passed from hierarch to hierarch, until all heaven rang with the acclaim. The plan, as finally determined on, was that Washington, with the continental troops, should cross the Delaware above Trenton, and move down to the attack of that town; while Ewing, crossing the river below, should make an assault simultaneously from the lower side. Meantime, Cadwalader, with a strong detachment of militia, crossing at Bristol, was, if possible, to carry the posts at Burlington and Mount Holly. The night of the 25th of December was chosen for the surprise, as it was supposed that the enemy, on that festive occasion, would be more or less off his guard. The weather had been unusually warm for the season, and there was no ice as yet in the river to impede the crossing. Every thing looked promising until within forty-eighty hours of the appointed time. Suddenly, at this crisis, the weather set in cold, so that the Delaware became full of floating ice, which rendered navigation almost impossible. Nevertheless, Washington determined to persist in his enterprise. Boats had been collected for the transportation of his own detachment, at McConkey’s Ferry, on the west side of the river, about eight miles above Trenton. An express was sent to Cadwalader to inform him the attempt would be made, and to command him to cross, if possible, at Bristol. As soon as evening came, the continentals, twenty-four hundred in number, with a battery of twenty light field pieces, were put in motion, and marched to the ferry. It was a wild and threatening night. The wind howled ominously over the landscape; a few stars only were seen in the dark and troubled sky; and the ice in the river, grinding and splitting as the tide moved its huge masses one against another, filled the air with foreboding sounds. In vain, for awhile, the boats struggled in the current. Now locked in the arms of apparently immovable fields of ice, and now in peril from floating blocks that threatened to crush them, they were borne hither and thither, and with difficulty reached the shore, where new dangers awaited them in cakes of the frozen material, which pushed end-wise toward the bank, frequently overlapped and almost engulfed them. At one time it was feared that the artillery would have to be left behind. At last, however, after almost incredible exertions, the little army was ferried over, but the task, instead of being achieved at midnight, as had been intended, was not completed until three hours afterward. During the suspense of this awful night, Washington, who had crossed early, sat, it is said, on a bee-hive by the shore, wrapped in his cloak, and watching the struggling boats by the light of the few stars which broke here and there through the stormy rack of heaven.