While the American Army was thus made weaker, day by day, by the disaffection or the despair of the sickly, despondent, home-sick, and ill-provided-for men who composed it -- men who, iu multitudes of instances, had enlisted either from necessity, occasioned by the prevailing prostration of every kind of business, or because they had been enforced to do so, by drafts, or because it had afforded opportunities for speculation and plunder, without, in either class, the slightest pretence to a care for " the " cause of America " or to even a love of country -- the Royal Army, well-appointed and well -officered, numbered upwards of thirty thousand effective men, exclusive of those who were left for the protection of Staten Island and of those who were sick.' Indeed,

1 Selum of Brigiidet under the immediate command of Hi» ExcelU ncy George WanhiiujUm, " Uaui.km Heights, Head-quabtees, September 30, "l"7(i."

2 Wcvklif Return of the Regiments of Horse and Foot, under the immediate comnunid of His Excftleiicij George Washington^ *^ Wx^vz^i Heights, Oc- "tober 5, 1776."

General Lincolu's command can scarcely be regardi-ii, with any propriety, as a portion of the main Army nor as a part of tlie fighting force of any .\rmy, since it was sent for, to perform police duty, to ijuiet the apprehensions of the Convention of New Yorlv u!i account of tlie disaf" fected, in that Stiite -- those whom the Congresses and the (;ommittee8 had forced into disaffection, by the outrages wliich had been inflicted on them, in the vain attempt to secure an entire conformity of political opinions with the official opinions of the dominant faction.