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Johnathan Eddy was joined in 1777 By Mosses Hazen and the 2nd Canadian Regiment but even together they made little headway in Nova Scotia for the year. The Royal Navy presence in the area was largely not challenged by the entry of France and Spain into the war or the continuing small contributions of the Continental Navy most of the work for the Patriots at sea being done by privateers in the Caribbean. Benedict Arnold was sent to clear the area from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico of opposition spent most of the year taking Detroit having to fend of several attacks from natives before capturing it and moving south where Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Spanish militia were already engaging the hostile natives and their ever shrinking number of British allies. Though the campaigns in the west started off with good relations with some native tribes trouble distinguishing friend from foe led to hostilities between them. This unfortunately led to the massacre of a peaceful settlement of Lenape who had previously passed information to the militia at Fort Pitt because the missionaries administering the settlement favored the cause moved there by the British and their allies. Blame for the massacre fell on Arnold and Congress already looking for a reason to get rid of him recalled him for a trial though he was cleared by tribunal since it was carried out by Pennsylvania militia seeking revenge for raids into Pennsylvania (he was eventually sent south to fight under Greene). Several soldiers were captured afterwards and were brutally tortured and then burned at the stake. South of the Ohio was less active most of the action there was from the Spanish march along the cost. Congress spent time since the Declaration of Independence drafting an official form of government, The Articles of Confederation, which barely changed the structure between the Congress of the Confederation and the Continental Congress ceding most of the power to the states leaving an extremely weak central government though it would not be fully ratified still for several years.

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