B. FRANKLIN.

* * * * *

WILLIAM LEE TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

London, March 21st, 1777.

Sir,

Government here has received within these ten days past, several
expresses from General Howe, at New York, in North America, as late as
the 19th of last February, which are, in every respect, very
disagreeable indeed. He writes in severe terms against General
Heister, whom he calls _an old woman_ in the field, and a stupid and
incorrigible blockhead in the cabinet; he also says, that the Hessians
and other Germans are the worst troops under his command, and are not
fit to be trusted in any business; he has, therefore, desired several
particular English officers to be sent to command them; some of them
that he has pointed out have refused to go on such a forlorn hope; but
General Burgoyne, much against his will, is, it seems, obliged to go,
and one Colonel Charles Gray, who was only a Lieutenant-Colonel upon
half pay, has agreed to go, being appointed to a regiment, with the
rank of a Major-General in America.

General Howe has with some difficulty and considerable loss got his
troops back to New York, that had attempted to make good their
situation at Brunswick, in the Jersies. He has recalled the greater
part of those troops that had been sent to Rhode Island. At New York
they were in the greatest distress for all kinds of fresh provisions
and vegetables; at the same time, a fever, similar to the plague,
prevailed there, that in all probability before the Spring will carry
off to the Elysian shades, at least one half of the troops that remain
there, and prepare an immediate grave for the Germans, and all the
other troops that are about to be sent to that infected place. At the
same time we learn that the American army under General Washington
increases in numbers every day, and being accustomed to the climate,
have kept the field in all the severe weather. Notwithstanding this
melancholy prospect of affairs, our papers talk of a foreign war, but
in my opinion we are in no condition to engage in one, for you may be
assured, that we have not in the kingdom sailors enough to man fifteen
ships of the line, though you may see thirty or forty ships put in
commission, as the public prints will tell you. And as to soldiers,
the draft for America has been so great, that we have not ten thousand
in the whole island, yet our Ministers h