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1777] Trenton, Brandy wine, and Germantown. 213 of the language and unpopularity with the colonists made it impossible for them to obtain intelligence. Washington saw that some bold stroke, leading to tangible and immediate success, was needed to restore that confidence which had been shaken by recent reverses. To this end he in person made a night-attack on Trenton and, surprising the division of Hessians, many of whom were engaged in plundering, carried off a thousand prisoners and a considerable number of cannon. Some operations followed, in which Washington, while avoiding a decisive battle, contrived to obtain virtual command of New Jersey, a success to which the ill-feeling created by the pillaging and bad discipline of the British contributed not a little. The campaign of 1777 began with some unimportant British successes on the Hudson, balanced by an American attack on an outpost on Long Island, in which ninety prisoners were taken and a large quantity of stores destroyed. In August, 1777, Howe obtained the first decisive success that had attended him since the battle of Long Island. He landed his main army at the head of the Elk river, opening into Chesapeake Bay, and advanced on Philadelphia. Washington posted himself to cover the town, with the Brandywine, a tributary of the Delaware, in his front. Lord Cornwallis crossed the upper fords of the stream and attacked and defeated the American right ; and in the general action that ensued the colonists were routed with considerable loss. A resolute pursuit might have brought about the entire destruction of the American army ; but Howe was content to advance cautiously, and was suffered to occupy Philadelphia without resistance. The town was garrisoned only by a detachment under Cornwallis, the bulk of the British army being posted at Germantown, a village about three miles from Philadelphia. Howe was compelled somewhat to weaken his force by sending off detachments for isolated operations on the Delaware. This encouraged Washington to make an attack on Howe's position, which he carried out with a force of 8000 men, divided into five detachments. The attack was helped by a fog, and was at first successful ; but the same cause which favoured the first attack made subsequent co-operation difficult. A portion of the British force occupied a large stone house from which they kept up a fire which ended in the discomfiture of the Americans. Here again Howe made no attempt to follow up his success. To attack an army strongly posted on ground of its own choosing with inferior and comparatively untrained troops, under such conditions that any failure in exact co-operation must lead to disaster, could only have been justified by the urgent necessity of some conspicuous success to wipe out the moral effect of the defeat on the Brandywine. Even so the venture furnishes a striking illustration of Washington's contempt for Howe's generalship. Before evacuating Philadelphia, the Americans had