A shrewd and able man, who was, I think, a brigadier in the service, was appointed quarter-master-general, with the entire superintendence of all the boats, buildings, &c. in New-York, the Jerseys, and Canadian frontier. He had married, when very young, a daughter of Colonel Renssalaer. Having at the time no settled plan for the support of a young family, he felt it incumbent on him to make some unusual exertion for them. Colonel Schuyler and his consort, not only advised him to accept an inferior employment in this business, but recommended him to the Brigadier Bradstreet, who had the power of disposing of such offices, which were daily growing in importance. They well knew that he possessed qualities which might not only render him an useful servant to the public, but clear his way to fortune and distinction. His perfect command of temper, acuteness, and dispatch in business, and in the hour of social enjoyment, easily relapsing into all that careless, frank hilarity and indolent good-humour, which seems the peculiar privilege of the free and disencumbered mind; active and companionable, made him a great acquisition to any person under whom he might happen to be employed. This the penetration of Bradstreet soon discovered; and he became not only his secretary and deputy, but in a short time after, his ambassador, as one might say; for before Philip Schuyler was twenty-two, the general, as he was universally styled, sent him to England, to negotiate some business of importance with the board of trade and plantations. In the mean while, some other young men, natives of the country, accepted employments in the same department, by this time greatly extended. Averse as the country people were to the army, they began to relish the advantage derived from the money which that body of protectors, so much feared and detested, expended among them. This was more considerable than might at first be imagined. Government allowed provisions to the troops serving in America, without which they could not indeed have proceeded through an uninhabited country; where, even in such places as were inhabited, there were no regular markets, no competition for supply; nothing but exorbitant prices could tempt those people who were not poor, and found a ready market for all their produce in the West-Indies. Now, having a regular supply of such provisions as are furnished to the fleet, they had no occasion to lay out their money for such things; and rather purchased the produce of the country, liquors, &c. for which the natives took care to make them pay very high, an evil which the Schuyler’s moderated as much as possible, though they could not check it entirely. This provision system was a very great though necessary evil, for it multiplied contractors, commissaries, and store-keepers, without end. At a distance from the source of authority, abuses increase, and redress becomes more difficult, which is, of