[FN] Campbell's Annals.
It was not until June of the following year that Mrs. Campbell was sent from Niagara to Montreal, on her way home. While residing at the former post, the Indians having been driven into the fort, she was enabled to recover three of her children. On her arrival at Montreal, she met with Mrs. Butler and her family, who had been previously released. Here, also, and in charge of that lady, Mrs. Campbell found her fourth child, a little son who had been torn from her in the Cherry Valley massacre. He was dressed in the green uniform of Butler's rangers; but had forgotten the English language—speaking nothing but Indian. From Montreal Mrs. Campbell was sent to Albany by the way of Lake Champlain, [FN] where she was shortly afterward joined by her husband, who had been stationed at Fort Schuyler most of the time during her captivity.
[FN] On her way from Montreal, a variety of circumstances and incidents intervened to harass Mrs. Campbell and the prisoners returning in her company, and to retard their progress. She had been detained four months at Montreal, and these additional delays were exceedingly vexatious. Before their departure from Crown Point, a rumor had reached the American shores of the lake, from Ticonderoga to Skenesborough, that another expedition was about to be undertaken from Canada against New-York, and the inhabitants had become not a little alarmed at the prospect. It happened that the men in the batteaux containing the prisoners, were clad in blanket coats, and some of the women wore red cloaks. A scout had discovered them on the lake, and taking them for a party of Indians and Tories, gave the alarm, and before their arrival, more than a thousand men had collected, under Col. Ethan Allen. While stopping at a small fortress, eight miles from Castleton, it was announced that a flag was approaching. It was supposed to be sent to demand the surrender of the fortress. Col. Herrick, of the militia, struck his sword upon the ground with such force that he broke it in pieces, saying it should not be surrendered. Col. Allen told the prisoners that they should not again fall into the hands of the enemy, and immediately mounting them upon horseback, sent them off toward Albany, with an escort of a hundred men. This flag was sent for the following reason:—It had been rumored that the inhabitants in that section had said that if they were not protected from the incursions of the Indians and Tories, they would seek protection elsewhere. It is perhaps needless to add that this flag was sent to offer them the protection of Great Britain—a proposition which was of course refused.—Campbell's Annals.
The destruction of Cherry Valley closed the warlike operations of both nations, in the North, for that year. A formidable campaign had indeed been projected early in the season, as has been already stated, not only against the hostiles of the Six Nations, but likewise against the nations more remote, for whom Detroit was the common centre. But the larger half of this enterprise had been abandoned after the irruption into Wyoming, and the next project contemplated the invasion of the Seneca country by way of the Tioga and Chemung rivers. In October this branch of the project was likewise deferred, at the suggestion of Generals Gates and Schuyler.
Meantime, notwithstanding that these enterprises had successively fallen to the ground for want of "the sinews of war," Congress had been projecting another stupendous campaign, comprehending a simultaneous attack upon the whole northern range of British possessions, from Cape Breton and Newfoundland to Detroit. The French fleet was to co-operate by attacking the islands and territories at the estuary of the St. Lawrence; while the Americans were to send an army to Detroit, another to Niagara, a third to Oswego, and a fourth against Montreal by the way of St. Francis. It is needless to add, that although Congress had arranged all the details, the moment the plan was laid before the Commander-in-chief, who had not previously been consulted in the premises, it was necessarily laid aside. In the first place, the nation had not the means; and in the second, Congress, in arranging matters for this splendid undertaking, had forgotten that they were to leave Sir Henry Clinton, and all the British forces in New-York, and at the South, computed at the least at seventeen thousand men, behind! Thus closed the Northern campaigns of 1778. The British, Tories and Indians went into winter-quarters, and the frontier inhabitants disposed of themselves as best they could.
Much has been said in the traditions of Tryon County, and somewhat, also, in the courts of law, in cases involving titles to real estate formerly in the family of Sir William Johnson, respecting the burial of an iron chest, by his son Sir John, previous to his flight to Canada, containing the most valuable of his own and his father's papers. Late in the Autumn of the present year, General Haldimand, at the request of Sir John, sent a party of between forty and fifty men privately to Johnstown, to dig up and carry the chest away. The expedition was successful; but the chest not being sufficiently tight to prevent the influence of dampness from the earth, the papers had become mouldy, rotten, and illegible, when taken up. The information respecting this expedition was derived, in the Spring following, from a man named Helmer, who composed one of the party, and assisted in disinterring the chest. Helmer had fled to Canada with Sir John. While retiring from Johnstown with the chest, he injured his ankle; and by reason of his lameness, went back to his father's house, where he remained concealed until Spring, when he was arrested. He was tried as a spy by a court-martial, at Johnstown, April 15,1779, and sentenced to death—chiefly on his own admissions to the court. A considerable number of rather summary executions, by the Whigs of Tryon County, took place in the course of the contest. [FN]
[FN] This information, in regard to the recovery of the iron chest, is derived from the minutes of the court-martial, among the papers of Gen. Clinton. The MS. narrative of Jacob Sammons, in the author's possession, states that the chest was dug up during a night in May, 1778, by Lieut. Crawford, at the head of forty men sent from Canada for that purpose. Sammons then held a lease of the Johnson farm from the committee of sequestrations. The chest had been buried beneath one of the garden walks. Sammons discovered it in the morning, with the fragments of papers scattered around it. But as he wrote his narrative long afterward, the probability is that the date given on the trial of Helmer is the true one.
The leading military events occurring in other parts of the country, during the year 1778, have already been incidentally adverted to, with the exception of those that transpired at the South. In the month of June, the Earl of Carlisle, Governor Johnstone, and William Eden, Esq. who, in conjunction with General and Lord Howe, had been appointed Commissioners to make another attempt to treat with the Colonies, arrived, and sent their instructions to Congress. A letter from the President was despatched in reply, rebuking the Commissioners for the language indulged by them in regard to the King of France, our ally, and again peremptorily refusing to entertain a negotiation, except upon the basis of independent States. On the 6th of August, M. Gerard was publicly received as Minister Plenipotentiary of the King of France—to the great joy of the American people; and on the 14th of September, Dr. Benjamin Franklin was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Versailles.