Jersey, I do not recollect seeing them; and those of New-York, appeared not to be very numerous. They, however, afforded officers, who might have been distinguished without a badge; and who were sufficiently men of the world, to know that the levelling principle was of all others, the most incompatible with good soldiership. Colonel Hamilton had been furnished by this province, making his debut in the new career as a captain of artillery; but I never saw him in this capacity, and I believe he was soon taken into the family of the commander in chief. Reinforcements were yet expected from the southward. Among these, were Miles's and Atlee's provincial regiments from Pennsylvania; Hazlet's from Delaware, and Smallwood's from Maryland, both, I think, on the continental establishment; and in addition, large draughts from the militia of Pennsylvania. All these were assembled in time for the opening of the campaign: but although the multitude, of which they were a part, contained some excellent raw materials, and was not without officers of spirit, possessing feelings suitable to their situation, yet diffused throughout the mass, they were certainly extremely rare. The eye looked round in vain for the leading gentry of the country; those, most emphatically pledged to the cause, "by life, by fortune, and by sacred honor;"* and taking the army in the aggregate, with its equipments along with it, he must have been a novice or a sanguine calculator, who could suppose it capable of sustaining the lofty tone and verbal energy of congress. In point of numbers merely, it was deficient; though a fact then little known or suspected. Newspapers and common report, indeed, made it immensely numerous; and it was represented that general Washington had so many men, that he wanted no more,

Congress, to be sure, were privileged; and there must be civil functions as well as military. But these were a good deal a matter of choice; and as the war was a common cause, the very creature of association, its rubs should have been somewhat equalized. Thoughts of this kind, however, would sometimes intrude into minds soured by hard duty.

and had actually sent many home, as superfluous. It is true, there were men enough coming and going; yet his letters of that day, demonstrate how truly weak he was in steady, permanent soldiers.

It was probably between the twentieth and twenty-fifth of June, that I arrived in this busy scene; in a few days after which, our regiment and Magaw's were marched towards Kingsbridge, and encamped upon the ground on which Fort Washington was erected. We were here under the command of general Mifflin, and immediately employed in the construction of that fortress, under the direction of colonel Putnam, who, as already mentioned, was our principal engineer, and, considering his want of experience, not destitute, perhaps, of merit in his profession. As a man may be a rhetorician or a logician though unacquainted with the terms of the art, so might Mr. Putnam have been a good practical artist, though misterming the Gorge the George. But this was merely a mistake in pronunciation; and I will not permit myself to question, that he had real science enough to have smelt out Moliere's jest about a demi-lune and a lune toute entiere.

In the course of some weeks, our labors had produced immense mounds of earth, assuming a pentagonal form, and finally issuing in a fort of five bastions. As Cæsar, in his operations, has been said to have made great use of the spade, I shall not insist upon the improbus labor being beneath the dignity of a soldier; but certain it is, that we then thought it so, and that the continual fatigue-duty we were subjected to, was not only extremely irksome, but unfavorable also to our improvement in tactics, which, nevertheless, was assiduously attended to. The perpetual clouds of dust which the dry weather of the season occasioned, gave us the appearance of scavengers; a circumstance sadly at variance with the neatness of person inculcated by colonel Shee, and of which he was an enthusiastic admirer: it made our duty also, extremely severe, and gave me

an inflammation in my eyes, which was the only in disposition I experienced during the campaign. Sickness, however, on the approach of fall, prevailed among our men to a great degree; and little more than half our number, was at any time fit for duty. Thus, without fighting, are armies "sluggishly melted away."

