A regiment came to town about this time, the superior officers of which were younger, more gay, and less amenable to good counsel than those who used to command the troops which had formerly been placed on this station. They paid their visits at the Flats, and were received—but not as usual, cordially; neither their manners nor morals being calculated for that meridian. Part of the royal Americans or independent companies, had, at this time, possession of the fort; some of these had families—and they were, in general, persons of decent morals, and a moderate and judicious way of thinking, who, though they did not court the society of the natives, expressed no contempt for their manners or opinions. The regiment I speak of, on the contrary, turned those plain burghers into the highest ridicule, yet used every artifice to get acquainted with them. They wished, in short, to act the part of very fine gentlemen; and the gay and superficial in those days, were but too apt to take for their model the fine gentlemen of the detestable old comedies, which good taste has now very properly exploded; and at which, in every stage of society, the uncorrupted mind must have felt infinite disgust. Yet forms arrayed in gold and scarlet, and rendered more imposing by an air of command and authority, occasionally softened down into gentleness and submission; and by that noisy gaiety which youthful inexperience mistakes for happiness, and that flippant petulance, which those who knew not much of the language, and nothing at all of the world, mistook for wit, were very ensnaring. Those dangerously accomplished heroes made their appearance at a time when the English language began to be more generally understood; and when the pretensions of the merchants, commissaries, &c. to the stations they occupied, were no longer dubious. Those polished strangers now began to make a part of general society. At this crisis it was found necessary to have recourse to billets. The superior officers had generally been either received at the Flats or accommodated in a large house which the colonel had in town. The manner in which the hospitality of that family was exercised; the selection which they made of such as were fitted to associate with the young persons who dwelt under their protection, always gave a kind of tone to society, and held out a light to others.