It was before superior numbers that the British evacuated Boston: to superior numbers Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga: and now the superiority of numbers being in the other direction, the Americans were defeated in every action during this part of the campaign. Defeated, but, it must be admitted, not disheartened, for the losses round Philadelphia were forgotten in the blaze of triumph which accompanied the capitulation of Burgoyne's force; and the growing intensity of the American feeling will be realized from a letter, which will be quoted in the next chapter, written in the very place where their losses must have been most palpably real. It was necessary to throw up field-works round the British camp, which after the battle of Germantown was brought nearer Philadelphia, and also to erect works to secure the command of the river. The Artillerymen were largely employed in building and arming these; and one of them was the scene of a gallant action on the part of a detachment, which is mentioned both by Stedman and Lee, and also appears in the MS. Record Book of the 4th Battalion. According to the last-mentioned authority, some detachments of Nos. 4, 5, and 8 Companies were employed in constructing batteries on Provence Island, in the Delaware, for the reduction of an American post on Mud Island, when a party of the 10th Regiment, under Major Vatap, which covered the works, abandoned them on the advance of the enemy, and the whole of the guns fell into their hands, but owing to the gallantry of the detachment of Artillery, the enemy was obliged to retire, the guns were retaken, and the batteries again occupied. Stedman in telling this circumstance mentions that the Artillerymen were under the command of a subaltern, to whose gallantry the recapture of the batteries was due: and Lee adds, "I believe this conduct of Major Vatap (who abandoned most shamefully the Artillery) is the single instance of dastardly conduct among the British officers during the war."