I wished to hold further conversation with Marcel that morning on a matter of high interest to both of us, but I did not find the opportunity, for we were sent on immediate duty into different parts of the suburbs. Mine was soon finished, and I returned to the heart of the city. I noticed at once that the invading army had suffered a further relaxation of discipline. Evidently, after his failure of the preceding night, Sir William took no further interest in the war, and but little in the army, for that matter, except where his personal friends were concerned. But most afflicting was the condition of mind into which the Tories had fallen. Philadelphia, like New York, abounded in these gentry, and a right royal time they had been having, basking in the sunshine of British favor, and tickling themselves with visions of honors and titles, and even expecting shares in the confiscated estates of their patriot brethren. Now they were in sore distress, and but little of my pity had they. Among the rumors was one, and most persistent it was too, that a consequence of the French alliance would be the speedy evacuation of Philadelphia by the British, who would in all probability seek to concentrate their strength at New York. This was a misfortune that the wretched Tories had never foreseen. What! the British ever give up anything they had once laid their hands upon! The descendants of the conquerors of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the grandsons of the men who had humbled Louis the Great at Blenheim and Malplaquet, to be beaten by untrained, half-armed, and starving farmers! The thing was impossible. And Tory and Briton vied with each other in crying to all the winds of heaven that it could not be. The British were most arrogant towards us in those days, for which reason we always took much satisfaction in beating them, admitting at the same time that they were brave men, and we never cared much about our victories over the Hessians, who, to tell the truth, were very fierce in the pursuit of a beaten enemy, but not quite so enduring in the main contention as the British. But I had ever had more animosity against the Tories than the British, and I felt much secret delight at their manifest and troublous state of mind. Some, who had their affairs well in hand, were preparing to depart with their beloved British, who little wanted such burdens. Others were mourning for their houses and goods which they had expected to see wrenched from them as they would have wrenched theirs from the patriots. All seemed to expect that the American army would be upon them immediately, such were their agitation and terror. Curses, too, were now heard against King George for deserting his faithful servants after making so many great promises to them. Well, it is not for those who shake the dice and lose, to complain. We, too, had had our sufferings.