What caused this immediate solicitude about Arnold, was a letter received from him, dated ten days previously from Fort Western, on the Kennebec River. He had sent reconnoitring parties ahead in light canoes, to gain intelligence from the Indians, and take the courses and distances to Dead River, a branch of the Kennebec, and he was now forwarding his troops in bateaux in five divisions, one day’s march apart; Morgan with his riflemen in the first division, Lieutenant-colonel Roger Enos commanding the last. As soon as the last division should be under way, Arnold was to set off in a light skiff to overtake the advance. Chaudiere Pond on the Chaudiere River, was the appointed rendezvous, whence they were to march in a body towards Quebec. Judging from the date of the letter, Arnold must at this time be making his way, by land and water, through an uninhabited and unexplored wilderness; and beyond the reach of recall; his situation, therefore, would be desperate should General Wooster fail to follow up the campaign against St. Johns. The solicitude of Washington on his account was heightened by the consciousness, that the hazardous enterprise in which he was engaged had chiefly been set on foot by himself, and he felt in some degree responsible for the safety of the resolute partisan and his companions. Fortunately, Wooster was not the successor to Schuyler in the command of the expedition. Washington was mistaken as to the rank of his commission, which was one degree lower than that of Montgomery. The veteran himself, who was a gallant soldier, and had seen service in two wars, expressed himself nobly in the matter, in reply to some inquiry made by Schuyler. “I have the cause of my country too much at heart,” said he, “to attempt to make any difficulty or uneasiness in the army, upon whom the success of an enterprise of almost infinite importance to the country is now depending. I shall consider my rank in the army what my commission from the Continental Congress makes it, and shall not attempt to dispute the command with General Montgomery at St. Johns.” We shall give some further particulars concerning this expedition against St. Johns, towards which Washington was turning so anxious an eye.