In 1777 the British ministry had planned, in addition to the operations of the main army against Philadelphia, an invasion from Canada, apprehensions of which had led the Americans into their late unsuccessful attempt to conquer that province. Such supplies of men or money as they asked for were readily voted; but in England, as well as in America, enlistments were a matter of difficulty. Lord George Germaine was possessed with an idea, of which Sir William Howe found it very difficult to disabuse him, that recruits might be largely obtained among the American loyalists. In spite, however, of all the efforts of Tryon, Delancey, and Skinner, the troops of that description hardly amounted as yet to twelve hundred men; and Howe complained, not without reason, of the tardiness of the ministers in filling up his army. * * * * * The American Northern Department, again placed under the sole command of Schuyler, had been so bare of troops during the winter that serious apprehensions had been felt lest Ticonderoga might be taken by a sudden movement from Canada over the ice. The Northern army was still very feeble; and the regiments designed to reinforce it filled up so slowly, notwithstanding the offer of large additional bounties, that Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were obliged to resort to a kind of conscription, a draft of militia men to serve for twelve months as substitutes till the regiments could be filled. In forming the first New England army, the enlistment of negro slaves had been specially prohibited; but recruits of any color were now gladly accepted, and many negroes obtained their freedom by enlistment. The Middle and Southern colonies, whence Washington’s recruits were principally to come, were still more behind-hand. Of the men enlisted in those states, many were foreign-born, redemptioners, or indented servants, whose attachment to the cause could not fully be relied upon. Congress had offered bounties in land to such Germans as might desert from the British, and Howe now retorted by promising rewards in money to foreigners deserting the American service. Congress, as a countervailing measure, at Washington’s earnest request relinquished a plan they had adopted of stopping a portion of the pay of the indented servants in the army as a compensation to their masters for loss of service. That compensation was left to be provided for at the public expense, and the enlisted servants were all declared freemen.