amilies and effects, and now it looks dismal and
melancholy. The Quakers and their families pretty generally remain;
the other inhabitants are principally sick soldiers, some few
effective ones under General Putnam, who is come here to throw up
lines, and prepare for the defence of the place, if General Washington
should be forced to retreat hither. You may be sure I have my full
share of trouble on this occasion, but having got my family and books
removed to a place of safety, my mind is more at ease, and my time is
now given up to the public, although I have many thousand pounds'
worth of effects here, without any prospect of saving them.

We are told the British troops are kept from plunder, but the Hessians
and other foreigners, looking upon that as the right of war, plunder
wherever they go, from both whigs and tories, without distinction, and
horrid devastations they have made on Long Island, New York Island,
White Plains, and New Jersey, being the only parts they have yet set
foot on. Should they get this fine city, they will be satiated, if the
ruin of thousands of worthy citizens can satisfy their avarice.

This is not the only part of the continent, that now feels the weight
of their resentment; General Clinton, with from three to six thousand
men, has invaded Rhode Island, and it is said, has taken possession of
it; whether he will make any attempt on the main, during this severe,
inclement season, I do not know, but if he does, I hope he may find
cause to repent it.

I must add to this gloomy picture one circumstance, more distressing
than all the rest, because it threatens instant and total ruin to the
American cause, unless some radical cure is applied, and that
speedily; I mean the depreciation of the continental currency. The
enormous pay of our army, the immense expenses at which they are
supplied with provisions, clothing, and other necessaries, and, in
short, the extravagance that has prevailed in most departments of the
public service, have called forth prodigious emissions of paper money,
both continental and colonial. Our internal enemies, who, alas, are
numerous and rich, have always been undermining its value by various
artifices, and now that our distresses are wrought to a pitch by the
success and near approach of the enemy, they speak plainer, and many
peremptorily refuse to take it at any rate. Those that do receive it,
do it with fear and trembling, and you may judge of its value, even
am