is able to inform me. You will readily perceive the absurdity of the pretence, that the king can have a property in anything distinct from his people, and how dangerous is the position that his protection (for which we have already paid him) may be withdrawn at pleasure. If any doubt remains as to the fitness of the step I have taken, can it lay over until I am heard? I can mention many facts which I am sure will abundantly warrant what is done. Wishing you every good thing, I remain with sentiments of the highest and most perfect esteem and regard,

Dear sir,

P. HENRY.

THE SAME, TO RICHARD HENRY LEE.

Williamsburg, May 15th, 1778.

I beg leave, my dear sir, to give my most cordial congratulations on the late happy events that have taken place. May we be wise enough to improve these favourable occurrences into the permanent happiness of our country!

Yours of the 7th come to hand last night. I have got one swift boat now ready to sail. Another shall be provided in some short time. Ocracock is blocked up pretty much. The boats will go out of our capes. The Assembly is sitting: 500 horse were voted yesterday. Some may quickly be got. However, the affair will be suspended a few days on hearing the enemy are preparing to leave the continent.

God bless you, sir,

Yours,

P. HENRY.

ACCOUNT OF THE AFFAIR OF GWYNN'S

ISLAND-AS CONTAINED IN A PRIVATE LETTER OF GEN'L ANDREW LEWIS TO HON. R. H. LEE.

Williamsburg, July 15th, 1776.

DEAR COLONEL:

Give me leave to trouble you with some of the particulars relative to our engagement with the fleet, the troops, and ban

ditti on the island. On the 8th instant, in the evening, I got to the camp before Gwynn's Island, and found that by employing a number of men to work in the night our battery might be opened in the morning. On the 9th, at 8 o'clock, the fleet lay in a range that suited our purpose. We instantly opened our embrasures, which to that moment were secret to the enemy. The Dunmore lay near and very fair, when she was saluted by our 18 pounders; our other battery of five guns was opened on them at the same time. Their amazement and confusion was beyond description. The Dunmore waited to fire only five guns. She slipped both her cables and was towed off by three boats, both batteries playing on her all the time of her retreat. She is prodigiously shattered, her cabin torn to pieces and several men killed. The shot that missed her could not fail taking place on some of the other vessels. The Otter, William, and the Fowey were so peppered that they were obliged to slip their cables also and tow off. The whole fleet were in confusion and moved to a safer distance. We are told that all the armed vessels and several others lost men. The guns of both our batteries were then turned on their camp, (the shot crossing each other in the centre of their camp,) this set them to scampering. The next morning we collected all the canoes that could be got in that neighbourhood, which did not amount to more than thirty. We then turned our thoughts to clearing the haven, and by making use of two six pounders, (brass pieces,) on travelling carriages, made a sloop of six guns and a schooner (well armed with some carriage guns and swivels) move their stations. They grounded; we manned canoes and took them. This step threw some of our men on the island, which being observed by some of the enemy, who were placed on lookouts, ran to their camp and greatly alarmed them by saying that the lower end of the island was full of "the d-d shirt-men." This struck them with a panic, and set them to the trot. Before we could, with our trifling canoes, land 250 men on the island, the vast multitude of boats be

longing to the fleet (which consisted of upwards of 80 sail) took them on board. They left in their battery one excellent six pounder, and a considerable quantity of baggage in their camp. We shall have at least £1000 worth of cables and anchors, and 266 bars of iron, articles very useful to us. They burnt four vessels, one of them large; some took her for the Dunmore, but I think they were mistaken. The inhabitants of the island say that Dunmore received a reinforcement of 150 tories from Maryland, and a considerable number of beef cattle, some time before they were routed. Fifty head of the cattle fell into our hands. I am told since I wrote the above, that after the fleet sailed, a large ship, taken to be the Dunmore, returned to the Otter, which lay near the mouth of the Rappahannock. The ship was buoyed by a number of empty casks lashed to both sides, and that after putting her loading on board the Otter she sunk and totally disappeared.

