I approve of your intended application to General Heard for a successor to White, and wish you to appoint any one whom his recommendation or other better evidence shall place in your view as the best.
When I did myself the pleasure to write you on the 17th ult., I was not apprized of the enemy's progress up Hudson's River, nor of the barbarous devastation they have been guilty of committing at Kingston
I think I hear you wish to be advised of what is passing in your native country, at a juncture when the decisions of government must determine the philosophers and politicians of Europe to form their opinion of our wisdom or our folly.
