Browsing named entities in Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). You can also browse the collection for January, 1778 AD or search for January, 1778 AD in all documents.

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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Clinton, Sir Henry 1738-1795 (search)
38; was a son of George Clinton, colonial governor of New York. He entered the army when quite young, and had risen to the rank of major-general in 1775, when he was sent to America with Howe and Burgoyne. He participated in the battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775), and was thereafter active in service against the oppressed colonists until June, 1782, when he returned to England. He Sir Henry Clinton. succeeded General Howe as commanderin-chief of the British forces in America in January, 1778. In October, 1777, Sir Henry undertook a diversion in favor of General Burgoyne, then making his way towards Albany from Canada, in accordance with the British Clinton's despatch and bullet. plan of conquest. Clinton, with a strong land and naval force, had captured Forts Clinton and Montgomery, in the Hudson Highlands (Oct. 6), and sent forces of both arms of the service up the river on a marauding excursion, hoping to draw Gates from Burgoyne's front to protect the country below
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Conciliation measures. (search)
the King of a certain perpetual revenue, to be placed at the disposal of Parliament. All the assemblies rejected the proposition. A committee of the Continental Congress, to which the proposition had been referred, made a report (July 31, 1775), in which the generally unsatisfactory character and the unsafe vagueness of the ministerial offer were fully exposed. The Congress accepted the report and published it to the world. When Parliament reassembled after the Christmas holidays (January, 1778), the opposition exposed the losses, expenses, and hopelessness of the war with the colonists; and, to the surprise and disgust of some of his most ardent supporters, Lord North presented a second plan for reconciliation (Feb. 17), and declared he had always been in favor of peace, and opposed to taxing the Americans. He introduced two bills: one renouncing, on the part of the British Parliament, any intention to levy taxes in America—conceding, in substance, the whole original ground o
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Hopkinson, Francis 1737-1791 (search)
a., Sept. 21, 1737; graduated at Princeton in 1763, and in 1765 was admitted to the bar. His republican principles caused his removal from a lucrative office in New Jersey. He was a member of Congress in 1776-77, and was distinguished during the Revolution by political and satirical writings. His best known is The battle of the kegs. He was judge of admiralty for ten years —1779-89, and United States district judge from 1790 till his death. He died in Philadelphia May 9, 1791. In January, 1778, while the channel of the Delaware River was nearly free of ice, some Whigs at Bordentown, N. J., sent floating down the stream some torpedoes in the form of kegs filled with gunpowder, and so arranged with machinery that on rubbing against an object they would explode. It was hoped that some of these torpedoes might touch a British war-vessel, explode and sink her. One of them, touching a piece of floating ice in front of the city, blew up, and created intense alarm. For twenty-four h