out to villages and towns and farm-houses to set the hearts of patriots on fire with joy and hope.
It was quite likely that every courier would picture the success of General Washington at least as large as the reality. Lord Cornwallis himself, rallying his somewhat scattered detachments to strike back at his unexpected assailant, was aware of stinging losses, but not that he had been seriously defeated. He had suffered a sharp check, and he had afterward failed to surround and capture Mr. Washington and his brave ragamuffins. That appeared to be about all. It hardly occurred to the self-confident British generals that so small an affair as that of Trenton, or a drawn battle like that of Princeton, could have any great or permanent consequences. Little did they imagine how great a change was made in the minds, in the courage and hope of a host of previously dispirited Americans.
There had been many, for instance, who had been losing confidence in Washington's ability as a general. He had been too often defeated, and they could not rightly understand or estimate the causes for his reverses, or how well he had done in spite of terrible disadvantages. Now, as his star again blazed forth, these very faultfinders were ready to believe him one of the greatest generals of the age.
The political consequences were invaluable. Not only the Congress at Philadelphia, but the state legislatures, most of them, were more ready to push along with measures of a military nature. The entire aspect of affairs underwent a visible change, not only in America, but, very soon, in Europe.
Especially dense was the crowd that gathered at the wharf toward which the Noank was to be steered. All the other crowds probably wished that they had known just where to go. Most of them at once set out on a run in the corrected direction. The cheering done had already made a great many of the patriots somewhat hoarse, and they were all the readier to hear as well as talk.
"Oh! Guert!" exclaimed his mother, as she hugged him, the moment he came over upon the wharf. "I'm glad of the victories, but I'm gladder still to see you safe back again!"
"Up-na-tan hit the brig, mother," he said. "Captain Avery says we can run out right past her. Hurrah for General Washington!"
"Thee bad boy!" said Rachel Tarns, behind Mrs. Ten Eyck. "Thee and thy schooner should have been with him at Trenton. He was in need of thy fine French guns and thy sailors."
"That's so, I guess!" said Guert. "We'd ha' sailed right in, if we'd been there. I'd like to ha' seen the battle. Mother, Up-na-tan's going to teach me how to handle cannon. He says he's going to make a good gunner of me."
"I want you to be a captain," she said.
"Guert," said Rachel, "I wish thee might become as good an artilleryman as thy old friend Alexander Hamilton. It is my pride and joy, this day, that I paid for the first powder for his cannon. I also praise the Lord that Alexander knoweth so well what to do with them and with the powder."
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