Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/511

No. 170] Certain it was, at least, that recruiting went on but heavily. Some officers had been more successful than others, but none of the companies were complete : mine perhaps contained about half its complement of men, and these had been obtained by dint of great exertion. In this situation, captain Lenox of Shee's regiment also, suggested the trying our luck on the Eastern shore of Maryland, particularly at Chester, situated on the river of that name. It having been a place of some trade, it was supposed there might be seamen or long shore men there, out of employ. . . . Mr. Heath. . . helped us. . . to a recruit, a fellow, he said, who would do to stop a bullet as well as a better man, and as he was a truly worthless dog, he held, that the neighborhood would be much indebted to us for taking him away. . ..

. . . With such unfavorable prospects in Maryland, it would have been folly to have proceeded further : we therefore, set off on our way home the next morning. . . . Returning by Warwick, we sent forward our solitary recruit, for whom we tossed up ; and in winning, I was, in fact, but a very small gainer, since his merits had been set at their full value by Mr. Heath ; and he was never fit for any thing better than the inglorious post of camp colour man.

After this unsuccessful jaunt I bent my course to the Four-lane ends, Newtown, and Corryell's ferry ; thence passing into Jersey, I proceeded to the Hickory tavern, to Pittstown, Baptisttown, Flemmingtown, and other towns, whose names I do not remember. As captain Stewart (the late general Walter Stewart) of our regiment, had recently reapt this field, I was only a gleaner : In the whole of my tour, therefore, I picked up but three or four men : and could most sincerely have said,

I could most gladly have renounced, even without the very preferable alternative of captain Plume. My number of privates might now have amounted to about forty, but these were soon augmented by the noble addition of one and twenty stout native Americans, brought by lieutenants Edwards and Forrest from Egg Harbour.