When Howe decided to attack the American army at White Plains he should have thrown his entire force upon Washington's centre, and thus have won a decisive victory with his superior troops; whereas he used less than one third of his army in driving Washington's right wing from Chatterton's Hill upon his main body, which then successfully retreated before the tardy and inert British general. Howe's good fortune in capturing Fort Washington was due more to the treason of Magaw's adjutant and to Washington's yielding to bad advice, than to any skill of the British commander.[724] * * * * * With the invasion of New Jersey by the Anglo-Hessian army all military operations at the mouth of the Hudson were terminated. The struggle for the control of this great river was to be transferred to its upper waters, and it was expected that the coming campaign would be so conducted as soon to force the whole power of the colonies into silence and submission. General Gates, who was appointed the successor of Sullivan in the command of the army of Canada, was, says Horace Walpole, "the son of a housekeeper of the second Duke of Leeds." He had neither brilliant qualities nor military genius, but possessed the vanity and ambition to covet the highest position, for the attainment of which he resorted to disgraceful intrigue. When assigned to this command, in June, 1776, the army of Canada was flying to Crown Point; so, like Sancho Panza, Gates found himself a governor without a government; but, nothing abashed, he at once claimed the command of the Northern department, then under Schuyler. Congress sustained the latter, whereupon Gates took post at Ticonderoga, where the remnant of the American army had retired upon the abandonment of Crown Point, and promptly adopted vigorous measures to put the work in good condition for defence and to reinforce its garrison against any forward movement of General Carleton. To secure control of Lake Champlain, a squadron of small vessels was ordered to be constructed at its head (Skenesborough), which, to the number of nine, mounting in all fifty-five guns, were completed by the middle of August. Arnold, in command of these and some additional galleys from Ticonderoga, moved down to the foot of the lake, and anchored his vessels across it to bar the passage of the enemy. [Illustration: From _Political Magazine_ (1780), i. 743, with a memoir of Burgoyne. There are modern engravings of this likeness in Moore's _Diary of the Amer. Rev._, i. p. 513; and in Lossing's _Field Book_, i. 37.—ED.]