Those of the inhabitants of the neutral ground who were tories, have joined their friends in New York ; and the Whigs have retired into the interior of our country. Some of each side have taken up arms, and become the most cruel and deadly foes. There are within the British lines banditti, consisting of lawless villians, who devote themselves to the most cruel pillage and robbery among the defenceless inhabitants between the lines; many of them they carry off to New York, after plundering their houses and farms. These shameless marauders have received the names of Cowboys and Skinners. By their atrocious deeds, they have become a scourge and terror to the people. Numerous instances have been related of these miscreants subjecting defenceless persons to cruel tortures, to compel them to deliver up their money, or to disclose the places where it has been secreted. It is not uncommon for them to hang a man by the neck till apparently dead, then restore him, and repeat the experiment, and leave him for dead. Odc of these unhappy persons informed me, that when suffering this cruel treatment, the last sensation which he recollects, when suspended by the neck, was a Hashing heat over him like that which would be occasioned by boiling water poured over his body ; he was, however, cut down ; and how long he remained on the ground insensible, he knows not. A peaceable, unresisting Quaker, of considerable respectability, by tbe name of Quiucy, was visited by several of these vile ruffians: they first demanded his money, and after it was delivered they suspected he had more concealed, and inflicted on him the most savage cruelties in order to extort it from him. They began with what they call scorching, covering his naked body with hot ashes, and repeating the application till the skin was covered with blisters ; after this they resorted to the halter, and hung the poor man on a tree by his neck, then took him down, and repeated it a second, aud even a third time, and finally left him almost lifeless.1*0