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What is to become either of your new adopted subjects, or your old friends, the Tories, in Burlington, Bordentown, Trenton, Mount Holly, and many other places, where you proudly lorded it for a few days, and then fled with the precipitation of a pursued thief? What, I say, is to become of those wretches? What is to become of those who went over to you from this city and State?
Deep and far "under the shade of melancholy boughs" we shall be taken, if together we visit the ancient Pines of New Jersey. In order to do so, we must make at Bordentown the acquaintance of Mr. Cox, and take our seats in his stage for a jolt, twelve miles long, to the village of New Egypt, on the frontier of the Pines.
Peter, on his arrival, proceeded to the headquarters of Colonel Rhalle, who was in command an officer of great bravery and energy. One of his officers was able to speak English, and to him Peter reported the departure of the force from Bordentown, of which Colonel Rhalle was already aware, and the weakness of the American force at Mount Holly.
The counsels of old seamen had influenced me to adopt a large wooden clinker-built, decked canoe, eighteen feet long, forty-five inches beam, and twenty-four inches depth of hold, which weighed, with oars, rudder, mast and sail, above three hundred pounds. The Mayeta was built by an excellent workman, Mr. J. S. Lamson, at Bordentown, New Jersey.
Cadwalader from the Crosswicks, and Mifflin from Bordentown, with thirty-six hundred men, were ordered forward at once. They promptly obeyed orders, and by another desperate night march reached Trenton on the morning of the first day of the year. There was heavy skirmishing all day on the second.
Fortunately Bordentown and Trenton aint far apart, and one garrison ought to be able to arrive to the assistance of the other before it's overpowered. We shall see. Now, I propose that we cross again to-night and try and find out what the enemy's doing.
Generals Mifflin and Cadwallader, who lay at Bordentown and Crosswix, with three thousand six hundred militia, were therefore ordered to join the Commander-in-chief, whose whole effective force, with this addition, did not exceed five thousand men. Lord Cornwallis advanced upon him the next morning; and about four in the afternoon, the van of the British army reached Trenton.
The casualties were few on either side, but 1000 prisoners were taken. Two other divisions of the Americans had attempted to cross, the one at Bordentown, the other at Mackenzie's Ferry, but both had failed, owing to the quantity of floating ice. Washington retired across the Delaware the same afternoon. The consequences of this success were great.
Tracy's parlour, all day long, one after the other, to say what they thought of the firing. In the evening there came a body of Hessians flying into the town, to say that General Washington had surprised the British at Trenton, early that morning, and completely routed them, which so frightened the Hessians in Bordentown that they left without the slightest ceremony.
In the autumn of 1783, when Paine was residing at Bordentown, he received a letter from Washington, who had fixed his quarters at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, until he could resign his command to Congress. It ran thus:
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