[Bristol, 1777] August 19. By the ship Lady Gage, from New-York, July 15th, advices that General Heister is returning to Europe; that the troops are withdrawn from the Jerseys; that Lord Howe and General Howe are embarking, destination unknown; — discouraging news for government, and is a convincing proof I should think that an insurrection excited by an enthusiastic ardor for liberty, rightly or wrongly understood, and in such distant provinces, is not to be easily quelled. A contemptuous idea of the weakness of the colonies, and their inability to withstand the power of this opulent state, is the chief if not the only source of the present discouraging condition of their affairs in North America.
1. Journals and Letters of the late Samuel Curwen, An American Refugee in England, from 1775-1784 (New York, 1842), 152-53.
