were foiled. * Colonel Mawhood, chagrined at the failure of Simcoe to dislodge the Americans at Quintan's Bridge, determined to attack another post at Hancock's Bridge with his whole force. The Americans, on the night of their retreat, entered into a solemn compact, agreeing that "no British soldier should set his foot or eat bread on that side of Alloway's
Creek while there was a man left to defend the soil."
They properly apprehended a great augmentation of the British force, and made preparations to meet it. Mawhood intrusted the expedition against the patriots at Hancock's Bridge to the direction of Major Simcoe. That officer, in secretly reconnoitering, ascended a tree, and from it made a sketch of a two story brick house near the bridge, owned by Judge Hancock, a Quaker and Loyalist, and formed therefrom a plan of attack. On the night March, 1778 of the 20th, the British marched to Salem, and, in flat-boats, proceeded to the Delaware, and thence to Alloway's Creek, up which they pushed until within a convenient distance from Hancock's Bridge, when they debarked. It was a very dark night; not a star was to be seen, and heavy scuds, freighted with rain, came up from the sea. Simcoe sent the boats back to prevent the retreat of his men, and artfully concealed from them a knowledge of the dangers which awaited them. Every thing depended upon a surprise. Through marshes, sometimes up to their knees in water, they marched two miles before they reached the solid earth. In a wood, upon dry land, Simcoe formed his men for an attack, and then commenced his march in silence. The main body passed along the public road toward Hancock's house, while Captain Saunders, with a small detachment, ambuscaded the dike that led to Quintan's Bridge. Captain Dunlop was detached to the rear of Hancock's house, in which it was supposed the American officers were quartered, with directions to force, occupy, and barricade it, as it commanded the bridge.
There were several stone houses and cottages near, and detachments were arranged to attack and take possession of them. The inmates of Hancock's house were unsuspicious of danger. Fortunately for the patriots, a large proportion of them had quitted the place the evening before, leaving only about twenty men as a garrison. The surprise was complete. While all were sleeping, the invaders approached, and simultaneously the front and back doors of the house were forced. All within perished; not even the Tory owner escaped. *** A patrol of seven men, who had been sent down the creek, were surprised, and all but one killed. The British, after committing some depredations in the neighborhood, returned to the mouth of Alloway's