During our stay I heard nothing but complaints of our want of efficiency, and no one seemed to see that it was silly to expect to find everything at hand in a land as new as ours. Captain Orme and Ensign Allen complained on one occasion to Dr. Mercer and me that our men were languid, spiritless, and unsoldier-like. Dr. Mercer, who was a hot-headed Scotchman, said he had seen undisciplined Highlanders put to rout regulars at Prestonpans and Falkirk, and that in the woods our men would beat the best grenadiers in the King’s army. Orme grew angry and said Mercer was a damned rebel; but I succeeded in quieting them, although I insisted that Captain Orme would in time change his opinion, as indeed happened. Mercer was in a constant rage and told me over and over that the officers were insolent and that the general was ill with the disease called damned foolishness. I thought him imprudent and begged him to be careful; but as he had served in ’45 with the Pretender, and come over here after his flight, he was, on that account, in bad odour with the regular officers, and, I feared, also with the general, who had been with the Duke of Cumberland upon the final bloody defeat of the rebels at Culloden. Dr. Mercer had just cause to complain, but I thought him unwise to talk so freely. He was, nevertheless, a gallant gentleman, and died a general, falling gloriously at Princeton when rallying his men. I saw Mr. Franklin again but once before he went away. He was clearly not a man altogether to the liking of Lord Fairfax, but why, I never came to know. He seemed to me at that time a conscientious and intelligent person, very able to get along with all manner of people. I must admit that he conducted matters of gravity as if they amused him and were not serious, a method which never altogether pleased me. When I justified the general’s groaning over his many difficulties as to roads and transport and food, he said that his difficulties were of British making, and that had the force landed in Philadelphia, horses, waggons, and supplies would have been found in abundance. To this I agreed, for I thought the plan of the march ill chosen. After this the doctor amused himself with the astonishment the Indians would have when they got hold of the wigs of the officers――a jest which did not seem to me agreeable. He spoke also with much freedom of the general, and said to argue with him was useless and was like striking a pillow or reasoning with a wild animal, who had only its own thoughts and could not comprehend yours. I made no reply, and he fell to most ingenious talk about the temperature of springs and the ways of swimming. Notwithstanding his doubts, the great array of war kept me somewhat confident and cheerful until I heard that nine hundred men of the French had passed Sandusky on their way to reinforce the French on the Ohio, so that I had to write Mr. Speaker Robinson that I feared we