of the Provincials is too great for them to contend with at present.  They must build larger vessels for this purpose, and these cannot be ready before next summer.  The design was[3] that the two armies commanded by Generals Howe and Burgoyne should cooeperate; that they should both be on the Hudson River at the same time; that they should join about Albany, and thereby cut off all communication between the northern and southern Colonies."[4]

As Arnold’s more ambitious scheme could not be realised, he had to content himself with gondolas and galleys, for the force he was to command as well as to build.  The precise difference between the two kinds of rowing vessels thus distinguished by name, the writer has not been able to ascertain.  The gondola was a flat-bottomed boat, and inferior in nautical qualities—­speed, handiness, and seaworthiness—­to the galleys, which probably were keeled.  The latter certainly carried sails, and may have been capable of beating to windward.  Arnold preferred them, and stopped the building of gondolas.  “The galleys,” he wrote, “are quick moving, which will give us a great advantage in the open lake.”  The complements of the galleys were eighty men, of the gondolas forty-five; from which, and from their batteries, it may be inferred that the latter were between one third and one half the size of the former.  The armaments of the two were alike in character, but those of the gondolas much lighter.  American accounts agree with Captain Douglas’s report of one galley captured by the British.  In the bows, an 18 and a 12-pounder; in the stern, two 9’s; in broadside, from four to six 6’s.  There is in this a somewhat droll reminder of the disputed merits of bow, stern, and broadside fire, in a modern iron-clad; and the practical conclusion is much the same.  The gondolas had one 12-pounder and two 6’s.  All the vessels of both parties carried a number of swivel guns.

Amid the many difficulties which lack of resources imposed upon all American undertakings, Arnold succeeded in getting afloat with three schooners, a sloop, and five gondolas, on the 20th of August.  He cruised at the upper end of Champlain till the 1st of September, when he moved rapidly north, and on the 3d anchored in the lower narrows, twenty-five miles above St. John’s, stretching his line from shore to shore.  Scouts had kept him informed of the progress of the British naval preparations, so that he knew that there was no immediate danger; while an advanced position, maintained with a bold front, would certainly prevent reconnoissances by water, and possibly might impose somewhat upon the enemy.  The latter, however, erected batteries on each side of the anchorage, compelling Arnold to fall back to the broader lake.  He then had soundings taken about Valcour Island, and between it and the western shore; that being the position in which he intended to make a stand.  He retired thither on the 23rd of September.