Detail of the Guards in the ROXBURY Department, MARCH 21, 1776.

HORATIO GATES, Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, March 25, 1776.

The Wagonmasters and Company of Carpenters in Boston, to receive and obey all such orders and directions as Brigadier-General Greene shall think proper to give. The Hospital and Regimental Surgeons to examine carefully the state of their sick, and whenever they discover the smallest symptom of the small-pox, they are without delay to send the patient to the Small-Pox Hospital in Cambridge.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, March 26, 1776.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, March 27, 1776.

The Colonels, or commanding officers of the Regiments of Militia, are desired to make up their pay abstracts to the 1st of April. They will be allowed pay until they get home, estimating every twenty miles they have to travel as one day’s pay. They will be allowed also one penny a mile in lieu of rations for their expenses in return. The pay of the Militia is to commence from the day the men marched from their respective towns, in the same manner as the last were paid. If more than this is expected, a separate account must be exhibited by each Regiment; as the General does not think himself authorized to pay them otherwise in behalf of the Continent than as above, and agreeable to former practice; nor did he conceive that pay could possibly be demanded by Militia whilst they remained at home, about their private concerns, until a Company could be completed. The penny per mile is to be allowed for their coming to camp, if it has not been already paid. As there can be no correcting of Militia accounts without great difficulty, after they are once passed and paid, the General desires that the Colonels, or commanding officers of those Regiments, will be particularly careful in seeing they are exactly stated. To this end, the Captain, or commanding officer, of each Company, is to exhibit to the Colonel, or officer commanding the Regiment he belongs to, his pay-roll, agreeable to the foregoing directions, upon oath, which rolls are to accompany the pay abstracts as vouchers to it.

Upon an alarm, Reed’s, Nixon’s, and Poor’s Regiments, are to repair to Bunker’s Hill; Varnum’s and Hitchcock’s, to man the Fort upon Prospect-Hill; Little’s to repair to Cobble-Hill; Arnold’s and Robinson’s Regiments to Lechmere’s Point; and Smith’s Regiment is to parade at the White-House Guard, and there wait for orders. Phinny’s and Arnold’s are positively ordered to send immediately to the Continental store for new clothing.

LORD GEORGE GERMAINE TO GENERAL HOWE.

Whitehall, March 28, 1776.

SIR: There being no ship-of-war in immediate readiness to sail for North-America, I have thought fit to despatch one of his Majesty’s armed packets with this letter, that you may be informed as early as possible of the additional force you are to expect from hence, and of the present state of our preparations.

The enclosed treaties will inform you of the number of foreign auxiliary troops engaged to serve in North-America; of which number twelve thousand two hundred men, being the whole body of Hessians, are intended to serve in the Army under your command, and the Brunswickers, Waldeckers, and the Regiment of the hereditary Prince of Hesse, together with the nine British Battalions and the whole of Lieutenant-Colonel Maclean’s corps, are to serve in Canada under General Carleton.

The transports for the. First Division of Hessians, amounting to eight thousand two hundred men, are already completed for embarkation. A detachment of guards, consisting of one thousand and ninety-eight men, formed into a distinct corps, is on its march to Portsmouth; and I am not without hope that the First Division of Hessians may arrive at Spit-head in time, so that the whole may proceed to North-America together.

It appears to me, as far as I stand informed at present, that this body of troops should proceed to Rhode-Island; and I shall take the King’s pleasure for the necessary-instructions accordingly, in confidence that, if you approve of that destination, they will find upon their arrival there such orders from you as will determine their future proceedings; or, otherwise, that a proper number of cruisers will be stationed upon the coast to watch the arrival of the fleet, and to proceed with it to such other place as you shall appoint.

The difficulties in procuring transports have been very great, and it is impossible as yet to form a guess when a sufficient number will be ready to receive the Second Division of the Hessians; but I trust it will not be long first, and that the corps of Highlanders, consisting of the Forty-Second and Seventy-First Regiments, making together three thousand four hundred and sixty-six men, which are nearly, if not entirely, completed, will embark by the Clyde, the 20th of next month at farthest.

The delays and disappointments which have attended the. armament sent out to the Southern Colonies, have been greater than could have been expected; and as the fleet did not leave Cork before the 12th of last month, and afterwards met with very tempestuous weather, in which many ships were separated, and put back in distress, there is but little hope that any of the objects of that expedition can be obtained; and, therefore, I received the King’s command to despatch a vessel after the fleet,’ with a letter to Major-General Clinton, of which I enclose you a copy, and also of the instructions sent, at the same time, by the Admiralty to Sir Peter Parker.

The effect of these orders will probably be, that the whole, or at least the greatest part of that armament, will join you as early as the troops can arrive from hence; so that you may be able to open the campaign in the month of May or beginning of June.

Our recruiting for some time went on very slowly, and the men raised in Ireland will be of little use to you. Since the parties have been removed to England, we have had better success, and the recruits raised may make soldiers. They will be sent over to you by different ships as opportunities offer, or whenever a number is collected sufficient to be the object of a separate embarkation; but there is no prospect that we shall be able to procure in time for this campaign all that are necessary to complete the augmentation.

I observe that, in your disposition of the battalions under your command, you include the Sixth Regiment, at St. Vincent’s, and therefore it was the King’s intention to give you that regiment complete, by turning over to it the effective men of the Forty-Eighth; but the slow progress made in forming the additional Battalions and Companies of the Royal Americans, has made it impossible to take both the Sixth and Forty-Eighth from the ceded Islands for the present; and, therefore, all that we can do is, to give you the Sixth Regiment in its present state; and you will therefore send for it when you can spare transports for that purpose; and as there are many recruits already raised for that corps, they will be sent immediately to you, by which means that battalion will be tolerably complete.

With regard to the service on the side of Canada, and the operations of the force to be employed there, (of the extent of which you are already informed,) it will depend upon the situation of affairs in that Province. But if the Rebels