On Sunday evening Col. Charles Lewis, with four companies of his battalion before Gwynn's Island and three at Burwell's Ferry, had orders to march to Potomac, in order to afford quiet and protection until Dunmore should fix himself on some spot; after which we must take our measures accordingly.

Last Sunday I expected to have the pleasure of seeing you at Col. Richard Lee's, where I dined. I should have been glad of your opinion with regard to the stationing the 3rd battalion, which for the present are ordered to be posted between the rivers Coan and Nomini, with orders to be very attentive to the motions of the enemy; and that if any of the vessels move up the river Potomac (especially the armed ones) to detach men and prevent their diabolical attempts. As the enemy have no foothold, on land,

their stay here, I think, cannot be long; some sailed out of the river last evening. Col. Thornton is to put two companies of his battalion above Nomini, one of them at or near your house. My return to Williamsburg is necessary, especially as the enemy avoid giving us any opportunity of attacking them, either on this or the Maryland shore. It is here reported that two companies of the militia, at the house of Col. Brent, on seeing a much inferior number of the enemy land (without firing a gun) threw away their arms and fled in the most shameful manner, and suffered all the gentlemens' houses to be burnt. I am afraid it is true, yet loath to believe it, as it casts a stain on the colony, and may invite our enemies to make many attempts which otherwise they would not think of.

I am with great regard, dear sir, your most obed't and very humble serv't,

ANDREW LEWIS.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Williamsburg, January 10th, 1777. DEAR SIR:

In consequence of a Resolve of the Honourable the Congress, which with some others came to the Governor and Council of this State, I have put the second and seventh regiments under marching orders, though I have received no orders from Congress. How to account for my not receiving orders on this occasion is out of my power. I have sent Brigade Major Johnson, from whom you will receive this, in order to procure instructions, that I may no longer be kept in a disagreeable state of suspense.

The manner in which we lost Gen. Lee is so differently related, that I shall (if you can spare a moment) be thankful to you for information on that head, as well as the manner in which he has been treated since his unfortunate captivity. Pray let me know what prospect you have of his being returned to us, or if there are any proposals made on this subject. The glorious and well-timed stroke General Washington gave the enemy at Trenton will, I hope, be attended with

the best of consequences. Pray take the trouble to present my compliments to all our worthy Delegates from this State. I am, with great esteem,

Your most obed't servant, ANDREW LEWIS, B. G. The Honourable RICHARD H. LEE, Member of the Honourable Continental Congress.

COL. ADAM STEPHEN TO COL. RICHARD HENRY LEE-RELATES THE SAME AFFAIR.

Williamsburg, 13th July, 1776.

MY RESPECTED FRIEND:

The 9th of July I arrived, with Gen'l Lewis, off Gwynn's Island. I disdained the gutt that had been deemed impassable since Dunmore's arrival, but was unhappy to find that no provision had been made or necessary steps taken towards passing the gutt, or making a descent on the island. Suspecting the General took me and some other officers rather to dissuade and spare the public censure, than to attempt an attack upon the works or fleet; but fond of the 9th of July, and willing to please you as well as to the business, an attack was immediately made on the fleet and encampment of the enemy. The camp was put into great confusion, one battery drove them into the water, and with the battery of 18 pounders we drove them out again.

The Dunmore was the ship nearest to us; with the first gun we spoiled his Lordship's china and wounded his leg with a splinter. The next shot cut his boatswain in two, put an end to his whistling, and carried off the thigh of his gunner. In short the ship was so much damaged that she and two others were burnt that night. We are not certain what damage the rest of the fleet received; but we have taken three tenders

and drove the fleet to sea without a biscuit or water. Some vessels, we are informed by the Pilots, had not a gallon of water aboard. They have plenty of flour, taken in the prizes, and plenty of Irish beef. I am in hopes you will prevent further exportation of flour and we shall starve them. It is uncertain which way they are gone. They have left the small pox and pestilence upon the island, and twelve negroes dead and unburied. Tom Bird was carted aboard, sick of the fever. There are 150 graves.

