Virginia her Lees and Henrys; all of whom were spoken of as men of the first rate abilities. Not long after the organization of this body, their president, Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, died, and John Hancook, of Boston, was selected to supply his place. Towards the close of the year, they passed a resolution for levying some continental battalions, four of which were to be raised in Pennsylvania. One had already been raised and officered by the province; but as the applicants for commissions in this were not of my set of acquaintance, I did not apply. Upon the promulgation, however, of this resolution of congress, I signified to the committee of safety, in whom the power of appointment was lodged, and of which body my uncle was a member, my wish to be employed. The appointments were made, and in a list of thirty-two captains, I ranked the sixteenth, and accordingly received my commission from Congress, dated January the 6th, 1776. Upon this nomination of the committee of safety, which also extended to all the inferior commissioned officers, the field officers, who had already been assigned to particular battalions, had a meeting for the purpose of selecting their captains and subalterns. In this arrangement, it fell to my lot to be attached to the third battalion, under the command of Colonel John Shee, and of which Mr. Lambert Cadwalader, the younger brother of Mr. John Cadwalader, already mentioned, was lieutenantcolonel." (P. 125, 126.)

From this period the volume becomes highly interesting, on account of the familiarity of the writer with a variety of scenes and persons worthy of record in the memorable contest between Great Britain and her refractory daughter. The author commenced his military and political career as a friend to the liberties of his country; but by no means to the violent party spirit which began to actuate so many of her professed patriots. Though opposed in arms to Great Britain, he is not backward in acknowledging the merits of many of her officers, or in frankly stating what he considered exceptionable in the conduct of his own party.

The author having thus entered the patriotic, or, as it was then termed, the rebel army, joined his regiment, and proceeded from Philadelphia to New York, in the neighbourhood of which it was encamped. The place chosen for the entrenchments was a post afterwards known by the name of Fort Washington, on the eastern bank of the Hudson, and commanding that river. In a few weeks the spade, that ancient ally of the sword, had produced immense mounds of earth, assuming a pentagonal form, and finally issuing in the aforesaid fort of five bastions. On the opposite side of the river, Fort Lee was soon afterwards erected, nodding, in conscious pride, to its opposite neighbour Washington; and these precautions, with a few hulks sunk in the river, it was hoped would effectually defend the passage against the invaders. But it is time that we should inform our

readers of the character of the soldiery in the insurgent army, whom our author by no means spares in his good-humoured sketches.

"A considerable portion of our motley army had already assembled in New York and its vicinity. The troops were chiefly from the eastern provinces; those from the southern, with the exception of Hand's, Magaw's, and our regiment, had not yet come on. The appearance of things was not much calculated to excite sanguine expectations in the mind of a sober observer. Great numbers of people were indeed to be seen, and those who are not accustomed to the sight of bodies under arms are always prone to exaggerate them. But this propensity to swell the mass had not an equal tendency to convert it into soldiery; and the irregularity, want of discipline, bad arms, and defective equipment in all respects, of this multitudinous assemblage, gave no favourable impression of its prowess. The materials of which the eastern battalions were composed were apparently the same as those of which I had seen so unpromising a specimen at lake George. I speak particularly of the officers, who were in no single respect distinguishable from their men, other than in the coloured cockades, which, for this very purpose, had been prescribed in general orders, a different colour being assigned to the officers of each grade. So far from aiming at a deportment which might raise them above their privates, and thence prompt them to due respect and obedience to their commands, the object was, by humility, to preserve the existing blessing of equality; an illustrious instance of which was given by Colonel Putnam, the chief engineer of the army, and no less a personage than the nephew of the major-general of that_name. "What," says a person meeting him one day with a piece of meat in his hand, carrying home your rations yourself, colonel!"-"Yes," says he, "and I do it to set the officers a good example." But if any aristocratic tendencies had been really discovered by the Colonel among his countrymen, requiring this wholesome example, they must have been of recent origin, and the effect of southern contamination, since I have been credibly informed, that it was no unusual thing in the army before Boston, for a colonel to make drummers and fifers of his sons, thereby not only being enabled to form a very snug economical iness, but to aid also considerably the revenue of the family chest. In short, it appeared, that the sordid spirit of gain was the vital principle of the greater part of the army. (P. 145, 146.)

