The surrender of Burgoyne was an event of infinite importance to the struggling republicans. Hitherto the preponderance of success had been on the side of the English, and only a few partial victories had been won by the Americans. The defeat on Long Island had eclipsed the glory of the siege of Boston; the capture of Fort Washington and its garrison had overmatched the brilliant defense of Charleston; the defeat at Brandywine had balanced the victory at Trenton; White Plains and Princeton were in fair juxtaposition in the account current; and at the very time when the hostile armies at the north were fighting for the mastery, Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania, and Forts Clinton, Montgomery, and Constitution were passing into the hands of the royal forces. Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York, and its sittings were in the midst of loyalists, ready to attack or betray. Its treasury was nearly exhausted; its credit utterly so. Its bills to the amount of forty millions of dollars were scattered over the country. Its frequent issues were inadequate to the demands of the commissariat, and distrust was rapidly depreciating their value in the public mind. Loyalists rejoiced; the middlemen were in a dilemma; the patriots trembled. Thick clouds of doubt and dismay were gathering in every part of the political horizon, and the acclamations which had followed the Declaration of Independence, the year before, died away like mere whispers upon the wind. All eyes were turned anxiously to the army of the north, and upon that strong arm of Congress, wielded, for the time, by Gates, the hopes of the patriots leaned. How eagerly they listened to every breath of rumor from Saratoga! How enraptured were they when the cry of victory fell upon their ears! All over the land a shout of triumph went up, and from the furrows, and workshops, and marts of commerce; from the pulpit, from provincial halls of legislation, from partisan camps, and from the shattered ranks of the chief at White Marsh, it was echoed and re- echoed. Toryism, which had begun to lift high its head, retreated behind the defense of inaction; the bills of Congress rose twenty per cent, in value; capital came forth from its hiding-places; the militia readily obeyed the summons to the camp, and the great patriot heart of America beat strongly with pulsations of hope. Amid the joy of the moment, Gates was apotheosized in the hearts of his countrymen, and they