of recruits, who still came in only slowly. The plans of the British general appeared for a long time uncertain, whether to march directly upon Philadelphia or to co-operate with Burgoyne, who had now assumed the command in Canada. In the north, the American army was so very feeble, that it was feared lest Ticonderoga, almost the sole remains of the American conquests in that quarter, might be seized by a sudden movement from Canada over the ice. The service in the north was indeed so unpopular, that a species of conscription was obliged to be resorted to in order to fill up the regiments. Indeed the reluctance to serve was felt so generally throughout the northern provinces, that the prohibition against the enlistment of negro-slaves was removed, and now recruits of any colour were joyfully received, and many negro-slaves gained their freedom in this manner. In the south, also, indented servants enlisting were declared to be freemen. As spring came on, General Burgoyne, who had served in Canada under Governor Carleton, and who had gone to England for the purpose of urging upon parliament the reduction of America by a powerful descent upon the colonies by the way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson, returned with a large army and military stores for that purpose. [Illustration: GENERAL BURGOYNE AND THE INDIANS.] On the 16th of June, Burgoyne, at the head of an army of nearly 10,000 men, British and German, with a great number of Canadians and Indians, set forth on his expedition. His first encampment was on the western shore of Lake Champlain, near Crown Point, where he met the Six Nations in council, and was joined by about 400 of those powerful warriors. Burgoyne, however, so little understood the character of the red men, that he addressed them in a very pompous speech, endeavouring to induce them to alter their irregular mode of warfare. To just as little purpose was the proclamation which he issued at the same time, in an equally pompous manner, in which, after demonstrating his own power and that of the British, he threatened the colonists with extermination, before the fury of the savage Indian, if they persisted in resisting his arms. Burgoyne’s plan of operation was, after taking Ticonderoga, to advance upon Albany on the Hudson, where he would be met by Colonel St. Leger, who, with 2,000 men, chiefly Canadians and Indians, was to proceed by way of Oswego, against Fort Schuyler or Stanwix, and so gain the same point, after which both armies were to join General Clinton at New York.