commanded the van-guard and General Phillips the rear-guard. The night was so dark, the rain so incessant in the morning, and the roads were so bad, that the royal army did not reach Saratoga until the evening of the 9th. They made a halt about six o'clock in the morning, and General Riedesel, exhausted by fatigue, went into the caleche in which his wife and children were, and slept soundly for about three hours. Wet and weary, and harassed by the Americans all the way, the poor soldiers were too much exhausted even to cut wood for fires, and they lay down upon the cold, wet ground and slept. The generals reposed in the open air, upon mattresses, with no other covering than oil-cloth. The Baroness Reidesel and other women of the British camp were obliged to submit to these privations. "My dress," the former says, "was wet through and through with rain, and in this state I had to remain the whole night, having no place to change it; I, however, got close to a large fire, and at last lay down on some straw. At this moment General Phillips came up to me, and I asked him why he had not continued our retreat, as my husband had promised to cover it and bring the army through. 'Poor dear woman,' he said, 'I wonder how, drenched as you are, you have the courage still to persevere, and venture further in this kind of weather. I wish,' he continued, 'you were our commanding general; General Burgoyne is tired, and means to halt here to-night and give us our supper.'" * No doubt there was more sincerity than compliment in General Phillips's wish, for the frequent halts and great delays of Burgoyne had dissatisfied his officers, and were, doubtless, chief causes of his misfortunes. His ambition and his love of ease were often wrestling, and the latter too frequently gained the mastery. The retreat of Burgoyne was so sudden, that he left all his sick and wounded in the hospital behind him, together with a great number of wheel carriages and other things collected at Wilbur's Basin. The invalids, amounting to about three hundred, were treated by General Gates with the utmost humanity, which Burgoyne afterward gratefully acknowledged. On retiring, the English burned the houses they had occupied, and many other things which they could not carry away with them. They also wantonly set fire to several buildings on the way, by order of Burgoyne himself; and among others, when they crossed the Fish Creek, the mansion of General Schuyler, his mills and other property, amounting in value to twenty thousand dollars, were destroyed by them.