"I think we ought to be exceedingly cautious how we trust her with the power of abusing our Credulity. We have no authority for believing she will perform that part of the Contract which subjects her not to send the Troops to America during the War. The insolent Answer given to the Commissrs. by Ld. Stormont, '_that the King's Ambassadors reed, no Letters from Rebels but when they came to crave Mercy?_ sufficiently instructs us not to entrust them with the power of insulting Treaties of Capitulation. "Query, Whether it wd. not be proper to detain the Troops at Boston & direct the Commissioners at Paris to present the Treaty of Capitulation to the English Court thro' the hands of Ld. Stormont, to know whether it be the intention of that Court to abide strictly by the Conditions and Obligations thereof, and if no assurance be obtained to keep the Troops until they can be exchanged here. "Tho' we have no immediate knowledge of any alliance formed by our Commissioners with France or Spain, yet we have no assurance there is not, and our immediate release of those prisoners, by sending them to England, may operate to the injury of such Allied Powers, and be perhaps directly contrary to some contract subsisting between us and them prior to the Capitulation. I think we ought to know this first.--Query, ought we not (knowing the infidelity they have already acted) to suspect they will evade the Treaty by putting back into New York under pretence of distress.--I would not trust them an inch farther than I could see them in the present state of things. "The Army was to have marched yesterday about 2 or 3 Miles but the weather has been so exceedingly bad for three days past as to prevent any kind of movement, the waters are so much out and the rivulets so high there is no passing from one part of ye Camp to another. "I wish the Northern Army was down here. I am apt to think that nothing materially offensive will take place on our part at present. Some Means must be taken to fill up the Army this winter. I look upon the recruiting service at an end and that some other plan must be adopted. Suppose the Service be by draft--and that those who are not drawn should contribute a Dollar or two Dollars a Man to him on whom the lot falls.--something of this kind would proportion the Burthen, and those who are drawn would have something either to encourage them to go, or to provide a substitute with--After closing this Letter I shall go again to Fort Mifflin; all was safe there on the 27th, but from some preparations of the Enemy they expect another attack somewhere. "The enclosed return of provision and Stores is taken from an account signed by Burgoyne and sent to Ld. George Germain. I have not time to Copy the whole. Burgoyne closes his Letter as follows, 'By a written account found in the Commissary's House at Ticonderoga Six thousand odd hundred Persons were fed from the Magazine the day before the evacuation.'