The story of the victory of Princeton has been often told and well told, and I need not here recount it. The battle was not a great one in the numbers engaged or in the time of its continuance; but short as it was, it was most severe -the British losing about one hundred killed, and about three hundred wounded and prisoners, and the Americans losing about one hundred killed and wounded, including several estimable officers The saddest loss of the patriots at Princeton was the brave Scot, Hugh Mercer. A native of Scotland, Dr. Mercer had served at Culloden as an assistant surgeon; coming to this country in 1747, he settled in Franklin County, Pennsylvania; he served with Washington in the Indian Wars of 1755 and 1756; subsequently removing to Fredericksburg, in Virginia, where he resided at the commencement of the Revolution, when he was among the first and boldest of those who took up arms for his adopted country, which he loved with all the fervor of a native, and which he served faithfully and fearlessly until his death at Princeton. In the American Historical Record of November, 1874, Dr. Lossing gives a capital sketch of General Mercer,1

I have already alluded to the wonderful results of this brief campaign of twelve days. The American Republic emerged from the dark clouds of fear, dread, apprehension and despondency, into the bright light of hope, faith and

confidence. The British officers in America were baffled, the authorities in England amazed, the friends of America in England and other countries enheartened, the world electrified. During the whole Revolutionary struggle the movements of these twelve days had no parallel, and the good effected was felt through adversity and prosperity throughout the war.

I have also spoken of the wise act of the Congress in making General Washington

actual commander-in-chief, and one of the best consequences of the successes at Trenton and Princeton was that they strengthened the Congress in pursuing this new common-sense policy, revived popular confidence in him, and aided him in recruiting and organizing a national army.

The winter at Morristown was not spent in idleness: recruiting for the new army was prosecuted with zeal, and before the opening of the spring Washington found himself in command of ten thousand men, largely regulars of his national army, officered under his own direct control, and well provided and equipped as compared with. former American troops. Meanwhile, constant incursions by scouting and foraging parties had compelled the British to keep within the lines of New Brunswick and Amboy.

MOHAMMED lived between 570 and 652. His creed, at first despised and insignificant, gained followers rapidly during the closing years of his life, and still more rapidly after his death, when rival sects, claiming sole orthodoxy, rivaled each other in proselytism east, north, south and west. Like a circle in water, the progress was consistent on every side; and while some planted the green banner in Ispahan

and India, and carried it forward so effectually against China that its influence has to be reckoned in all later history of the empires; while growing in Northern Turkey to the grand conquest of Constantinople and the overthrow of the Byzantine Empire in 1300, that we have already

by which the Moslem creed won its way through Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers and Morocco to the Atlantic are hardly worth describing, and indeed present few salient features. The people had no

sketched, and dispossessing Thoth and Sesostris in Egypt by Amru, lieutenant of Caliph Omar in 640, it flashed across the whole Mediterranean littoral of Africa and penetrated above the Cataracts and beyond the Sahara, and remains in the ascendant there to this day.

The most brilliant chapter of the new creed was written in Spain. There it conquered a sturdier if not a finer civilization than the one it overthrew in Turkey; the Gothic Empire contrasting with the later Greek as unadorned strength with effete beauty and languor. The successive stages

common creed or political polity; had no culture or zeal or energy. They comprised races that united and dissipated according to caprice; and though fierce and warlike, and as determined to resist invasion

as in the times of Scipio and Hannibal, had no bond. of union and no great resources. Their hot blood was fired by the sensuous incitements and enthusiasm which overrun Arabia, and Mohammed's creed rather flashed along their way than fought for its victory. The Fatimito Caliphs of Northern

Africa were strong enough to vaunt their superiority over the Caliphs of Bagdad, by whom, when the Shiite and Sunnite controversy arose, precedency was claimed over the central authority, recognized by most of the Moslem world, at Damascus. The root of the Fatimito power was purely Saracenic. It included the blood of the best races of Northern Africa-men fiery in love and war, but patient to study and capable of sustained efforts. They were learned beyond the nations of Europe, then plunged in the intellectual night of the Middle Ages, and preserved law,

tion of authority, little knowledge of any kind, and little industry or patriotism or faith to atone for general decay from the period of Cæsar's rule. Taric found almost no resistance when he landed and was able to recruit and organize his men unopposed. He won his first great victory after three days of hard fighting, near Cadiz, somewhere between 711 and 714. As soon as a secure lodgement was made, Muza himself arrived with reinforcements, and overrun the country with a poor show of resistance. The Goths had weakened in an alien climate, and the Spaniards were so degenerate or careless that they refused to make the effort necessary; and when Muza's son, Abdelaziz, married Roderic's widow,

Egilona, he was enabled to draw many of the Goths and Spaniards under his banner. Two of the new rulers, brothers, ruled in Africa when he and Taric were both summoned to Damascus by Caliph Walid. But their removal had no lasting effect on their government. There were dissensions in the Saracenic ranks which helped the Gothic hero, Pelago, to gain renown. These sprang from unwillingness to recognize the authority of Damascus, rather than from intestine controversies or fear; and the work of subjugation went forward until Abder. rahman, the eleventh Emir, was defeated by Charles Martel at Tours in 732. Then some successes won by Alphonso, a Spanish ruler, occurring