* Gordon, iii., 104.
** Ramsay, ii., 145-152. Gordon, iii., 98-107. Marshall, i., 344-348. Lee. 92-100.
*** It was during the summer of 1780, that Roehambeau and his army arrived at Newport; an auspicious event for the Americans. A movement in Europe, known in history as the Armed Neutrality, at about the same time threatened to cripple the power of England, and promised indirect aid to the Americans. The Empress Catharine, of Russia, with the duplicity which has ever marked the diplomacy of that government, professed great friendship toward England, and abhorrence of the rebellion in America. She even entered into negotiations for sending Russian troops to America to assist the British. All this while she was building a navy, and the English were made to believe it was to aid them. As soon as she felt strong enough to set England at defiance, her tone and, policy were changed, and on the twenty-sixth of February, 1780. she issued a manifesto, in which she declared the international doctrine (with a qualification) so eloquently promulged and advocated by Kossuth in America, in 1851-2, namely, that neutral states have a right to carry on their commerce with belligerent powers unmolested, and even to convey from one port to another of a belligerent power, all goods whatsoever, except what could be deemed contraband in consequence of previous treaties.* Hitherto ports were blockaded, not always by squadrons of ships, but by a simple proclamation. Catharine declared that no port should be considered blockaded, unless there was a sufficient force present to maintain a blockade, and this was the qualification of the doctrine concerning the rights of neutral nations; a qualification which contains the essential maxim of despotism, "Might makes right." This doctrine was contrary to the maritime policy of England, and inimical to her interests. In the course of the summer, Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden became parties to the policy declared by the Czarina, and entered into a league with her; and in November the States General of Holland acceded to the measure. Spain and France acquiesced in the new maritime code, and at one time a general Continental war against England appeared inevitable. But the personal caprices of Catharine, and her known faithlessness, made the other powers hesitate, and the next year the alliance resulted in inaction.
**** The exact loss sustained by the Americans in the engagement on the sixteenth, and Sumter's surprise on the eighteenth, was never ascertained. The estimated loss was as follows: exclusive of Dc Kalb and General Rutherford, four lieutenant colonels, three majors, fourteen captains, four captain lieutenants, sixteen lieutenants, three ensigns, four staff, seventy-eight subalterns, and six hundred and four rank and file. They also lost eight field-pieces, and other artillery, more than two hundred baggage wagons, and the greater part of their baggage. That of Gates and De Kalb, with all their papers, was saved. The loss of the British was severe. Gates estimated that more than five hundred of the enemy were killed and wounded; Stedman (ii., 210) says the British loss was three hundred less than the Americans. A great many of the fugitive militia were murdered in their flight. Armed parties of Tories, alarmed at the presence of the Americans, were marching to join Gates. When they heard of his defeat, they inhumanly pursued the flying Americans, and butchered a large number in the swamps and pine barrens.
* See Florida Blanca's Representation, as cited by Arch-deacon Coxe in his Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, of the Throne of Bourbon.
Confidence of the British.—Rendezvous at Hillsborough.—Governor Nash.—Colonel Buncombe.
confident of future success, moved toward the North State to establish royal rule there. His march to, and retreat from Charlotte; the defeat of his detachments at King's Mountain and the Cowpens; the pursuit of Greene; the battle at Guilford; the retreat of the British to Wilmington; their march into Virginia; and the final capture of Cornwallis's army at Yorktown, have been considered in preceding chapters.
General Gates was much censured on account of the defeat of the Americans on Sander's Creek, because he provided for no place of rendezvous in the event of being obliged to retreat; for not having his baggage and stores at a proper distance from the scene of action; and because of an improper arrangement of his army for attack, placing his unskilled militia on the right, opposite the British veterans of Webster. Armand spoke harshly of Gates, and even intimated that he was a coward or a traitor. Gates's great fault appears to have been a too sanguine belief that he could easily crush the inferior force of his enemy. His vanity was always the source of his greatest trouble. In this instance he was too confident of success, and made no provision for the contingencies of adversity; and hence his utter weakness when the victorious blow was struck by the British, and he was obliged to flee.
On the seventeenth and eighteenth, August 1780Smallwood and Gist arrived at Charlotte, with several other officers, and there they found more than one hundred regular infantry, Armand's cavalry, Major Davie's partisan corps from the Waxhaw settlement, and a few militia. Gates began to hope that another army might be speedily reorganized, when intelligence of the disaster of Sumter at Fishing Creek reached him. He retreated to Hillsborough, where the Provincial Congress was in session, with Governor Abner Nash * at its head. That officer exerted all the power and influence of his station to