It is noteworthy how this remarkable letter purported to settle all the details. The exact number of men for each service are counted, the particular regiments and companies of regiments are told off, no discretion is left to Carleton or to Burgoyne as to whom they should send forward to Lake Champlain or the Mohawk, and whom they should keep in Canada. No mention is made of the reinforcements which Carleton had written were necessary. Nothing is allowed apparently for sick or ineffectives. All is on paper, concocted by the man at a distance who persisted in knowing better than the far more capable man on the spot. But the most damning passage in the letter is as follows, ‘I shall write to Sir William from hence by the first packet, but you will nevertheless endeavour to give him the earliest intelligence of this measure, and also direct Lieutenant-General Burgoyne and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Leger to neglect no opportunity of doing the same, that they may receive instructions from Sir William Howe.’ Sir William Howe’s Narrative of his operations, given to a Committee of the House of Commons in April, 1779, states explicitly that the promised letter was never sent to him by Germain; that it was not until the 5th of June that he received from Carleton a copy of the letter which has been quoted above, unaccompanied by any instructions; and that, before Burgoyne left England, Germain had received Howe’s plans for the Philadelphia expedition, and had written approving them. Such was Lord George Germain’s conduct of the war in America. [Illustration: Map to illustrate =THE BORDER WARS= _to face page 145_ B. V. Barbishire, Oxford, 1908 ] [Sidenote: Burgoyne and Carleton.] On the 27th of March Burgoyne left London. On the 6th of May he arrived at Quebec. There was no friction between him and Carleton. He had made no attempt to supplant Carleton, and, bitterly as Carleton resented his own treatment by Germain, he gave Burgoyne the utmost assistance for the coming campaign. ‘Had that officer been acting for himself or for his brother, he could not have shown more indefatigable zeal than he did to comply with and expedite my requisitions and desires.’ Such was Burgoyne’s testimony to Carleton, in his Narrative of the ‘state of the Expedition from Canada’ as given to the House of Commons.[123] [Sidenote: St. Leger’s expedition to the Mohawk river.] [Sidenote: Oswego.]