EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM CAMBRIDGE TO A GENTLEMAN IN NEW-YORK, DATED SEPTEMBER 14, 1775.

Your Committee of Safety have much obliged the General, and served the cause, in forwarding the powder, which has given our Army fresh spirits and life. I wish it had been thought proper to have sent forward the clothing, as it would have been of great service to our detachment, which set off for Canada yesterday. Colonel Arnold commands it, and expects to penetrate into Quebeck, about ninety miles below Montreal, if the season is not too far advanced, or the Canadians and Indians unfavourable to the scheme. We flatter ourselves, that in a few weeks we shall hear of his being in possession of Quebeck; there is only a Company of twenty-five men there at present, and the American cause highly favoured, both by French and English. All our accounts from that Province are very promising, and afford the pleasing hope that, ere long, that great Province will accede to the American league.

A vessel, taken by the Lively man-of-war, was retaken a few days ago, and brought into Cape-Ann, by an armed schooner that the General had fitted out from Marblehead; and had it not been for a mutiny among the crew, they might have retaken eight more, and got Dawson, the Captain of the man-of-war that had seized them. The rascals are brought down here under guard, and I hope will meet with their deserts. We have several deserters, and taken above twenty prisoners within these two weeks last past; one a domestick of General Howe’s, but bringing us nothing very new. He says, the usual chat at his master’s table was, that they should winter in Cambridge; the colleges would make good barracks, &c.; and he believes they will come out. They have now got about twenty flat-bottomed boats, that will contain sixty men each, and frequently practise the men in embarking and disembarking. Such an event is most ardently wished by every man in our Army. In all human appearance, their utter defeat would be inevitable. We have now got some floating batteries built, under the direction of Admiral Putnam, whose versatile genius is as ready for operation by water as land. As soon as they are completely equipped, we hope to send you some account of their doings, as the phrase is here. Seven of the prisoners were taken very oddly; one got into a boat, which he was awkward in managing, and was like to drive on our shore; a sergeant and five men set out in another, to bring him back; they knew as little of a boat as he did, and the whole seven came driving over with a strong wind and tide into our guards.

Doctor Coats, Captain Melchior, and Matthew Duman, of your City, with some other volunteers, are gone with Colonel Arnold to Quebeck.

All hostilities between the two camps have ceased for several days. The irregular firing on the lines and sentries having been found very prejudicial to the discipline and good order of the Army, is positively forbidden, on pain of being fired upon by our sentries.

EARL OF DARTMOUTH TO MAJOR-GENERAL HOWE.

Whitehall, September 15, 1775.

SIR: By despatches which we have received from Governour Martin, dated in the month of July, it appears that notwithstanding he has been reduced to the humiliating necessity of taking refuge on board His Majesty’s ship Cruiser in Cape-Fear river, and of submitting to see His Majesty’s Fort Johnson burnt before his face, within gun-shot of the Cruiser, he continues to be of opinion that if he was supported with a small force, and a large supply of arms, and some field-pieces, he could raise a body of men in that Colony, sufficient to reduce the rebellious subjects, both there and in South-Carolina, to obedience, and to awe the Colonies of Virginia, and prevent any auxiliaries being sent from thence to the northward.

The enclosed extracts from Governour Martin’s letter will more fully explain to you what he says; but, I must confess, I think he is much too sanguine; and that, from the late advices of the state of North-Carolina, there is not much ground to hope any thing considerable can be effected there.

As he speaks, however, of the probability of success with so much confidence, it has been thought fit to order a supply of ten thousand stand of arms, and six light field-pieces, to be sent to you, without loss of time, in order to enable you to afford him such assistance in that particular as may be requisite; and it is His Majesty’s pleasure that if you find, when this letter reaches you, that there are any good grounds to suppose that the sending to North-Carolina a detachment of your Army, under an able and intelligent officer, would have the good effect Mr. Martin seems to expect, and His Majesty’s service will in other respects admit of it, you do in that case send such detachment, consisting of one battalion at least, together with the arms and field-pieces herewith sent to you, for there is no doubt that if what Mr. Martin suggests can be effected, it would be an advantage of the greatest importance, next to the regaining our ground in New-York.

I am, &c.,

DARTMOUTH.

JOHN STUART TO GENERAL GAGE.

St. Augustine, September 15, 1775.

SIR: I had the honour of writing your Excellency fully from hence the 20th July, since which I have not received any of your Excellency’s commands. I then fully submitted the motives which induced my coming here, with copies of my correspondence with the Committee of Intelligence at Charlestown, which went by the transport that carried the detachment of the Fourteenth Regiment from hence to Virginia; and I took the liberty of requesting my Lord Dunmore to forward mine with his own despatches, which gives me reason to hope that they may have reached your Excellency’s hands.

The seizure of the gunpowder, intended for supplying the Indian trade, at Savannah, by the malecontents of Georgia and South-Carolina, of which in my last I acquainted your Excellency, gave the greatest reason to apprehend a general dissatisfaction throughout the Indian tribes in this department, which occasioned my sending off expresses to my Deputies in the different Indian countries, with talks calculated to quiet the fears and jealousies that by such a step must have been excited in their minds; accordingly, on the 15th ultimate, I sent the talks, of which I have now the honour to submit copies, to the Creeks and Cherokees, with instructions to the Deputies in said nations to support their own consequence, and to frustrate any attempts of the emissaries sent by the Carolina Congress, or any other persons, to alienate the minds of the Indians from their duty to His Majesty, and their confidence in him and his officers, at the same time to prevent their committing any act of violence or hostility on the inhabitants of the Provinces, by all possible means; since which, I have received a letter from Mr. Taitt, in the Upper Creek Nation, dated 1st August, of which I also submit an extract. For the officers in the Indian department to keep the Indians quiet, and at the same time support their own influence with them, in opposition to the machinations of the emissaries sent to debauch their minds, will prove a difficult and delicate task; for when the Indians hear with certainty that their ammunition is seized, they may probably determine upon some such rash step as Mr. Taitt apprehends, which will by the candour of the disaffected be charged upon Government.

About the 25th of last month, an Indian of some note in the Lower Creek Nation arrived here; he came with an Indian trader named Carr; they brought me the above-mentioned letter from Mr. Taitt. The Indian’s principal business here was to get certain information concerning my safety, the seizure of their ammunition, and to learn the disposition of the Provinces in general respecting the Indians. He was highly pleased to see me, and said that his return would relieve the Indians from their fears. Carr, the trader, brought three pack-horses to carry home a supply of ammunition for his Town, with which I furnished him; but, by his indiscretion, the news of his arrival and business here was spread through the country, and a party from Georgia was sent to waylay him upon his return, which they effected, and seized his ammunition; my packet was taken from him, which contained duplicates of my talks to the Indians, and letter to my Deputies. I greatly apprehend the resentment of the Indians, upon receiving