The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1777-12-24 00:00:00, page 2

^od verum atque decent, curo et rogo et omnis, in hoc fam.
BESIDES the love of our native country, which
ought to artuate every honest man, ambition and
glory are the secondary principles that encourage us
to endure every hardship necessarily attending the
profeffion of a soldier, and to facrifice even life for
the attainment of those definable ends. Doubtless
the service of our country, considered abftrartly and
independant of fobfequent contingencies, is a most
honourable service; and with regret it may be re
membered, that at the beginning of this war, our
army confided of men of property and popular influ
ence, who entered into it from the most laudable and
disinterested motives, who facrificed every private
view to the public good. —But, tempora mutantur —
we fee men without education, without experience
and without influence, advanced to the most impor
tant offices ; looking upon the army as a resort for
pensioners and placemen, whose regard for the pro
.fpei;ity of our cause is in exart proportion, and runs
parallel with their rank and pay.
The very, nature of this contest deprecates such
depravity of foul, and with justice it may be said,
while we are forc'd to make use of such engines,—
" Fledere fi nequeo fuperos, Acheronta movebo."
Let us firft take a view of the military line, and we
shall find, that while some officers are in the field
promoting the good of their country, and fullering
every fatigue and danger, others are in fefe quarters,
dancing attendance on their refpe&ive legislatures
for promotions, in which they seldom fail of success.
Every country village, in the vicinity of the camp,
you will find crowded with pot-valiant heroes and
fire-fide soldiers ; yet of so little importance are they
to every thing but thefts, that the fervipe Rourifh
es best without them.
These are fame, among a number of other causes,
of the diffatisfartion that prevails.in the military line,
among such I mean as do their duty/like men, and
never turn their backs upon the enemy.
We now fee boys of yesterday's growth, raised to
the command of veterans, who have diftinguilhed
themselves in war before these ftriplings were born :
And what is the efficient cause ?—They have friends
in C s and A y. —These veterans have nothing
to recommend, them but the sale, ineffectual plea of
their own personal merit, evidenced by their long
and faithful services.
Every officer in the army ought to be considered
as a man of sense and courage : Actual service is the
only test to prove this hypothesis ; and by that alone
we are to determine of his merit. It is a touchstone
that will make ufeful diferiminations, by separating
the fool and the coward, from the man of sense and
the soldier; and until such alternative is proved,
every officer has an undubitable right to rife accord
ing to his seniority.
Discipline is the life of an army, and until subor
dination is fully established, the former will never
take place. Ignorance of military affairs, and a
clownish diffidence of their own importance, are
some of the causes of this defection. The primary
cause may be traced to that fupid contempt, with
which our inferior officers are. treated by many of
their haughty superiors : Such improper conduct will
ever, difeourage the efforts of a young soldier, and
damp the genius of every man of spirit.—And where
does this pitiful despotism take its rife ? In ignorance
and inanity —they are void of politeness, and (unused
to command) they are fappilhly vain of their power.
I have seen a fubaitern arrested, struck, and charged
with feeding and pillaging fruit from an orchard ; I
have known him tried and acquitted with honour:
Yet such was the greatness of this non-entity in let
ters ! this demi-god of power! that it was mutiny,
if not treason, to ask reparation. This, I aver, is a
tyranny, that so far from exiting in the British, is
not tolerated in the armies of the most despotic
princes on earth. I have read an anecdote that hap
pened at the surrender of Fort St. David, in the
East Indies, to the French in 1758. —-A subaltern be
ing. charged by Monsieur Lally, the commanding
officer, of embezzling some public stores—At a court
of enquiry he proved his innocence ; and Monsieur
Lally, confcio'us of his error, made full reparation
in the face of his army. Toa condurt the antipodes
of this, we may palliate, that the goddess of polite
ness, (if there be such a deity in ancient mythology)
has never shed upon us the light of her reconciled
countenance, but has fuffered us, like the Goths and
Vandals of old, to work out our own salvation in
boorish ,darkness; holding all refinements to be in
confident with the principles of primitive freedom.
Let us now make some observations on the Staff
of the army, which our rulers have thought expedi
ent to divide and subdivide into so many depart
ments ; of the utility of which, I refer the curious
to an infpertion of the Pay-Master General's accounts.
In mechanics, simplicity and efficacy are certain
and concomitant: Redundancy ought to be ever a
voided: Too great a combination of powers impedes
the motion, and eventually destroys the use of the
machine or ftiu&ure. The fame rule applies to mi
THOUGIITS^ the „efent fate of the ARMY;
addressed to the Military.
