The cheerful remark in this letter that the commander-in-chief had matters so well in hand as to be able to spare a considerable number of his best troops for purposes other than his own defense against Howe received practical application on the same day by the send1 This letter 0 f Ti Ighman's was replied to on i Duer. from the citations the 14th, by Wi made in previo US ]l ages from the Duer-Tilghman correspond once . the reader will doubtless d with tiie perspicacity of have been impi the military situation; and the burr's views of (•lit made by him in his letter following c(,inni of the 14th, upi m oi ie of Tilghman's optimistic expressions, is ii fm ■ther instance of his discre-

■esse

" I approve much of selling at a dear Price every foot of Ground; but if the Enemy should. by their Manoeuvres, contrive to encircle our Army, and as I before Observed Occupy these Mounts [the Highlands], while their Vessells obstruct the Navigation of Hudson's River and ard a battle.

Wants of Supply

would,

I fear.

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

to FishhiU off of Colonel Tash's regiment of New Hampshire militia kill " for the assistance of the committee of safety in holding the disaffected in check." By recurring to the consecutive extracts from the Duer-Tilghman correspondence printed on pp. 359-362, it will he seen that Duer, on the 12th of October, communicated to Washington's headquarters information (or supposed information) which the State convention, by "several examinations " of Tories had obtained, of a concerted plan for a -rand British movement upon both thinks of the American army "by means of Hudson's and the East River," in which enterprise "their partisans in this State" were to CO-operat( -- "Thursday next" (the 17th of October) being fixed for the united undertaking.