Lee, when he heard of Washington’s visit there, augured good effects from it. “I am extremely glad, dear general,” writes he, “that you are in Philadelphia, for their councils sometimes lack a little of military electricity.” Washington, in his conferences with Congress, appears to have furnished this electricity. He roundly expressed his conviction, that no accommodation could be effected with Great Britain, on acceptable terms. Ministerialists had declared in Parliament, that, the sword being drawn, the most coercive measures would be persevered in, until there was complete submission. The recent subsidizing of foreign troops was a part of this policy, and indicated unsparing hostility. A protracted war, therefore, was inevitable; but it would be impossible to carry it on successfully, with the scanty force actually embodied, and with transient enlistments of militia. In consequence of his representations, resolutions were passed in Congress that soldiers should be enlisted for three years, with a bounty of ten dollars for each recruit; that the army at New York should be reinforced until the 1st of December, with thirteen thousand eight hundred militia; that gondolas and fire rafts should be built, to prevent the men-of-war and enemy’s ships from coming into New York Bay, or the Narrows; and that a flying camp of ten thousand militia, furnished by Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and likewise engaged until the 1st December, should be stationed in the Jerseys for the defence of the Middle colonies. Washington was, moreover, empowered, in case of emergency, to call on the neighboring colonies for temporary aid with their militia. Another important result of his conferences with Congress was the establishment of a war office. Military affairs had hitherto been referred in Congress to committees casually appointed, and had consequently been subject to great irregularity and neglect. Henceforth a permanent committee, entitled the Board of War and Ordnance, was to take cognizance of them. The first board was composed of five members; John Adams, Colonel Benjamin Harrison, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, and Edward Rutledge; with Richard Peters as secretary. It went into operation on the 12th of June. While at Philadelphia, Washington had frequent consultations with George Clinton, one of the delegates from New York, concerning the interior defences of that province, especially those connected with the security of the Highlands of the Hudson, where part of the regiment of Colonel James Clinton, the brother of the delegate, was stationed. The important part which these brothers were soon to act in the military affairs of that province, and ultimately in its political history, entitles them to a special notice.