"I am once more returned to dear Danbury, on my way to Boston. I arrived here about an hour since, and never had a more fatiguing, disagreeable journey in my life than from Philadelphia here. I expected to have been in Boston by this time; but two severe storms, and one day waiting for his Excellency at Morristown, have made me twelve days performing a journey which according to my usual way of travelling I should have performed in four. I have, however, no reason to repent my undertaking this journey. "If sickness or very bad weather does not prevent, I shall certainly be home by Christmas, and wish to have all our friends together;--I promise myself a great deal of happiness, and hope I shall not be disappointed. Adieu, my love." * * * * * September 30th, 1780, the Hospital Department was newly organized, and the office of Deputy Director-General was abolished, and of course the incumbents of that office were no longer in the hospital service. Dr. Foster's health was irreparably injured by the fatigues and exposures he had undergone, and he lingered but a few months longer, dying on the 27th of February, 1781, in his forty-second year. One sentence in his will deserves record, as in harmony with the disinterestedness of his life. After desiring that all debts due him should be collected as soon as possible after his decease, he adds this clause: "But I would not have any industrious and really poor persons distressed for this purpose." The writer of these letters needs no additional eulogy. He sacrificed all the prospects of his life to give his services in our struggle for freedom. He, too, was but one of that innumerable multitude who, in more exalted or in humbler stations, freely gave their exertions, their wealth, their comfort, and their lives for freedom and right. It is possible so to linger by the grave of the past as to forget the living present; but the grateful memory of those who have in their times contended for truth with self-denial should be ever animating to those now laboring in the holy warfare, to which, in every age, whether the outward signs be of peace or strife, God calls the noble of mankind. "Therefore bring violets! Yet, if we, self-balked, Stand still a-strewing violets all the while, These had as well not moved, ourselves not talked Of these." * * * * * IN THE PINES.