In 1777, Wilkinson was advanced to the rank of colonel and afterward adjutant-general, in which capacity he fought in the battles of Bemis Heights, on the 19th of September, 1777, and of Saratoga, on the 7th of October. Prior to the latter engagement, under cover of the darkness, Col. John Hardin, of Kentucky, penetrated the British lines, and gained an actual view of their strength and position. Regaining the American camp and meeting Wilkinson, he confided to him his discoveries, with the entreaty that he would immediately inform General Gates. Wilkinson did so, suppressing Hardin’s name and making _himself_ appear the hero of this midnight exploit. When Burgoyne surrendered, therefore, Wilkinson was sent to bear the news to Congress with a recommendation to make him brigadier-general. Stopping in Reading for some time, he consumed eighteen days in making the journey, and thus the news was a week old when he reached Philadelphia. A proposal in Congress to present him with a sword was defeated by Dr. Witherspoon dryly remarking, “I think ye’d better gie the lad a pair of spurs!” Nevertheless, a few days later, those members who accounted themselves personal friends and admirers of General Gates, carried the motion to make Wilkinson a brigadier-general, by brevet, on the 6th of November, 1777, and soon after he was appointed secretary of the Board of War, of which Gates was president. His delay in Reading, however, was eventually of great service to the country, for, having visited Lord Stirling’s headquarters at that place, he dined with the officers. After Lord Stirling left the table, Wilkinson, in a moment of post-prandial confidence, revealed to Major McWilliams, an aid to Lord Stirling, the scheme at that time being set on foot by Mifflin and Conway, to have Gates supersede Washington as commander-in-chief of the army. McWilliams felt it his duty to report what he had heard to Lord Stirling, who in his turn felt constrained to communicate the plot to Washington. When this infamous conspiracy became known, forty-nine officers of his own rank petitioned Congress to revoke Wilkinson’s appointment as brigadier. Hearing this, Wilkinson wrote to Congress on the 3d of March, 1778, that he was “informed the mark of distinction conferred on him has occasioned a dissatisfaction in the army,” that “to obviate any embarrassment which may result from this disposition, by the consequent resignation of officers of merit, he begs leave to relinquish his brevet of brigadier, wishing to hold no commission unless he can wear it to the honor and advantage of his country;” and that “this conduct, however repugnant to fashionable ambition, he finds consistent with those principles on which he early drew his sword in the present contest.”