n, and look after the hospitals.
Many soldiers being down with fever in July, the general recommends
"the strictest attention to the cookery, and that broiling and frying
meat, so destructive to health, be prohibited;" going into the water
in the heat of the day is also forbidden. A neglect of these matters
at this critical season, Greene continues, "may be attended with
dreadful consequences."

[Footnote 50: _Letter from General Greene written at Fort Lee. Mrs.
Williams' Life of Olney._]

Occasionally it was found necessary to give the soldiers a sharp
reproof for insulting the inhabitants or trespassing on their
property. When the complaint was brought to Greene that some of his
men had been stealing watermelons, he promptly issued an order that
such practices must be punished. "A few unprincipled rascals," he
said, "may ruin the reputation of a whole corps of virtuous men;" and
on another occasion he called upon the soldiers to behave themselves
"with that decency and respect that became the character of troops
fighting for the preservation of the rights and liberties of America."
Perhaps the offenders found an excuse for their conduct in the Tory
character of the complainants; but Greene, though no friend himself to
such people, could never accept this as a provocation to justify a
breach of military discipline.

The Tory element in the population required other and sterner
treatment.[51] It had developed to such an extent in Kings and Queens
counties as to require its suppression by the civil and military power
combined. The refusal of the majority of the voters in Queens to send
delegates to the New York Provincial Convention in 1775 indicated not
only a confidence on their part that the Home Government would succeed
in crushing the rebellion, but a secret intention as well to give the
British troops upon their arrival all the aid and comfort in their
power. As they provided themselves with arms and the British fleet
with provisions, the Continental Congress took up the matter, ordered
the arrest of the leaders, and dispatched Colonel Heard, of New
Jersey, with a regiment of militia to execute the business. Arrests
were made, but the complete suppression of the loyalists here was
never effected.

[Footnote 51: A history of the Tories on Long Island and in New
York--the trouble they gave in the present campaign, and the measures
taken for their suppression--properly forms a subject by itself. The
scope of the