A few days after the taking of Philadelphia, the Rev. Jacob Duché, of that city, who had been an approved supporter of the Americans, transmitted a letter to Washington, tempting him to desert the cause. Washington sent the letter to Congress; but Sparks could not find it in the Archives at Washington, and prints it from Rivington's Gazette (Corresp. of the Rev., i. 448). The letters which grew out of this act, including one of expostulation from Francis Hopkinson, the brother-in-law of Duché, and that of repentance sent to Washington by Duché in 1783, can be found in Sparks, v. 94, 476.[941]
MUD ISLAND, 1777-1778.
Sketched from a corner map of the large MS. map, called on another page, "The Defences of Philadelphia, 1777-1778."
The military movements during the autumn of 1777 were mainly to try the temper of the opposing forces and to secure forage, and the incessant watching of each other's motions made Pickering write to Elbridge Gerry (Nov. 2d,—Mag. Amer. Hist., Nov., 1884, p. 461) that "since Brandywine we have been in a constant state of hurry."[942]
ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FORGE, 1777-1778.
A sketch made by combining two in the Sparks collection at Cornell University. One is a French plan, from the Lafayette maps, which gives the main features of the topography to the present sketch. The other is one transmitted by General Armstrong to Mr. Sparks in 1833, embodying the recollections of a Mr. William Davis, "a remarkably active and intelligent man, who resided within the limits of the camp during its continuance there." General Armstrong cites the testimony of a son of General Wayne, that the recollections of Davis "of the most minute occurrences of the period were entirety unaffected by age." Upon this dependence has been put for the positions of the troops and the quarters of the general officers. The plan given by Sparks (Washington, v. 196) seems to have been made by a similar combination, though he omits the locations of the general's quarters. The plan of Sparks is essentially followed in Guizot's Washington, in Lossing's Field-Book (vol. ii. 334,—also see Harper's Monthly, xii. 307), and in Carrington's Battles, p. 402 (and in Mag. of Amer. Hist., Feb., 1882).
There is a view of Washington's headquarters in Scharf and Westcott's Philadelphia, i. 369; Egle's Pennsylvania, p. 182; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 332, and in his Mary and Martha Washington, p. 168; and Mag. Amer. Hist., Feb., 1882.
The French alliance was celebrated in camp May 6, 1778 (Sparks, v. 355; Moore's Diary, ii.).