[Sept. 24.] Nearly at the same time, an officer high in rank and much esteemed, communicated his thoughts in these words:—“We are now upon the eye of another dissolution of the army. Unless some speedy and effectual measures are adopted by congress, our cause will be lost. The few who act upon principles of disinterestedness are, comparatively speaking, no more than a drop in the ocean. As the war must be carried on systematically, you must establish your army upon a permanent footing, and give your officers good pay, that they may be, and support the character of gentlemen, and not be driven, by a scanty allowance, to the low and dirty arts, which many of them practise, to filch the public of more than the difference of pay would amount to. The men must be engaged by a good bounty for the continuance of the war. To depend upon militia is assuredly resting on a broken staff. They cannot brook subordination. It would be cheaper to keep fifty or hundred thousand in constant pay, than depend upon half the number, and supply the other half occasionally by militia. If I was to declare upon oath, whether the militia have been most serviceable or hurtful, upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. No man who regards order, regularity and economy, or who has any regard for his own honor, character or peace of mind, will risk them upon militia.”—While the American cause is thus exposed, some gentlemen observe with pleasure of the enemy [Sept. 25.] that—“Though they are brave, and furnished with all matters, yet from some causes, they discover very little of the great or vast in their designs and executions.” It is not strange that there is a number of bad officers in the continental service, when you consider that many were chosen by their own men, who elected them, not from a regard to merit or any love of discipline, but from the knowledge they had of their being ready to associate with them on the foot of equality. It was the case in divers instances, that when a company was forming, the men would choose those for officers who consented to throw their pay into a joint stock with the privates, from which captains, lieutenants ensigns, sergeants, corporals, with drummers and privates, drew equal shares. Can it then be wondered at, however mortifying it may prove, that a captain should be tried and broken for stealing his soldiers blankets, or that another officer should be found shaving his men in the face of distinguished characters! Time must and will clear the army or these despicable commission-bearers.