One of the chief objects in building Fort Washington is understood to have been, to prevent the enemy passing up the Hudson, on whose eastern bank it stood, on very commanding ground. On the opposite side of the river, Fort Lee, in the same view, was afterwards erected: and these, with the sinking of some hulks in the channel, were expected, or at least hoped, to be sufficient for the purpose. But the inefficacy of these impediments was soon evinced by two frigates, that taking advantage of a favorable wind, sailed by us with great gallantry, in English phrase, returning our fire in great style. We were too high for their guns to be brought to bear upon us with any certainty; though one ball was thrown into the fort. Our elevated situation was nearly as unfavorable to the success of our fire upon them; to remedy which in future, a battery was constructed below, in a very advantageous position. But this was attended with no better effect; as two other frigates, not long after, passed in defiance of the guns of both batteries, and apparently without having sustained the slightest injury. I afterwards learned, however, when prisoner in New-York, that upon one of these occasions, one of the frigates had been huiled, and some men killed and wounded; among the latter, a midshipman, a son of Mr. Courtland Skinner, of Amboy, lost his arm.

To have been regular, I should have mentioned the arrival of the hostile forces, and their occupancy of Staten-island as a preparatory station. From the uncertainty in what quarter they might invade us, the utmost vigilance was inculcated every where, and observed at our post. The lines were manned

every morning an hour before day light; we were several times formed for action; and once marched to Bloomingdale in full expectation of meeting the enemy, who it was confidently asserted, had made good a landing there, or in the neighborhood. The intelligence proved untrue, if such indeed had been received. But it is not improbable, that it was merely a contrivance of general Mifflin, to inure us to alarms and render us alert, objects, that to a certain extent, were not without utility; but the general was a bustier, who harrassed us unnecessarily; and, considering the unavoidable severity of our duty, to the red injury of the health of the troops. His manners were better adapted to attract popularity than to preserve it. Highly animated in his appearance, and possessing in an eminent degree the talent of harranguing a multitude, his services in giving motion to the militia, were several times in the course of the war, feit and acknowledged; but that he was equally calculated to keep alive military ardor and confidence, cannot be affirmed. He was full of activity and apparently of fire; but it rather resembled the transient blaze of light combustibles, than the constant, steady flame of substantial fuel: though in saying this it should be mentioned, that I have no ground to insinuate that his fortitude was not equal to any demand that might have been made upon it. He assumed a little of the veteran from having lain before Boston; was very fond of telling us that he would bring us into a scrape; and it must be confessed, that he was considerably happy in the display of that apathy to human carnage, which is affected by great commanders, in the spirit of which the great Frederick tells us, that, "When sovereigns play for provinces, the lives of men are but as counters." So much 'tis better to direct the game, than be a component part of its machinery! But whatever might have been Mifflin's deficiencies, he had ma-ny qualifications for his station that too many others, placed in higher ones, wanted. He was a man of

education, ready apprehension and brilliancy; had spent some time in Europe, particularly in France, and was very easy of access with the manners of genteel life, though occasionally évolving those of the Quaker. In delineating both men and events, my object is truth; otherwise the friendly attention I never failed to receive from this gentleman, ight have led me into a strain of less qualified encomium.

The first frigates that passed us, took their station in Tappan sea, where an attempt was made to set them on fire. It failed as to the larger vessels, but a tender was destroyed. One of the persons who embarked in this service as a volunteer, was the surgeon's mate of our regiment, a singular character and degenerate son of Mordecai Yarnall, a Quaker preacher. I was amused with his oddities. and sometimes listened to his imitations of his father's manner of preaching, as well as that of many others of the public friends. Though a temporary apostate from the principles of his forefathers, in which he had been strictly brought up, I never doubted that they had taken root in him; and that if he was not prematurely cut off, they would vegetate and fructify in due season: nor was I mistaken. Many years after, I saw him zealously sustaining his paternal vocation, surrounded by a circle of friends. He had come to preach in the town in which I resided: I went to hear him, and had the pleasure of taking him home with me to dinner with several of his atten dants, where every thing passed with as much gravity and decorum, as if I had never seen him in any other character. Mr. Yarnall's former profaneness could not but have occurred to him on this occasion; but whatever might have been his recollections, he dissembled them admirably.

Among the military phenomena of this campaign, the Connecticut light horse ought not to be forgotten. These consisted of a considerable number of old fashioned men, probably farmers and heads of Families, as they were generally middle aged, and