Note 400 — Chapter XXVI · 1764. BRADSTREET’S ARMY ON THE LAKES.

“The three companies of Royal Americans were reduced when I met them at Lancaster to 55 men, having lost 38 by desertion in my short absence. I look upon Sir Jeffrey Amherst’s Orders forbidding me to continue to discharge as usual the men whose time of service was expired, and keeping us for seven years in the Woods,—as the occasion of this unprecedented desertion. The encouragement given everywhere in this Country to deserters, screened almost by every person, must in time ruin the Army, unless the Laws against Harbourers are better enforced by the American (provincial) government.”—Bouquet to Gage, 20 June, 1764.