If we had been happy enough to have had boats or canoes to carry us over as soon as they were put in confusion, we would have possessed ourselves of all their cannon, ammunition, baggage and

negroes.

His Lordship intended a long stay, which appeared by his new works planned-ovens built and a windmill begun; but this turned out a castle in the air. The Governor is still very ill, and his dis ease is like to degenerate into a long nervous fever.

I am, with the greatest respect and gratitude, dear sir, your most ob't humble servant,

ADAM STEPHEN.

I congratulate you on the success Gen'l Lee has met with in S. Carolina, It is remarkable that so powerful a naval force made so little impression on our works. Sullivan's Island lies four miles N. E. of Charleston, is about a mile and a half square. To the N. E. of Sullivan's Island, and separated by a narrow gutt lies Long Island, on which Gen'l Clinton's troops are landed and attempted to cross the gutt while the ships were attacking the fort; but they were opposed and repulsed by about 800 riflemen, com manded by Col. Thompson on the Island Sullivan.

The name evinces that the Sally Magann is a female, biped, human. It is found in all civilized, but is especially numerous in enlightened countries. A savage Sally Magann is a thing inconceivable; for this reason, viz: that the ens, or, Swedenborgically, the proprium, of a S. Magann, is an innate rage for millinery ware-not, however, the most exalted kind of millinery.

The necessary environment of the creature is a boarding house, of the $5 a week species; it may rise as high as $6 or $6.50, and even $7; but beyond that, and beneath the V per week establishments, it ceases, or rather is transformed into other beings. Victualling thus, its character follows by natural evolution; also its manners, its customs, its destiny.

If the limits of its environment are strict, the annuary circle to which it is admissible and subjected is no less exact. Registrar-Generals, were they even indifferently instructed in the science, now for the first time inaugurated, of Pathological Sociology, might enable us to state the age precisely at which the initiatory processes of Sally-Magannzation are instituted. This point is at present extremely obscure, is of the highest interest, and will attract a mass of competent investigators at a not distant future.

The proper Sally Magann is twentytwo years old. It is in the first stages of itself (proper) at twenty; after twentythree and before twenty-four it escapes into another better defined and more popularly comprehended form. Socially, the Sally Magann is the unpleasant, nay, the intolerable mean between the extremes, tom-boyishness and old-maidism. Intellectually, it is a ninny. Colloquially, a giggly-gabbler. Practically, it is a useless something that reaches the final term of the botherational.

It never has much hair on its head, and being below the pecuniary level of pomade and other costly greases, it kindly submits its phrenology to clean lardintermixed cologne, which it buys in long bottles. The colour of its hair may perhaps be found in the shops of the sign

painters, but it is not named in any language This hair is dressed invariably in the latest style.

Of the face of the Sally Magann, beyond its shape, little, or nothing is known. Its originality is entombed in art. It is by all means an angular face, of the loveliest pink-saucers and chalk-balls hues. The eyes are pale, and stick like a fish-bone in your throat. The nose is needled, and predestined to snuff. A shallow and quarrelsome opening, three inches long, puckered with vinaigre rouge, subserves the uses of a mouth; beneath it lie an irregular collection of translucent cutting instruments, somewhat inlaid with gold, which are its teeth. It does not follow that a chin of a S. Magann must of necessity be sharp or prominent; on the contrary, an ovoidal retreating nub, something like the end of a darkish egg, constitutes the general appearance of this feature. Nor need the neck be stringy; it is irregularly fluted; aiming at a stringyness not yet attained.

Its frame is lean, its digestion feeble, and its flavor sour.

In dress, the Sally Magann labours to be tasteful. Its attempts would not always prove failures, if its body could be remodelled, and it could wish not to be noticed. It has a passion for silks of all sorts, but chiefly for those of a striking pattern. It haunts places where what are called "wet goods" are disposed of, and is there being constantly cheated. If in its cheap researches it could only light upon a "real brocade" and wheedle it out of the shop-keeper "for a song," it would go immortal.