Suppose, in case of capture, (which fe!lom hap
pens) a Colonel or Brigade-Major of waggons is taken,
would either be included in a cartel with, the Com
mander of a British regiment or Major of battalion ?
Certainly not.
This case at once proves the absurdity of such no
minal empty titles. —Not one of those officers by
virtue of his rank, can fit on court-martial, or take
precedency of those of the fame rank, in the mili
tary line.
Therefore it is not only my with, but that of many
officers in the army, to fee those degeneracies done
away. If then our Governors would be less gene
rous in lavifuing honours so indiferiminately on such,
as by their situation, are neither entitled or necessi
tated to receive them —the service would be more
refpertable, the army better officered, and the troops
more effective. Cornmiffions not being so cheap,
would be of importance ; —and the grand business
of the whole go on with facility.
By what has been said, I do not mean to censure
any Gentleman now serving in those several Rations,
but would with, by attempting to remove so ridicu
lous a precedent, to make us more refpe&able not
only among ourselves, but with the enemy and all
other nations. These few remarks are humbly fub
mitt©4 to the Gentlemen of the army, by
A ^WTENANT-CO^ON^
litary, as well as civil government; by multiplying
such offices, the business of the army M much per
plexed, greatly retarded, and sometimes totally ne
glected. For, like true statesmen, none of these of
ficers will deign to difekarge the duty of their, re
fpertive appointments, till it pafles thro' an infinite
series and concatenation of clerks, assistants, subs
and deputies, and finally arrives at the grand foun
tain head; where, like a Nabob in his durbar, he
vouchfafes to fettle an account with as much pom
polity, as a capitulation or a definitive treaty of
peace ; ceding and guaranteing to a poor countryman
the just equivalent only of his merchandize, taken
for the use of the army.
The Quarter-Matter General's department includes
the Commissaries General of ordinance and hides;
the Clothier, Forage, and Waggon-Matters General,
with all their deputies and assistants; fubtrart these
latter, and the business of the former is a vox et pr<e
teria nihil, a mere pensioned fine-cure, a nullity and
an incumbrance on the public. To jnereafe the chagrin
and leflcn the importance of the military, (for as we
are under a Commonwealth, the levelling principle
should extend even to the army, where nothing can
be done without, a proper subordination) every one
of these Raff gentlemen have a military title either
given or eflumed; and so great is their contempt for
the army, and of so little importance are commissions,
that few will, accept of any rank under that of a Field-
Officer. Not a fellow will shoe a horse or skin a
beef, urdefs you flatter him with $ Captaincy at least ;
and be who retails whilky, and chops up provisions
for the soldiers, must 'be dubb'd a Colonel. These
are mortifying confideration^to an officer who com
mands a regiment or a company, to be rank'd and
parallel'll with those greasy money-making fellows.
Take a view of our bitter enemies, the-British army,
and contrast their military police with our own ; we
all accede to this maxim, fas est et ab hofte doceri.
Every Raff-office in that service is generally, filled by
officers holding military command ; there is no rank
whatever affixed to those several posts independant of
the military line, and consequently they cannot pre
tend to take precedency by virtue of such Raff-ap
pointments, only as their battalion commissions fpecify.
Adjutants General, Aids de Camp, and Majors of
Brigade, may properly be called the military sass,
because their duty is such; and should be officers
taken out of the military line, who notwithttanding,
ought to hold no new rank, having nothing to do but
deliver and execute the orders of others, there is no:
the least neceffityfor such indulgence.
Rank implies pre-heminence, and commiffidns
fpecify command: Therefore, when neither is the
case, in consequence of such appointments, rank and
titles are abhraht ideas. Nevertheless. we find in our
army a number of unexperienced boys delegated to
those important duties, taking rank accordingly, and
riling in battalion equally with those in the regular
line. Officers of found judgment and great experi
ence, are the only men proper to fill those active
departments—the most fatal errors prov. the truth
of this observation.
The civil sass includes all the rest, and are never
invested with rank only under the circumstances
aforefaid. The Quarter Master General, in his line
of duty, is so connected with the army, that none
but a military man can difeharge that trust with pro
priety, and therefore in most armies we find it oc
c^pied by some experienced Field-Officer.
The Commissaries General of Provisions and Mus
ters, not being fighting men, are entitled to military
rank. The Clothier, Forage and Waggon Masters
General, being appendages of the Quarter Master
General, are involved and neceharily loft therein,
and having no command only over their clerks,
waggoners and horses, it would be absurd to dub
them.with rank.
