Washington meanwhile was wide awake. He kept his front line noisily at work digging and entrenching, and made a fine show with his campfires. Then he marched his army to the right and across the creek, and got around Cornwallis's left wing and into his rear, and so went on gayly toward Princeton. At daybreak he encountered the British rear-guard, fought a sharp battle with it and sent it flying, with the loss of one-fourth of its number. The booming guns aroused Cornwallis too late. To preserve his communications with New York, he was obliged to retreat with all haste upon New Brunswick, while Washington's victorious army pushed on and occupied the strong position at Morristown. There was small hope of dislodging such a general from such a position. But to leave Washington in possession of Morristown was to resign to him the laurels of this half-year's work. For that position guarded the Highlands of the Hudson on the one hand, and the roads to Philadelphia on the other. Except that the British had taken the city of New York--which from the start was almost a foregone conclusion--they were no better off than in July when Lord Howe had landed on Staten Island. In nine days the tables had been completely turned. The attack upon an outpost had developed into a campaign which quite retrieved the situation. The ill-timed interference of Congress, which had begun the series of disasters, was remedied; the treachery of Lee was checkmated; and the cause of American Independence, which on Christmas Eve had seemed hopeless, was now fairly set on its feet. Earlier successes had been local; this was continental. Seldom has so much been done with such slender means. [Sidenote: Effects of the campaign, in Europe.] The American war had begun to awaken interest in Europe, especially in France, whither Franklin, with Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had been sent to seek for military aid. The French government was not yet ready to make an alliance with the United States, but money and arms were secretly sent over to Congress. Several young French nobles had asked the king's permission to go to America, but it was refused, and for the sake of keeping up appearances the refusal had something of the air of a reprimand. The king did not wish to offend Great Britain prematurely. One of these nobles was Lafayette, then eighteen years of age, who fitted up a ship at his own expense, and sailed from Bordeaux in April, 1777, in spite of the royal prohibition, taking with him Kalb and other officers. Lafayette and Kalb, with the Poles, Kosciuszko and Pulaski, who had come some time before, and the German Steuben, who came in the following December, were the five most eminent foreigners who received commissions in the Continental army. [Sidenote: Difficulty in raising an army.]