habitations.” He added, “That torpor, criminal indifference and want of spirit which so generally prevails, is more dangerous than all the efforts of the enemy. Nor is that jealousy and spirit of detraction which so unhappily prevails, of small detriment to our cause.” The next day he wrote from Saratoga, twenty miles below Fort Edward and thirty-seven above Albany, “Every effort of the enemy would be in vain, if our exertions equalled our abilities, if our virtue was not sinking under that infamous venality which pervades throughout, and threatens us with ruin.” The desertions above mentioned, were not to the enemy, but to their own homes; Scuyler was, for some reasons, a very unacceptable commander to the New-England militia. They were in general disgusted with, and would not serve under him. There were no desertions to the royal army worth noticing, which argues there were no lurking seeds of disaffection to the American cause. Had the British commander returned immediately to Ty, and advanced from thence in the most expeditious manner, with a few light field-pieces, instead of suffering any delay, in order to his dragging along with him a heavy train of artillery, he might have been at Albany by the time he got to Hudson’s-River.[56] Your correspondent, the fifth of October, the last year, breakfasted with general Gates, at Ty; sailed in company up Lake George (about 35 miles long) with their horses in batteaux; landed, stayed a while, and reached Fort Edward (about 9 miles from Fort George) at night, a little after eight. From Ty to Lake George is rather more than two miles. The two small schooners on the lake, could have made no long resistance against a brigade of gun-boats. Fort George was well adapted to keep off Indians and small parties, but not to stop the royal army. The Americans there, instead of defending the fort or opposing the landing of the army, would undoubtedly have retreated to gen. Scuyler, at Fort Edward. The latter felt himself so weak, that by the first of August he drew back from Saratoga to Stillwater (25 miles north of Albany) from whence he wrote on the 4th, “We have not above 4000 continental troops; if men, one third of which are negros, boys and men too aged for the field, or indeed any other service, can be called troops. The states from whence these troops came, can determine why such boys, negroes and aged men were sent. A great part of the army took the field in a manner naked, without blankets, ill armed, and very deficient in accoutrements. Too many of our officers would be a disgrace to the most contemptible troops that were ever collected; and have so little sense of honor that cashiering them seems no punishment. They have stood by and suffered the most scandalous depredations to be committed on the poor, distressed, ruined and flying inhabitants.” He had also about fifteen hundred militia.