disadvantageous attacks. In this idea, I at present think it will be most advisable to make a landing upon Long-Island, in order to secure the passage of the shipping into the harbour, which can only be effected by the possession of a commanding height near Brooklyn, said to be fortified. Should the enemy offer battle in the open field, we must not decline it; and from the high order the troops are now in, I have every reason to flatter myself with success, which once obtained, and prosecuted immediately upon the arrival of the reinforcements, would not fail to have the most intimidating effects upon the minds of those deluded people.

When General Clinton joins the Army, to which purpose I have written to him consonant to the orders he will have received from your Lordship, (a copy of which you were pleased to transmit to me,) if we should not find our strength sufficient to afford a division of the Army previous to the arrival of the Hessians, we may nevertheless proceed to force the rebels from the island of New-York, or to such other operation as may be deemed most conducive to his Majesty’s service. But General Clinton must have a part of the Hessians with him on the side of Rhode-Island, and a personal communication with General De Heister will arrange their business more to the satisfaction of all parties than could be done separately or by letter, to meet him upon the coast. The Admiral, therefore, at my request, has sent orders to the cruisers not only off Rhode-Island, but to all others on the northern coast, to direct the troops from Europe to proceed to New-York, from whence they may more distinctly be ordered to their several destinations for the operations of the campaign. And that no time may be lost in disposing the troops for action after the arrival of the fleet at New-York, I intend to proceed in a frigate to Sandy-Hook, that I may have the advantage of communicating with Governour Tryon, for obtaining the best information of the state of the Rebel Army in the environs of that place, and that I may be ready to receive the Hessians, in case of their arrival before the fleet from hence.

My best endeavours shall be employed to engage the assistance of the Indians of the Six Nations, and I hope, by the influence of Colonel Guy Johnson, to make them useful.

Admiral Shuldham having sent me the copy of a letter he has lately received from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, relative to the transports being taken from under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the land forces, I beg leave to represent to your Lordship that I apprehend such a disposal of them will greatly impede the service, from the necessity the land officer must be under of making applications to the Admiral on every movement for the convenience of the troops, and for a variety of services needless to point out to your Lordship: wherefore, I am hopeful I may not receive any order for a change in the present command over them.

The advanced rank which the King has been pleased to confer upon the General Officers serving in this country is received by those here with the highest sense of the most dutiful respect for his Majesty’s Royal attention, and by no one more gratefully than myself. I shall not fail to communicate to Lieutenant-General Clinton his Majesty’s particular regard to the seniority of his rank, which would have placed him second in command in Canada, had he not been previously employed to the southward.

My last intelligence from that quarter was dated the 28th April, and as five or six transports had then arrived, 1 must conclude the whole force is collected there before this time.

The Forty-Seventh Regiment not being included in your Lordship’s distribution of troops destined for Canada, I shall presume it may now remain in the place of the Thirty-Third, but shall pay due obedience to the orders for Lord Cornwallis’s serving in that Army. The Sixth Regiment cannot be employed early in the campaign, as I shall not have it in my power to send transports for them until after my arrival at New-York.

The Rebel prisoners are returned in the Greyhound, and I shall use my endeavours to follow your Lordship’s directions respecting them, and others in the same predicament.

It is with concern I am to advise your Lordship of another ordnance store-ship, named the Hope, being taken in Boston-Bay. She had a large proportion of intrenching tools on board, and it is said fifteen hundred barrels of powder.

The appointment of Lord Howe to the chief command in the Naval Department upon this extensive coast, is a circumstance that could not fail to give me the highest satisfaction; and I promise myself from his experience every assistance that can be given in the prosecution of the conjunct war we are now entering upon.

LOOSE THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT.

In whatever situation we take a view of man, whether ranging the forests in the rude state of his primeval existence, or in the smooth situation of polished society; wheresoever we place him—on the burning sands of Africa, the freezing coasts of Labrador, or the more congenial climes of the temperate zones—we shall everywhere find him the same complex being, a slave to his passions, and tossed and agitated by a thousand disagreeing virtues and discordant vices.

To correct this freedom and versatility of his nature, to put a stop to the violences which must take place from this disordered state of his reign, and to separate his virtues from his vices, and call them forth into action, men find it necessary either to submit to the casual rule of superior abilities, or, by arranging themselves into societies, to establish forms and regulations for the good of the whole. These forms and regulations admit of a very great variety; but whether they be derived from the casual subordination, or the positive institutions of men, this is still a leading principle in them all, “That the people have at all times a right, from the sacred and unalienable Charter of the Almighty, to change or alter the Government under which they live, where those changes and alterations tend to the general good of the community, and the happiness of its members.”

But where is this general good, this national felicity, to be found? It is more than probable that it will be found, in the greatest proportion, in that society which best secures the observance of justice, which inspires and preserves the virtue of its members, and which actually engages them in the exercise of their best talents and happiest dispositions.

The security to justice is the political liberty of the State, promulgated by its laws, which relates to the supreme power and the subject, and is the object of political law; or from the subject to one another, and is the object of civil and criminal law. This political liberty will always be most perfect where the laws have derogated least from the original right of men—the right to equality, which is adverse to every species of subordination beside that which arises from the difference of capacity, disposition, and virtue. It is this sense of equality which gives to every man a right to frame and execute his own laws, which alone can secure the observance of justice, and diffuse equal and substantial liberty to the people; for those laws must necessarily be the most perfect which are dictated or corrected by the sense of parties in one capacity, to whom they are to be applied in another. Hence that fundamental maxim in all just Govern-ments, that the law-makers must never be above the law; and hence arises the horrour of that idolatrous paramount superiority of Kings, which is the government of force, and the subversion of all law. It is this principle of equality, this right, which is inherent in every member of the community, to give his own consent to the laws by which he is to be bound, which alone can inspire and preserve the virtue of its members, by placing them in a relation to the publick and to their fellow-citizens, which has a tendency to engage the heart and affections to both. Men love the community in which they are treated with justice, and in which they meet with considerations proportioned to the proofs they give of ability and good intentions. They love those with whom they live on terms of equality, and under a sense of common interests. It engages them in the exercise of their best talents and happiest dispositions, for the Government and defence of their country are the best and noblest occupations of men. They lead to the exercise of the greatest virtues and most respectable talents, which is the greatest blessing that any institution can bestow. Thrice happy is that people where the members at large may be entrusted with their own Government and defence; but, alas! such are the limited powers of men that this equal and perfect system of legislation is seldom to be found in the world, and can only take place in small communities; for whenever the society becomes numerous or extensive, the privilege of legislation in a collective capacity, from the impracticability of convening, must unavoidably and necessarily cease.