After some difficulties in getting out, we had a very good passage to Virginia. I staid there but just long enough to settle my affairs, and then set out for New York to wait on Sir Jeffery Amherst for my commission; but to save the expences of going by land, I embarked in an old worm-eaten sloop that belonged to a gentleman at New York, who had been obliged to send a Captain to bring her home, her former one having deserted her in that ruinous condition. She had, however, tolerable pumps and sails, and three good hands besides the Captain. The first day the wind was very fair, and gave us hopes it would continue so the whole passage, but shifting next day to the northwest quarter, we experienced a perfect hurricane, in which the vessel made water so fast, that the men were constantly at the pumps to clear her. The sea ran so high, and the vessel was so old and crazy, that I expected each wave would dash her to pieces; the third day we shewed a little sail, though it continued blowing very fresh till evening, when it became pretty fair; yet she still made water at a prodigious rate, and extremely fatigued the men. We saw land next day, but were becalmed till the morning after, when a fresh gale springing up fair, we went at the rate of eight knots an hour till four in the afternoon, when a pilot came on board; the Captain told him that he must run the vessel quite to New York that night, as he had no cable to bring her to an anchor. Had I known this circumstance before, which even the pilot was astonished at, I should not, I believe, have trusted so much to fair weather. We arrived, however, safe at New York. I waited next morning on Sir Jeffery Amherst, who gave me my commission, with orders immediately to join my regiment, which was then on its way to Pittsburg. I dined with his Excellency next day; after which he told me to wait on Col. Reid, and not be in a hurry to join my regiment. A packet it seems had arrived from England the same day I received my commission, which, I suppose, brought a list of the officers to be reduced on half pay, and on waiting on Col. Reid, I found I was of the number. I related Lord Egremont’s assurances to the contrary, and produced this his Lordship’s Letter to Sir Jeffery Amherst in my favour. _Whitehall, July 23, 1762_. “Sir,