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, in 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. 3 Indeed,

l Return of Brigades under the immediate command of His Excellency George Washington, "Harlem Heights, Head-quarters, September 30, "1776."

- Weelcly Return of the Regiments of Horse and Foot, under tlte immediate command of His Excellency George Washington, "Harlem Heights, Oc- "tober5, 1776."

General Lincoln's command can scarcely be regarded, with any propriety, as a portion of the main Army nor as a part of the fighting force of any Army, since it was sent for, to perform police duty, to quiet the apprehensions of the Convention of New York on account of the disaf" fected, in that State -- those whom the Congresses and the Committees had forced into disaffection, by the outrages which had been inflicted on them, in the vain attempt to secure an entire conformity of political opinions with the ojjicial opinions of the dominant faction.