As soon as the boats returned, regiment after regiment embarked and set sail for the fleet; but the distance being considerable and the wind foul, many days elapsed before the whole could be got off. Excepting in one trifling instance, however, no accident occurred, and by the end of the month we were all once more on board our former ships. But our return was far from triumphant. We, who only seven weeks ago had set out in the surest confidence of glory, and I may add of emolument, were brought back dispirited and dejected. Our ranks were wofully thinned, our chiefs slain, our clothing tattered and filthy, and even our discipline in some degree injured. A gloomy silence reigned throughout the armament, except when it was broken by the voice of lamentation over fallen friends; and the interior of each ship presented a scene well calculated to prove the short-sightedness of human hope and human prudence.

The accident to which I allude was the capture of a single boat by the enemy. About thirty men of the 14th dragoons having crowded into an unarmed barge, were proceeding slowly down the lake, when a boat mounting a carronade in its bow suddenly darted from a creek and made towards them. To escape was impossible, for their barge was too heavily laden to move at a rate of even moderate rapidity; and to fight was equally out of the question, because of the superiority which their cannon gave to the Americans.