Although most decisively defeated in the battle upon the Lake, Arnold had delayed the advance of the British some two or three months, while they were obtaining a naval superiority. This delay had far-reaching consequences. Carleton now found the season too late to pursue his advantage, and to make, or attempt to make, a juncture with Howe to the southward. He therefore soon returned to winter quarters at Montreal. When Burgoyne, in 1777, repeated the attempt to penetrate to the Hudson, Howe’s removal of his army to the Chesapeake in his movement against Philadelphia, deprived Burgoyne’s army of the support on the Hudson, which it might have had in the fall of 1776. It has been strikingly said, by Captain Mahan, that Arnold’s and Carleton’s naval campaign on Lake Champlain was a “strife of pigmies for the prize of a continent.” Although the American flotilla was wiped out, “never had any force, big or small, lived to better purpose, or died more gloriously; for it had saved the Lake for that year.”[87] FOOTNOTES: [49] This chapter, which is presented here for chronological reasons, is not closely related to the main narrative, which will be resumed at the beginning of Chapter III. [50] Force, American Archives, 4th, III, 633-34, Instructions to Broughton. [51] Force, American Archives, 4th, III, 946. [52] See Chapter I, The Naval Committee, page 37; Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 174-5. [53] Moylan had been for some months a member of Washington’s official household before he was appointed aide-de-camp in March, 1776. [54] Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 382-83. [55] Ibid., 231-32, Washington to Joseph Reed, November 20, 1775. [56] Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 261-62, Washington to President of Congress, December 4, 1775. [57] This calculation is made chiefly from accounts of the vessels found in Force’s American Archives and Ford’s Writings of Washington. [58] Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 252 and note; Letters of John Adams, Massachusetts Historical Society, William Tudor to John Adams, December 3, 1775. [59] Boston Gazette, July 6, 1776. [60] Force, American Archives, 4th, IV, 451-52, Memorial of Philip Callbeck and Thomas Wright; Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 175 and note, 261-62 and note. H. E. Waite, Origin of American Navy, 26-28. Report on Canadian Archives, 1895, Prince Edward Island, 15-16. The number of vessels captured by Broughton and Selman on this cruise has been given by Elbridge Gerry as ten and by Selman as seven. Both figures are probably too high. [61] Ford, Writings of Washington, III, 165, 203-04, 213-214, 251-58, 274. [62] Journals of Continental Congress, December 20, 1775.