I am anxious to hear what measures your assembly are taking respecting the several matters contained in the requisition which I laid before them. I am, &c. GOVERNOR LEE. Camp on the Pedee, December 31, 1780. Sir-I am favoured with your excellency's letter of the 9th instant, which came to hand but a day or two since. I hope the assembly will consider the distress that this army is in, and give it as early relief as possible. It is unfortunate for the public that the business of the two great departments in which they are so deeply interested, legislation and the army, cannot be made to coincide better. But the pressing wants of the army cannot admit of the slow deliberation of legislation without being subject to many inconveniencies; nor can a legislature with the best intentions always keep pace with the emergencies of war: and thus the common interest suffers from the different principles which influence and govern the two great national concerns. I fear this is the present situation of things. The wants of the army are numerous and pressing, and without speedy relief the public will suffer not a little. My anxiety to avoid it, if possible, I hope will be my apology for being so importunate with your state to comply with my requisition. Inclosed I send your excellency a copy of an address from the officers of the Maryland line respecting the officers of the state regiment. The merit and long services of those officers entitle them to every consideration from the legislature that justice or policy will warrant, and I hope the feelings of soldiers will apologize for the address of the officers. It is addressed to me; but I conceive it can only be meant through me to the state, Different walks and different employments in life naturally beget different modes of thinking. The citizen cannot always feel justly for the soldier, nor the soldier for the citizen; but policy as well as generosity should induce each to think charitably of the other. I foresee the greatest degree of confusion will arise in your line, if the state regiment is continued in service upon its present footing. However prejudicial it may be to the private interest of the officers to leave the service at this time, I am persuaded their pride and resentments will influence them to such a determination, providing they are reduced to the disagreeable alternative of taking such measures or submitting to the command of the officers of the state regiment. To avoid disagreeable commotions that may arise either from mistake or prejudice, it is often good policy to relax in the exercise of matters of right, when it can be done without injuring the honour or interest of government. Perhaps this may be one of those cases wherein the state will find it their interest to adopt this policy. I would beg leave to suggest to your excellency the propriety of drafting the privates in the state regiment into the continental regiments and of recalling the officers. I am confident the public interest will be greatly promoted by the measure. But if this cannot be agreed to, I wish your excellency to satisfy the officers, that it is not the intention of the legislature, as I am persuaded it cannot be, to incorporate the officers of the state regiment into the continental battalions. This will go a great way towards reconciling them to the inconvenience of submitting to their present command. The regiment is not yet arrived in camp; and I shall endeavour to employ it upon some separate service, until I can know your excellency's pleasure in the matter; which I hope you will communicate as soon as possible, as the longer the affair is suspended the more disagreeable consequences will follow from it. I am sorry it is not in my power to comply with your excellency's request respecting colonel Luke Marbury, he being a prisoner of war in the northern department. His excellency general Washington would think it a very improper interference, as it would beget jealousy and discontent in all the prisoners remaining in captivity should I exchange colonel Marbury in the way you propose. Should general Washington think proper to direct what you recommend, I shall most readily agree to any thing that can contribute to the relief of your friends in captivity. But without his approbation I should not think it advisable to venture upon the measure. General Smallwood is gone to Maryland, to whom I beg leave to refer your excellency for further particulars respecting the state of this department. I am, with great respect and esteem, &c. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GENERAL OGLETHORPE. (From M'Call's History of Georgia.) JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE, was the son of sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, of Godalmen, in the county of Surry, lieutenant-colonel of the duke of York's troop of the king's horse-guards, a majorgeneral of the army, and a member of parliament, by Eleanora, his wife, daughter of Richard Wall, of Ragane, in Ireland. He was born in the parish of St. James's, the twenty-first of December, 1698:* his father, and two of his brothers being in the army, he was educated with a view to that profession, which he afterwards embraced. He was appointed an ensign in 1711, and in 1713 performed duty with that rank, at the proclamation of the peace at Utrecht. He was promoted to a captain-lieutenancy of the queen's guards in 1715: he afterwards employed himself in acquiring the ઠંડ ⚫I 1707, a pamphlet was published in England, entitled Frances Shaftoe's narrative, containing an account of her being a servant in sir Theophilus Oglethorpe's family; and with all the illiterate simplicity of her station, states, that the pretended prince of Wales was sir Theophilus's son; that she was sent to France, and barbarously used, to make her turn papist and nun, in order to prevent a discovery, but she made her escape to Switzerland, and from thence returned to England. She says, " Ann Oglethorpe'told me that the first pretended prince of Wales died of convulsion fits, at the age of five or six weeks; but her mother had a little son some days older than the prince, and her mother took her little brother James, all in haste, and went to London; that her little brother and the prince were both sick together; and her little brother died, or was lost, but that it was a secret between her mother and queen Mary." It is something extraordinary, if true, that there is no record of Oglethorpe's birth on the parish register, in conformity with a long esta blished custom of Great Britain; and I am indebted to the Encyclopædia Perthensis, and the journal of a private gentleman in Georgia, where his birthday was celebrated for the date which I have inserted. art of war, under the famous prince, Eugene, and other eminent commanders. He was patronised by the dukes of Argyle and Marlborough, by whose commendations he acted as secretary and aid-de-camp to the prince, though at an early period of life, and stored up much useful knowledge. It was said that he was offered some preferment in the German service, where he might have acquired the station which his companion, marshal Keith, afterwards obtained: but with a man of his sentiments, the obligations due to his country, and the services it required, were not to be dispensed with. From the time of prince Eugene's campaigns, the pacific disposition of the powers of Europe, prevented the exercise of Oglethorpe's military talents for a considerable time: at length a field was opened in the western world, where he had an opportunity of displaying them, and giving evidence of the feelings of his heart. He was appointed colonel of a regiment the twenty-fifth of August, 1737, with the rank of general and commander in chief over all the king's forces in Georgia and Southcarolina. It is said that he commanded the first regular force that was ever stationed in America, and that he was the first general to whom a chief command had been given over two provinces. He was appointed brigadier-general in the British army the thirtieth of March, 1745, and major-general, the thirteenth of September, 1747. He was elected member of parliament for Haslemere, in Surry, in 1722, 1727, 1734, 1741, and 1747; and during that period many regulations in the laws of England, for the benefit of trade, and the public weal generally, were proposed and promoted by him. In 1728, finding a gentleman, to whom he paid a visit in the Fleet prison, loaded with irons, and otherwise barbarously used, he engaged in a philanthropic inquiry into the state of the prisoners and jails in Egland; where, upon investigation, facts disgraceful to humanity were developed. He moved, in the house of commons, that a committee should be appointed to inquire into the state of the prisoners confined in the jails of Great Britain. A committee was accordingly appointed, and Oglethorpe who was its chairman, reported, in 1729, several resolutions, which induced the house to attempt a redress of many flagrant abuses. Oglethorpe suggested a project for the consideration of a number of gentlemen, principally members of parliament, who lately had occasion to observe the miserable condition of prisoners confined in jails for debt: moved with compassion for their relief, they judged that if they were settled in some of the new colonies in North America, they might, instead of being a burthen and disgrace, be made beneficial to the nation. On the fifteenth of July, 1732, he was vested with the functions of governor of Georgia, and in the ten succeeding years he crossed the Atlantic ocean six times, without fee or hope of reward, to forward his laudable design of settling the province. When he returned to England, for the last time, in 1743, he took with him an Indian boy, son of one of the chiefs, who received a pretty liberal education, and returned to Georgia a polished man; and when he went into the Creek nation, considerable expectations were entertained from his influence in planting the seeds of civilization amongst his countrymen; but he soon returned to his native habits. General Oglethorpe, complimented colonel Noble Jones with his portrait in a neat frame, representing his Indian pupil standing by his side reading: it was lost when Savannah was captured by the British forces in December, 1778. In 1745, he accompanied the duke of Cumberland into Scotland, which was his last military expedition. On the twenty-ninth of August, 1744, he married Eliza, daughter of sir Nathan Wright, baronet, an heiress. • Verses enclosed to a lady in Charleston, soon after Oglethorpe's marriage; who inquired when he would return to America: "The fairest of Diana's train, For whom so many sigh'd in vain, From whence he'll ne'er get loose again. "The son of Jove and Venus knew, "Both charming, graceful, equal, fair, |