MY DEAR GENERAL:

UNIONTOWN - 1784].

If my promise were not engaged to write to you, my inclinations are sufficiently so to embrace with alacrity any opportunity of expressing the gratitude so justly due to your valuable friendship, of declaring the sincerity of mine.

This Uniontown is the most obscure spot on the face of the globe. I have been here seven or eight weeks without one opportunity of writing to the land of the living; and though considerably south of you, so cold that a person not knowing the latitude would conclude we were placed near one of the Poles. Pray have you had a severe winter below? we have been frozen up here for more than a month past, but a great many of us having been bred in another state, the eating of Homany is as natural to us as the drinking of whisky in the morning.

The town and its appurtenances consist of our president and a lovely little family, a court-house and school-house in one, a mill, and consequently a miller, four taverns, three smith-shops, five retail shops, two Tanyards, one of them only occupied, one saddler's shop, two hatter's shops, one mason, one cake woman, we had two but one of them having committed a petit larceny is upon banishment, two widows and some reputed maids. To which may be added a distillery. The upper part of this edifice is the habitation at will of your humble servant, who, beside the smoke of his own chimney, which is intolerable enough, is fumigated by that of two stills below, exclusive of the other effluvia that arises from the dirty vessels in which they prepare the materials for the stills. The upper floor of my parlour, which is also my chamber and office, is laid with loose clapboards or puncheons, and both the gable ends entirely open, and yet this is the best place in my power to procure till the weather will permit me to build, and even this I am subject to be turned out of the moment the owner, who is at Kentuck and hourly expected, returns.

I can say little of the country in general, but that it is very poor in everything but its soil, which is excellent, and

that part contiguous to the town is really beautiful, being level and prettily situate, accommodated with good water and excellent meadow-ground. But money we have not nor any practicable way of making it; how taxes will be collected, debts paid, or fees discharged, I know not; and yet the good people appear willing enough to run in debt and go to law. I shall be able to give you a better account of this hereafter.

Colonel Maclean' received me with a degree of generous friendship that does honor to the goodness of his heart, and continues to show every mark of satisfaction at my appointment. He is determined to act under the commission sent him by Council, and though the fees would, had he declined it, have been a considerable addition to my profits, I cannot say that I regret his keeping them. He has a numerous small family, and though of an ample fortune in lands, has not cash at command.

I have had no certain accounts from Fortpitt lately; the winter has been so severe that we have had no communication with any other part of the country either over the mountains or on this side. Report some time ago did say that one of the tame (for I cannot call him friendly) Indians at Pittsburg had killed a man in the neighborhood of it, and was in confinement for the crime, but the people of this country have so great an aversion to those wretches, and are so fond propagating a story to their disadvantage, that I do not pretend to give you this for truth. I have not heard a word of the Censors since I left Philadelphia; pray what have they done? A rumor of war between Spain and America has been circulating here, but whence it arose I know not.

The general curse of the country, disunion, rages in this little mud-hole with as much malignity as if they had each pursuits of the utmost importance, and the most opposed to each other, when in truth they have no pursuits at all, that

1 Alexander McLean was appointed Justice of the Peace for Fayette Co., March 19, 1784.

deserve the name, except that of obtaining food and whisky, for raiment they scarcely use any. The animosities which have at different periods arisen among them still subsist when the original causes have been long since removed. The people in this country may be divided into four different classes, the friends to Pennsylvania, the advocates for Virginia, the favourers of a new government, and the enemies. to all, the tories, who were once in some degree formidable, and yet, in some instances, have not prudence enough to conceal the inveteracy of their hearts, and each of these discriptions abhore each other as heartily as ever did Guelph and Ghibellines, or any other descriptions of men in the world. The Commissioners, Trustees, I should say, having fixed on a spot in one end of the town for the public buildings, which was by far the most proper in every point of view, exclusive of the saving expense, the other end took the alarm and charged them with partiality, and have been ever since uttering their complaints. And at the late election for justices, two having been carried in this end of the town. and none in the other has made them quite outrageous. This trash is not worth troubling you with, therefore I beg your pardon, and am with unfeigned esteem,

Dear General,

Your very

humble servant,

EPHRAIM DOUGLASS.

