season rendered the want of fuel extremely grievous. Families, which had been accustomed to plenty, were obliged to burn with the most sparing hand, and to save by going to their beds very early, and leaving them as late. Many kept to them in the sharpest weather, other than as they got up to dress their victuals and eat their meals. Numbers, to supply the want of fuel, pulled up the floors of their houses, the stairs, and whatever offered. The wooden buildings, taken down by order of gen. Howe, were appropriated to the use of the royal refugees. It was as much charity to the poorer inhabitants to admit them to a small fire, as to furnish them with victuals. You must recollect the hard frosts you have in Britain, once in a great number of years, to conceive of what persons must endure through the want of fuel, from the long continued frosts of this country. The houses which the British officers inhabited while in Boston, were generally left in good condition; but afterwards much damaged when tenanted by the Americans, whose style of life did not lead them to pay attention to neatness and elegance. _New-York_, most probably, is henceforward to be the grand scene of action. Gen. Lee has left the city some time, and is gone to the southward. While there, he took care to remove the good cannon on the battery, and at the king’s store amounting to about a hundred, to a place of safety; a third of them are thirty-two pounders. He also drew up another tremendous oath to be administered to the tories, and sent captain Sears over to Queen’s county with it; which led congress to resolve, “That no oath by way of test be imposed upon, exacted or required of any of the inhabitants of these colonies, by any military officer.” In many of the streets of the city there are breast-works, barricadoes, &c. and more are making, together with forts in abundance. Actual service began in the colony, (April 6.) A British sloop sent her boat ashore on Staten-Island to get water, and a party of riflemen took the boat and crew prisoners. The firing between the sloop and the riflemen lasted all day. The city, in a week’s time, was thronged with provincials; and it might be concluded, that the environs were not very safe from so undisciplined a multitude; but there are few instances of so great a number of troops being together with so little mischief done by them. However as they (especially the Connecticut soldiers, whom some pronounced the dirtiest people on the continent) are not particularly attentive to cleanliness, the owners of the houses where they are quartered, if they ever get possession of them, must be years in cleaning them, unless they get new floors, and new plaister the walls. Gov. Tryon has lost his credit with the citizens, and is now spoken of with contempt and disgust.