unsealed. In my last you had a very particular account of the numbers,
force, names, &c., of our navy on the lake. As to our leaving
Crownpoint for this place, the field-officers knew nothing of it till
it was concluded on by the generals, Schuyler, Gates, and Arnold.

General Arnold is taking a very active part, I mean in the command of
the fleet. He will sail himself in a few days. He says he will pay a
visit to St. Johns. I wish he may be as prudent as he is brave. Well,
now have at you for news. Last evening the flag of truce returned,
bringing a letter directed to _George Washington, Esq_., and a truly
ridiculous copy of a general order, which you will see at General
Washington's by the time you receive this. But there is one part of it
in which I think they, in some measure, accuse us justly. I mean that
of assassinating, as they term it with too much truth,
Brigadier-general Gordon. He was shot by the Whitcomb I mentioned in
my last, who had been sent there as a spy. The act, though villainous,
was brave, and a peculiar kind of bravery, that, I believe, Whitcomb
alone is possessed of. He shot Gordon near by their advanced sentinel;
and, notwithstanding a most diligent search was made, he avoided them
by mere dint of skulking.

I shall have the honour to command the New-Jersey redoubt, which I am
now building with the regiment alone. It is situated on the right of
the whole, by the water's edge. It is to mount two eighteen-pounders,
two twelve, and four nine-pounders. In this I expect to do honour to
New-Jersey. I yesterday received a letter from Colonel Dayton, dated
the 28th of July, at the German Flats. He informs me that he is to
take the command at Fort Stanwix.

Should there be any thing to be had in New-York in the clothing way,