On Wednesday the wind favored their departure. At half-past six in the morning the admiral's signal-gun was fired, and at seven they began to get under way. All day the vigilant Forman watched them as they passed out of the bay and moved down the Jersey coast. In three divisions they stretched away, steering mostly south-east, and moving like an immense flock of white waterfowl over the placid summer seas. He riding on shore as they sailed on the water, night found him at Shrewsbury, and thence, with all speed, he sent couriers to General Washington and to the Executive Council of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. The council, in whose archives we find his despatch, at once sent another scout, Captain John Hunn, to the Jersey coast to watch the hostile fleet. Setting off promptly, Hunn had reached the shore, near Little Egg Harbor, by two o'clock of Friday, the 25th, and thence he rode slowly down to Cape May, not seeing any of the ships, however, until the 30th, when, after three days of "thick" weather, some of them came into the view of observers on both capes of the Delaware. From the Delaware side, at ten in the morning, that truculent Sussex Whig, Henry Fisher, had discerned two hundred and twenty-eight sail, and he sent off an express to ride with might and main, up the forest roads by Dover and Cantwell's Bridge, to Wilmington, and so to Philadelphia. Leaving the cape at ten in the morning, the messenger reached Chester at a quarter before six in the afternoon, and thence hurried on. Hunn, too, saw the ships from his post on Cape May, and only the need of being brief is reason for not giving here his quaint and badly-spelled despatches, which, however, in spite of imperfect orthography, sufficiently told the movements of the fleet. July 31st the ships were still in the offing, but the next day not one could be seen from the Delaware capes. Howe had sailed away for the ampler waters of the Chesapeake, though the change of plan involved further delay on shipboard and exposure to the dangers of a greatly lengthened voyage. August 7th his ships were seen beating down the coast toward Cape Charles, but, encountering adverse winds, it was some ten days later before they were heard of inside the great bay. Washington had already moved from New Jersey, and on the 24th of August he set forth from Philadelphia, riding at the head of his troops, who, as they marched through the streets, were decorated with sprays of green and watched by great crowds. With him rode the marquis de la Fayette, and other foreign officers of renown accompanied the march--Pulaski, the gallant Pole, the marquis de la Rouerie, and Louis de Fleury, a young and spirited compatriot of La Fayette, on duty with Stirling's division.