Head-Quarters, Cambridge, January 16, 1776.

Notwithstanding the repeated orders issued in the course of the last campaign, forbidding all officers commanding Guards, to suffer any of their Guard to be absent day or night from their Guard until regularly relieved, yet it is with surprise the General hears that it is a common practice, even at the advancer! posts next the enemy. Any officer commanding at any of the guards or outposts, who shall, for the future, suffer any of their officers or men to be absent, until regularly relieved, will be put in arrest, and tried for disobedience of orders.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, January 17, 1776.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, January 18, 1776

Samuel Neason, Quartermaster to Colonel Prescott's Regiment, tried at a General Court-Martial, whereof Colonel Patterson was President, for "defrauding the Soldiers of their allowance of Bread,"is acquitted by the Court. The General orders Quartermaster Reason to be released from his arrest.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, January 19, 1776.

One Sergeant, one Corporal, and twelve men, from General Putnam's division, to mount to-morrow morning for the Provost Guard, at the old School-House, on Cambridge Common. To this guard all prisoners accused of crimes, cognisable by a General Court-Martial, are to be sent, and all suspected spies, and all strollers and stragglers, who cannot give a proper account of themselves. The guard is to be under the immediate command of the Provost, and he is only to receive orders from Head-Quarters, the General-in-chief, the Adjutant and Quartermaster-Generals for the time being.

GENERAL WASHINGTON TO MASSACHUSETTS ASSEMBLY.

Cambridge, January 19, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: The enclosures herewith sent convey such full accounts of the sad reverse of our affairs in Canada, as to render it unnecessary for me, in my present hurry, to add ought to the tale.

Your spirited Colony will, I have no doubt, be sufficiently impressed with the expediency of a vigorous exertion to prevent the evils which must follow from the repulse of our troops. It does not admit of a doubt but that General Carleton will improve this advantage to the utmost; and if he should be able to give another current of sentiment to the Canadians and Indians, than those they seemed inclined to adopt, words are unnecessary to describe the melancholy effect that must inevitably follow.

I am persuaded, therefore, that you will exert yourselves to the utmost to throw in the reinforcement by the route mentioned in General Schuyler's letter, that is now required of your Colony, as the doing of it, expeditiously, may prove a matter of the utmost importance.

You will perceive by the Minutes of the Council of War, enclosed, that the regiment asked of you, for Canada, is one of the seven applied for in my letter of the 16th instant, and that the only difference with respect to the requisition is the length of time and place of service, as no good would result from sending troops to Canada for a shorter period than the Continental Army is raised for, to wit, till the first of January, 1777.

I am, gentlemen, &c.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

The Honourable General Court of Massachusetts-Bay.

To the Honourable Matthew Thornton.—A letter of the same date and similar to the preceding one.

To the Honourable Jonathan Trumbull, &c.—A letter of the same date and similar to the preceding ones to the Honourable General Court of Massachusetts-Bay, and the Honourable Matthew Thornton, Esq., with this postscript:

Your favour of the 15th instant now lies before me, but the hurry in which I am engaged, at present, allows no more than time for acknowledgment of it.

Yours, &c.

G. W.

GENERAL SULLIVAN TO COLONELS WALBRON AND CHESLEY.

Winter-Hill, January 10, 1776.

A requisition being made upon the Colony of New-Hampshire for a regiment of men, consisting of seven hundred and twenty-eight, including all officers, I have, after consulting his Excellency General Washington, thought proper to raise and officer a regiment out of the officers and soldiers lately come in from that Colony, to remain in the Continental service until the first day of April next. I have named eight Captains, and have nominated you, the said John Waldron, as chief Colonel of said regiment, and you, the said Alpheus Chesley, as Lieutenant-Colonel thereof, and have wrote to the General Assembly upon the measure I have adopted, and requested them to furnish one month's pay, advance, for said regiment, upon the credit of the Continent.

You are, therefore, requested, immediately, to repair to the General Assembly, wait on them with my compliments and these orders; receive their commands, and, immediately, proceed to complete the regiment proposed, and return to Head-Quarters by the first day of February next. You will please to pay strict obedience to the commands of that Assembly, and on all occasions give notice of your proceedings to your humble servant,

JOHN SULLIVAN,

Brigadier-General of the Continental Army.

To John Waldron and Alpheus Chesley, Esquires.

SAMUEL DEXTER TO PEREZ MORTON.

Woodstock, January 23, 1776.

SIR: Your letter of the 1st instant, wrote by direction of the major part of the honourable Council, informing me of my appointment to be first Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, for the County of Suffolk, did not come to hand till the arrival of the third post after its date, or I should sooner have returned the answer expected from me.

At a time when my declining a seat in the General Court has removed all ground of objection from an)' supposed impropriety of acting, both in a legislative and judiciary capacity, I should not choose to excuse myself from accepting this trust, did not the ill state of my health absolutely require it.

My complaints, which have been, gradually, increasing for more than two years past, are chiefly of the nervous kind, and forbid any degree of mental application beyond what is indispensably necessary for the management of my private concerns. I cannot promise myself strength sufficient even for matters of such comparatively small importance.

Such of the honourable gentlemen with whom I formerly sat in Council will testify for me, that, however poorly I acquitted myself in the discharge of my duty to the publick, I ever appeared solicitous to act a part that should meet with approbation.

Although in the department designed me, but moderate attention and study may be thought requisite, yet even that I am, by indisposition of body, which affects my mind, rendered totally unfit for.

Some time since I came to a determination never to engage in any new kind of employment of a publick nature; and, for the future, to do no more than a conscientious regard for my oath should demand of me in the office I have, for divers years past, sustained; and I have, sir, to request that you would, by communicating this letter, make their Honours acquainted with a resolution which 1 have, upon mature thought, found it needful to enter into.

I am no less desirous that the honourable Board should know that I have a grateful sense of the honour they have done me; and that 1 wish their happiness with a fervency not to be expressed, although exceeded by the ardour with which I pray for the salvation of my country.

I am, sir, your most obedient servant,

SAMUEL DEXTEN.

To Perez Morton, Esq., Deputy Secretary of Massachusetts-Bay, Watertown.