Mark the just policy and far-reaching sagacity which the subjoined letter evinces, nor lose sight of the numerous difficulties and dangers which environed the writer, and threatened his plans:
Cambridge, August 7, 1775.
'Sir: Your favor of yesterday came duly to my hands. As I did not consider local appointments as having any operation upon the general one, I had partly engaged (at least in my own mind) the office of Quarter Master General, before your favor was presented to me. In truth, Sir, I think it sound policy to bestow offices, indiscriminately, among gentlemen of the different governments, so far as to bear a proportionable part toward the expense of this war. If no gentleman out of these four governments come in for any share of the appointments, it may be apt to create jealousies, which will in the end give disgust. For this reason, I would earnestly recommend it to your board to provide for some of the volunteers who are come from Philadelphia, with my warm recommendations, though they are strangers to me.
'In respect to the boats from Salem, I doubt, in the first place, whether they could be brought over by land. In the second place, I am sure nothing could ever be executed here by surprise, as I am well convinced, that nothing is transacted in our camp or lines, but what is known in Boston in less than twenty-four hours. Indeed, circumstanced as we are, it is scarcely possible to be otherwise, unless we were to stop the communication between the country and our camp and lines; in which case, we should render our supplies of milk, vegetables, etc., difficult and precarious. We are now building a kind of floating battery; when that is done, and the utility of it discovered, I may possibly apply for timber to build more, as circumstances shall require.
'I remain, with great esteem, Sir,
'Your most Obedient and Humble Servant,
'Geo: Washington.'
'Hon'ble J. Palmer, Watertown, Mass.'
We shall hereafter present an original and characteristic letter from General Warren, written the night before the battle of Bunker-Hill.
In justice to the writer of the ensuing defence, which has been in our possession since its date, it is proper to say, that we have received, from various and most reputable sources, the strongest testimony in relation to his personal character. He is represented to us as a gentleman of untiring industry and perseverance, who, often under circumstances of adversity and affliction, has labored diligently and successfully, for a long series of years, in an arduous avocation, and whose reputation for probity, and honorable and generous acts, is alike unimpeachable and undeniable. Of the merits of his works, having never examined them, we are unable to form an opinion, farther than may be gathered from the almost unexampled extent of their sale.
Eds. Knickerbocker.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.