Last in a series of articles on Philadelphia's days in the American Revolution.

The British are going.

The Redcoat army that occupied Philadelphia for nearly nine months has boarded flatboats and crossed the Delaware River to New Jersey.

The date is June 18, 1778, a Thursday.

Out in Valley Forge, with the miseries of the winter behind him and help from France in the offing, a newly confident George Washington is ready to chase the departing enemy.

"I have put Six Brigades in motion, and the rest of the Army are preparing to follow with all possible dispatch," he writes to the president of Congress immediately upon hearing news of the evacuation.

"That old fox," as a British general once called Washington, has become the pursuer.

How things have changed since the British army fought its way past Washington's troops last fall to take Philadelphia, the largest city in North America and the capital of the rebellion.

France, England's ancient enemy, has agreed to help the Americans win their independence, which is why the British are so anxious to get out of Philadelphia. A French fleet is on the way, and the British don't want to be bottled up in the city.

Pennsylvania loyalists have not rallied to the crown, as Sir William Howe, who led the British army into Philadelphia, thought they would. Howe has resigned and been replaced by Sir Henry Clinton.

The Continental Army has become a much more formidable force, drilled into a new efficiency by the recently arrived Prussian volunteer, Friedrich von Steuben.

The prospect of fighting both the French and the Americans is enough to make the British government talk peace.

As the Redcoat army prepares to leave Philadelphia, a commission under the earl of Carlisle arrives to offer the Americans a deal.

In a letter to Congress, sent from Philadelphia on June 9, the commissioners call for an end to the fighting and outline a plan of reconciliation.

Under the plan, the British government would not station troops in America without the consent of Congress or the state legislatures. Agents for the American states would have "a seat and voice in the Parliament of Great Britain." The states would have full power over their internal affairs. Forget about the French, the commissioners urge. They were our common enemy not too long ago.

The commissioners offer Americans "irrevocable enjoyment of every privilege that is short of a total separation of interest."

An irresistible proposition in 1775, but not after three years of war.

"If all the fine things now offered had been tendered some time ago... there can be no doubt but that the People of America would joyfully have embraced the proposition," observes Henry Laurens, the president of Congress, who alludes to a New Testament parable to make his point.

"But now what answer can be given but that which was returned to the foolish Virgins - 'the Door is shut'... "

Congress unanimously rejects the Carlisle Commission's proposals. If there is to be peace, King George III must recognize American independence.

The war goes on.

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With the entry of France into the war, the British are concentrating their forces in New York, the better to deal with possible French operations both in North America and the West Indies.

But getting the army out of Philadelphia is not easy.

Although the occupation has failed to ignite a counterrevolution, it has drawn several thousand loyalists out into the open - and they want to leave Philadelphia before the rebels return.

So the British use their ships to evacuate several thousand loyalist refugees to New York. Clinton's 10,000 British and German troops, with all their baggage, will have to go by land, fighting two enemies on the way: the heat and the Americans.

Skirmishing is constant, writes Capt. Johann Ewald, a German mercenary serving with the British army.

And the heat is deadly. "Many men fell and lost their lives because of the intense heat, and due to the sandy ground which we crossed through a pathless wood where no water was to be found on the entire march," Ewald writes.

Meanwhile, the main body of the Continental Army leaves Valley Forge and marches northeast to intercept the British.

The Americans, like the British, suffer from the heat as they hurry along. James McHenry, one of Washington's aides, writes in his journal on June 21: "A rapid morning's march. The heat excessive. - Some of the soldiers die suddenly."

On June 27, the Continental Army closes in on the slow-moving British at Monmouth Courthouse. Washington sends Maj. Gen. Charles Lee and 5,000 men forward with orders to attack the British the next morning, with Washington and the main army coming behind in support.

Lee attacks, as ordered, but the British turn and threaten to outflank him. Lee orders a retreat.

As the American soldiers fall back, they run smack into their commander-in-chief, who is first incredulous and then furious.

When Lee approaches Washington to explain, an angry Washington lets loose with a verbal barrage of what Lee himself describes as "very singular expressions."

Washington surveys the battlefield as British artillery plows up the ground around him. He turns and orders two Connecticut brigades to make a stand at a fence.

Fire from the Connecticut troops buys needed time. "Our affairs took a favourable turn, and from being pursued, we drove the Enemy back," Washington writes to his brother John.

The day ends with the Americans in possession of the battlefield. Washington expects to renew the attack the next day, but the British slip away during the night. The battle is a draw, but Washington is satisfied. "From an unfortunate, and bad beginning, turned out a glorious and happy day," he writes to his brother.

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Having escaped the Americans at Monmouth, the British army returns to New York, never to trouble Philadelphia again. The Redcoats and their German allies have left Philadelphia in shambles. The occupying army used the State House as a hospital and dug a pit nearby as "a receptacle of filth," into which they threw the bodies of dead men and horses.

"Nothing can exceed the Filthiness of the Houses which have been occupied by the Enemy here... ," writes one returning congressman.

But the city recovers quickly. The Redcoats haven't been gone "a quarter of an hour," writes Philadelphia resident Elizabeth Drinker, when a small party of American cavalry rides in, rushing about the streets with swords drawn, to the alarm of some of the inhabitants.

Washington dispatches Benedict Arnold to the city as military governor, with orders to "take every prudent step in your power, to preserve tranquility and order in the city... ."

Congress, which had fled to York when the British invaded Pennsylvania the previous year, returns to Philadelphia on July 2. The members are just in time to celebrate the second anniversary of American independence with a splendid dinner at the City Tavern and fireworks that draw large crowds into streets that Redcoats recently walked.

The Continental Congress stays in Philadelphia until June 21, 1783, before moving to Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton and, finally, New York.

War grinds on until French and American forces surround the British at Yorktown, Va., and force a surrender in October 1781.

The following year, the British government agrees to recognize American independence. In 1783, the two nations sign a peace treaty.

The war that brought an occupying army to Philadelphia is over.