On finding the camp at Barren Hill deserted General Grant immediately pursued in the track of the retreating enemy toward Matson's ford. His advanced guard overtook some of the small American party, which had been sent back to cover the passage of the artillery, before they could recross the river and took or killed a few of them, but on reaching the ford General Grant found Lafayette so advantageously posted on the rising ground on the opposite bank and his artillery so judiciously placed that it was deemed unadvisable to attack him. Thus the attempt against Lafayette failed, although the plan was well concerted and on the very point of success. In the British army sanguine expectations of the favorable issue of the enterprise were entertained, and in order to insure a happy result a large detachment, under General Grey, in the course of the night took post at a ford of the Schuylkill, two or three miles in front of Lafayette's right flank, to intercept him if he should attempt to escape in that direction, while the main body of the army advanced to Chestnut Hill to support the attack, but on the failure of the enterprise the whole returned to Philadelphia. General Grant's detachment was seen by Washington from the camp at Valley Forge about the time it was discovered by the troops at Barren Hill, alarm guns were fired by his order to warn Lafayette of his danger, and the whole army was drawn out to be in readiness to act as circumstances might require. The escape of the detachment was the cause of much joy and congratulation in the American and of disappointment and chagrin in the British army. That a strong detachment of hostile troops should pass at a small distance from Lafayette's flank and gain his rear unobserved seems to argue a want of due vigilance on the part of that officer, but a detachment of the Pennsylvania militia had been posted at a little distance on his left and he relied on them for watching the roads in that quarter. The militia, however, had quitted their station without informing him of their movement, and consequently his left flank and the roads about White Marsh remained unguarded. This was the last enterprise attempted by Sir William Howe. Soon after he resigned the command of the army. So far back as the month of October in the preceding year he had requested to be relieved from the painful service in which he was engaged. On the 14th of April, 1778, he received the King's permission to resign, but at the same time he was directed, while he continued in command, to embrace every opportunity of putting an end to the war by a due employment of the force under his orders. In the beginning of June after having received, in a triumphal procession and festival, a testimony of the approbation and esteem of the army he sailed for England, leaving the troops under the care of Sir Henry Clinton as his successor.