February 11th.'

The tardy departure of Mr. Parish, who is to favor this, will give me time (to) write a journal. My Landlord is come; he tells me that the people at Kentuck still continue in their Forts or Stations, but more from the apprehension of the Southern than western Indian; those still continue to do mischief occasionally; he passed the bodies of three men who had been murdered by them, on his way home, near the crossing of Cumberland River.

No doubt 1784 should be here supplied, as on the 6th of October, 1783, Major Douglass was elected by Council, Prothonotary of Fayette Co., the office he no doubt held at the time the letter was written.

It appears that the incroachments of the white people on the settlements of the Cherokees, have been repeatedly complained of, and may be one cause of their continuing hostilities. I am told that after I left Sandusky, the deputies from these southern nations endeavored to dissuade the western ones from resigning the tomahawk. By a man lately from Weeling, I am informed that there has been one man killed and another wounded by the Indians over the river, at some distance from that place; the story tells thus: That those gentlemen, being in the Indian country, came on one of their camps, when they were treated with great hospitality by the owners; but falling in love with their peltry, they watched the Indians' motions, and finding them all absent a hunting, packed up their skins and marched off. The Savages returning and finding what was done, followed them; the consequences of which, I have related. I fear this will not be (the) last death we shall hear of in that quarter, for I am told there are a number of families settled opposite and below that place.

I understand that a Mr. Culp, one of the disappointed candidates in one end of the town, which I have already described to you, remonstrated to Council against our late election. I have not taken notice of it in my letter to them as a body, because I have not a certainty of the fact; but in case he should, I will venture to tell you that, in my opinion, the election was as fair and regular as is possible for one to be here. He alleges his tickets were suppressed, it may be that some of them were, for I judge there were very few gave in his name who had a right to vote; and the inspector and judges, knowing the qualifications of all the voters, and to avoid the confusion that openly rejecting them would necessarily have produced, took this method of suppressing their votes who were not entitled to poll. I will not so far intrude on you as to give his character at large, but only remark that, had he been elected, he is as little qualified for the duties as almost any man that could be found.

I am now on the point of quitting my smoke-house, without the prospect of getting another nearly as convenient.

I have no chance but a room in a sort of a tavern, or to intrude on the goodness of Colonel Maclean, either of which will be very disagreeable.

I have made an assertion to Council, that the tax was not assessed in this county till after its separation from Westmoreland; and though this be literally true, I am now in some doubt of the certainty of my idea at the time, as well as of that which Council will probably affix to it. My meaning was that the taking of the return was subsequent to the act of assembly, and I thought I had it the best authenticated; but I have since made much enquiry, and am not able to ascertain the precise time, but all agree that it was nearly about that period-whether shortly before, or immediately after, I cannot determine with certainty.

With my most respectful compliments to all your worthy family, I have the honor to be most respectfully, Dear Sir, Your obedient servant,

EPHRAIM DOUGLASS.

MAJOR ANDRÉ'S PAROLE.

ORIGINAL IN POSSESSION OF MR. SIMON GRATZ.

[From the American Antiquarian.]

I, the Subscriber, Lieutenant of his Majesty's 7th Regt. of Foot or Royal Fuzileers, taken at St. John's, now being at Lancaster, having perused the Resolutions of the Continental Congress of the 8th and 16th of November and 16th and 18th of December last, transmitted by their President to the Committee of Inspection for the County of Lancaster, and having requested some Time to make choice of a Place of Residence agreeable to the said Resolutions, do hereby promise and engage upon my Parole of Honour, that during the Time which shall be allowed me to make such choice, I will not go into or near any Seaport Town, nor further than six miles distance from the said Borough of Lancaster, without leave of the Continental Congress, and will carry on no political correspondence whatever on the Subject of the Dispute between Great Britain and the Colonies, so long as I remain a Prisoner; and after having made such choice agreeable to the tenor of those Resolutions, I will give and sign my Parole agreeable to the Request and Directions of the Congress to the said Committee, that they may transmit the same to the Congress. JOHN ANDRÉ,

LANCASTER, February 23d, 1776.

Lt. R. Fuz'leers.