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The character of insurgent armies is every where pretty much the same; and it reflected no discredit upon General Washington, or the infant Congress, that honest labourers and mechanics could not in a moment be transmuted to well-disciplined soldiers; or that in the hurry of the exigence, and with but very limited financial resources, their habiliments and materiel should not have been altogether adjusted to the pride, pomp, and circumstance of war. It was, however, somewhat to the discredit of the forces that very few persons in the rank of gen

tlemen were at this period to be found among them: a circumstance which may perhaps account, in some measure, for the extreme contempt in which they were held by the British army and people.

The sixth and seventh chapters contain an account of the arrival of the British troops, under General Howe, at Long Island; followed by some skirmishes and actions, which ended in the expulsion of the Americans from that post, and also their abandonment of New York, and retreat within their lines at Fort Washington, where they were shortly afterwards attacked and obliged to retire, leaving the British troops in full possession of the post and neighbourhood. The description of the storming and capture of Fort Washington is sketched with great spirit.

In this engagement our gallant author was taken prisoner, and, being considered as a rebel, received no very courteous treatment from some of the conquerors: but we shall leave him to narrate his own tale.

"The officer who commanded the guard, in whose custody we now were, was an ill-looking, low-bred fellow, of this dashing corps of light infantry. Had dates accorded, he might have been supposed the identical scoundrel that had sat for the portrait of Northerton, in Fielding's Tom Jones. As I stood as near as possible to the door, for the sake of air, the enclosure in which we were being extremely crowded and unpleasant, I was particularly exposed to his brutality; and repelling with some severity one of his attacks, for I was becoming desperate and careless of safety, the ruffian exclaimed, Not a word, Sir, or I'll give you my butt, at the same time clubbing his fusee, and drawing it back as if to give the blow. I fully expected it, but he contented himself with the threat. I observed to him, that I was in his power, and disposed to submit to it, though not proof against every provocation.

He

"As to see the prisoners was a matter of some curiosity, we were complimented with a continual succession of visitants, consisting of officers of the British army. There were several of these present, when a serjeant-major came to take an account of us; and, particularly, a list of such of us as were officers. This serjeant, though not uncivil, had all that animated, degagee-impudence of air, which belongs to a self-complacent non-commissioned officer of the most arrogant army in the world; and with his pen in his hand and his paper on his knee, applied to each of us, in turn, for his rank. had just set mine down, when he came to a little squat militia officer from York county, who, somewhat to the deterioration of his appearance, had substituted the dirty crown of an old hat, for a plunderworthy beaver that had been taken from him by a Hessian. He was known to be an officer from having been assembled among us for the purpose of enumeration. You are an officer, Sir? said the serjeant. Yes, was the answer. Your rank, Sir? with a significant smile. I am a keppun, replied the little man in a chuff firm tone. Upon this, there

was an immoderate roar of laughter among the officers about the door, who were attending to the process; and I am not sure I did not laugh myself. When it had subsided, one of them, addressing himself to me, observed, with a compliment that had much more of sour than sweet in it, that he was really astonished that I should have taken any thing less than a regiment. To remove as much as possible the sting of this sarcastic thrust at our service, for, I must confess, I was not sufficiently republican to be insensible of its force, I told him, that the person who had produced their merriment belonged to the militia, and that, in his line, as a farmer, he was no doubt honest and respectable. "Although the day was seasonably cool, yet, from the number crowded in the barn, the air within was oppressive and suffocating, which, in addition to the agitations of the day, had produced an excessive thirst; and there was a continual cry for water. I cannot say that this want was unattended to: the soldiers were continually administering to it by bringing water in a bucket. But, though we, who were about the door, did well enough, the supply was very inadequate to such a number of mouths; and many must have suffered much. Our situation brought to my recollection that of Captain Holwell and his party in the Black Hole at Calcutta ; and had the weather been equally hot, we should not have been much better off. The fellow who had menaced me with his butt stood with his fusee across the door, and kept us closely immured. I did not choose to ask favours of him; but addressing myself to the officers without the door, who had been put in good humour by their laugh at our poor militia captain, I asked them, if they made no distinction between officers and privates. Most certainly we do, said one of them. I then observed, that it would be very agreeable to us to be somewhat separated from them now, and to receive a little fresh air. Upon this the sentinels were withdrawn to the distance of about ten or twelve feet from the building; and we were told, that such of us as were officers might walk be fore the door. This was a great relief to us, as well as to the men in giving them more room.” (P. 210-213.)