A dress to a Sally Magann never fits in the back where the skirt is gathered. Since the advent of hoops this impossibility is greatly apparent, and it is a good mark by which to detect one of them.

Thus much for the physical S. Magann. The intellectual follows, and the moral. Its views of life are three in number. I. It will marry.

II. Whom will it marry?

III. Matrimony will be an un-ending ocean of dresses and joy.

Its mental operations being bounded by this triangle, its acts are immediately co-ordinated thereto. For young males boarding in the same house with itself, it has a body ever willing to be treated to ice-cream and theatres; and such of them as are disposed to do the gentlemanly to said body, find out the following in regard to the Sally Magann.

First. It may be kissed without much difficulty.

Second. It does not pay to kiss it.

A Northern Sally Magann, in select circles of its kind, always objects to the medical student who lodges on the third floor, but is privately infected with the madness of believing that the student aforesaid is a "wealthy Southerner." It therefore revolves in its mind the vexed question of slavery, and concludes that it will reluctantly yield to the impassioned importunities (not yet offered) of the student, and do its best to ameliorate the condition of sundry negroes upon the hypothetical plantation in Alabama.

As to the day-boarder, the dry-goods clerk, that dresses so nicely, and has given it four pairs of kid gloves, its mind is never sound. "He may get to be a partner. He may never get to be a partner." A dilemma like this is enough to unhinge the highest order of female intelligences; its effect upon a Sally Magann is such that the dry-goods clerk concludes that it is singularly unstable in its notions and affections, and, in consequence of this conclusion, he is often lost to the S. Magann. It grieves over his loss, sometimes to the latest hour of its life, with secretly commingled tears and snuff; deploring the folly of its youth, when it had “lovers by the dozen," while it titilates its Schneiderian membrane in impotent revenge.

But it is only its small shot that the Sally Magann wastes on callow youths. Its heavy artillery is reserved for the bland, portly, middle-aged "gentleman," (boarder,) who does a very large mysterious business, and who does not always prove to be a scoundrel and a swindler, but occasionally marries the S. Magann and disappears with it, none knows whi

ther. For him it sings its best falsetto, and plays upon the piano its five or six good-for-nothing little tunes with its divinest unction. And he-he pronounces it "the sweetest little thing," and more need not be said of him.

The morals of a Sally Magann are— preachers. These it adores. For these it discovers its small capacities of needle and thread; and concerning these, next to "wet goods" and theatres, its giggly gabbling is affluent beyond all measure. To sew on a button for a preacher, to visit his wife, to embroider a pair of slippers for him, to be spoken to by him when it affectates along the street, to kiss his children to death, is the finest joy of the S. Magann. If the preacher is unmarried, then is his divinity complete in the eyes of a S. Magann. How it hangs upon his lips, as it sits in a pew, and pushes up its bonnet slipping from the back of its head! Its fervent prayers that the Lord will deliver him into the hands of a suitable help-mate! Its anony mous letters of gratitude for his refreshing sermons; its incog bouquets! Could it be privileged to make a robe-de-nuit for a right young minister, it would willingly die.

But its destiny rarely comprehends the better-halving of pulpit joys. Generally it advances by distinct but rapid metamorphoses to old maidism; in which case, the sour element in its nature is seriously increased and aggravated, for a Sally Magann acidulates fiercer than any other variety of female. On the other hand, it may, as heretofore intimated, marry. Its destiny then includes early widowhood, an unpromising, unkempt child or two, and a most dreary after existence of untidiness and paregoric.

This is the end of it. Amid the dregs of the demi-semi-genteel societies it noiselessly dissolves, without exciting a remark from anybody.

The purport of its coming into this world never has been, and probably never will be known. It appears to be a disease of shabby-genteel streets—an entozoon of cheap boarding-houses.