The fubje3 of the following genuine letters, the time
qphen the, were written, and the rank and reputati
on of the writers, render them of great importance
to the public.
" Eagle, June 20, 1776.
" J CANNOT, my worthy friend, permit the
letters and parcels which I have sent you, in the
Rate I received them, to be landed, without adding a
word upon the injurious extremities in which our un
happy disputes have engaged us.
" You will learn the nature of my mission from the
official dispatches which I have recommended to be
forwarded by the fame conveyance. Retaining all
the earnestness I ever expressed to fee our differences
accommodated, I shall conceive, isl meet with the
disposition in the Colonies which I was once taught to
expert, the most flattering hopes of proving service
able, in the objects of the king's paternal solicitude,
by promoting the establishment of lading peace and
union with the Colonies. But if the deep rooted pre
judices of America, and the neceflity of preventing
her trade from paring into foreign channels; mult
keep us still a divided people, I shall, from every pri
vate and public motive, most heartily lament, that it
is not the moment wherein those great objects of my
ambition are to be attained ; and that I am to be
longer deprived of an opportunity to assure you per
sonally of the regard with which I am
“ Your molt sincere and faithful humble servant;
"LOWE.
" Directing pardons to be offered to the Colonies,
who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that
opinion of our ignorance, baseness and insensibility
which your uninformed and proud nation has long
been pleased to entertain of us; but it can have no,
other effect than that of encreaiing our resentments.
It is impossible we should think of submission to a go
vernment that has, with the most wanton barbarity
and cruelty, burnt our defencelefs towns in the midst
of winter, excited the lavages to massacre our peace
ful farmers, and our slaves to murder their matters ;
and is even now bringing foreign mercenaries to de
luge our settlements with blood. These attrocious
injuries have extinguished every spark of affection for
that parent country we once held so dear : But, were
it possible for us to forget and forgive them, it is not
possible for you, I mean the British nation, to forgive
the people you have fotheavily injured ; you can never
confide again in those as fellow-fubjerts, and permit
them to enjoy equal freedom, to whom, you know,
you have given fuchjuft causes oflaftmg enmity ; and
this must impel you, were we again under your go
vernment, to endeavour the breaking our spirit, by
the severest tyranny, and obftrurting, by every means
in your power, our growing strength and prosperity.
" But your Lordihip mentions " the King's pater
nal solicitude for promoting the establishment of
lasting peace and union with the Colonies." If by
peace is here meant a peace to be entered into by dis,
tinrt States, now at war, and his Majesty has given
your Lord fllippower to treat with us of such a peace,
I may venture to fay, though without authority, that
I think a treaty for that purpose not quite impracti
cable, before we enter into foreign alliances ; but I
am persuaded you have no such powers. Your na
tion, though by punishing those American Governors
who have fomented the discord, rebuilding our burnt
towns, and repairing, as far as possible, the mifehief
done us, she might recover a great share of our re
gard, and the greatest share of our growing commerce,
with all the advantages of that additional strength
to be derived from a friendship with us : Yet I know
too well her abounding pride, and deficient wisdom,
to believe she will ever take such salutary measures.
Her fondnefs for conquest, as a warlike nation ; her
lust for dominion, as an ambitious one; and her
thirst for a gainful monopoly, as a commercial one ;
(none of them legitimate causes for war) will alljoin
to hide from her eyes every view of her true interest,
and will continually goad her on, in these ruinous,
distant expeditions, so deftrurtive both of lives and
of treasure, that they must prove as pernicious to her
in the end, as the Croifades formerly were to most of
the nations of Europe.
" I have not the vanity, my Lord, to think of in
timidating, by thus predicting the effects of this war ;
for J know it will in England have the fate of all my
" P. S. I was disappointed of the. opportunity I ex
pected for fending this letter at the time it was dated,
and have been ever since prevented by calms and con
trary winds, from getting here to inform General
Howe of the commiflion with which I have the fatis
faction to be charged, and of his being joined in it.
Off Sand,-Hook, i%th %&" Superscribed,
To Benjamin Franklin, Esq. Philadelphia.
Philadelphia, July 30, 1776.
" J Received fafe the letters your Lordship so kindly
1 forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my
thanks.
" The official dispatches, to which you refer me,
contain nothing more than what we had seen in the
art of parliament, viz. Offers of pardon on fubmif-
Roh; which I was sorry to find, as it must give your
Lordfliip pain to be sent so far on so hopeless a buii
nefs.