The candid author is not less forward to record the good than the ill offices he received; and the following characteristic portrait of a British officer, with the writer's remarks upon the humane attentions paid to the comforts of the privates of our army, furnish a very gratifying and honourable counterpart to the preceding statements.

"In the evening, a most advantageous change took place, and, from the custody of a low ruffian, we were transferred to that of a gentleman.

"This was Lieutenant Becket, to the best of my recollection of the 27th or 37th regiment. Upon taking the guard in the evening, he expressed concern about our lodging, and proposed to us to accompany him into the barn-loft to see whether that would do. He was also attended by some of his brother officers. We ascended by a very good step ladder, and found a spacious room, well roofed and floored, and clear of lumber. This, gentlemen, I think, may do, said he; I dare say,

you have sometimes lodged in a worse place. That we had, we told him, and that this was as comfortable as we could desire. I will send you, if I can, said he, at going away, a bottle of wine; but, at any rate, a bottle of spirits, and as to the latter, he was as good as his word; a soldier, in about a quarter of an hour, brought it to us, and this was our substitute for supper as well as dinner. In the morning, a little after sunrise, a soldier brought me Mr. Becket's compliments, with a request that I would come down and breakfast with him, bringing two of my friends with me, as he had not the means of entertaining more. I thankfully accepted his invitation, and took with me Forrest and Tudor. He was seated on a bench before the door, with a good fire before him, and the soldiers of the guard in a semicircle about him. Besides the bench, we were accommodated with a chair or two, and he gave us a dish of very good coffee, with plenty of ex cellent toast, which was the only morsel we had eaten for the last twenty-four hours; more fortunate in this than our fellow-sufferers, who got nothing until the next morning, when the first provisions were drawn. The soldiers were chatting and cracking their jokes on each other while we breakfasted; and I was surprised at the easy familiarity which seemed to prevail between them and their officer. But it appeared to be perfectly understood between them, that their coteries, though so near each other as that every word from either might be heard by both, were yet entirely distinct, and that each had an exclusive right to its own conversation; still they did not interrupt ours, being silent when we talked. The fact was, that Mr. Becket was the darling of his soldiers; and one of them told us, that we should find few men like him. I had here an opportunity to observe the striking difference between their appointments and ours. While our poor fellows were some of them already ragged, and even the best of them clad in flimsy thread-bare clothes, with worse stockings and shoes, these were tight and comfortable in body and limbs; and every soldier was accommodated with a woollen night-cap, which most of them had yet on. A sad contrast for the contemplation of the Ame

rican soldier! Wisdom is no less attributable to nations than to individuals; and the British army, if I may so express myself, is a sensible establishment, in which every possible regard is had to both comfort and safety. Though, in extremities, it may be the business of the soldier to die, it is not forgotten that he is to live if he can, consistent with his duty; and to this consideration, it appears to me, much attention was paid by General Howe in his operations against our post. He could not have had a doubt that his attack would be successful, yet this was not enough: it must be conducted with an eye to the saving of men, and the purchasing it as cheap as possible. Had he immediately advanced against our lines on the south, the loss of the British troops would, in all probability, have been heavy; whereas, in making his principal effort by Haerlem river under cover of his batteries, it was comparatively small; and when he had gained the high grounds in this quarter, he was at once master of the field." (P. 216-218.)

The prisoners being marched to New York, the author was