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.

3 General Howe's Returns show that, when he occupied Staten Island, after the arrival of the reinforcements brought by Lord Howe, say on the ninth of August, his command numbered, including his Officers, twentynine thousand, three hundred, and eight, of whom twenty four thousand, two hundred, and twenty-seven were rank and file; fit for duty. , (Reply to the Observations of Lieut. Gen. Sir William Howe, on a pamphlet, entitled Letters to a Nobleman, Second Edition, 37.) Three days after the date of that Return, [August 12,] the two fleets, convoyed, respectively, by Commodore Hotham and the Repulse, came into the harbor of New York, with the Guards and the First Division of the Hessians, (Compare Lord George Germaine?s despatch to General Howe, dated, " Whitehall, 21 "June, 1776," with General Howe's despatch to Lord George Germaine, dated " Staten-Island, 15 August, 1776 ; ") and, two days subsequently, [August 14,] Sir Peter Parker and Lord Dunmore also arrived, (General Howe to Lord George Germaine, " Staten-Island, 15 August, 1776,") the former, with what remained of the forces which had been sent to Virginia and the Carolinas, " as well as with some Regiments from Florida " and the West Indies,'* (Annual Register for 1776 : History of Europe, *169,) numbering, "at least, five thousand men," (Jones's History of New