The Patowmac Guardian, And Berkeley Advertiser

BRITISH ARMY.

Osnaburg, Feb. 13.

Our head-quarters are now at this place; and it is the earnest wish of every one that we may now have a little rest. The sufferings and loss of the army have been dreadful. In the march from Amsterdam alone upwards of 9000 soldiers were frozen to death, besides women and children. In one of our marches during the night, over a large frozen morass, where an accident obliged me to remain behind the army near an hour, my only direction, when the dawn came, to point out the route the army had taken, was the miserable victims that were lying every where dead, or dying of cold, famine, or fatigue, in the route the army had taken. In short, no defeat could have had more disastrous consequences than this unfortunate retreat was attended with. Had our distresses proceeded from the enemy, they would have been more sufferable, but we owe them to the cowardice of our allies, and to other causes which it is unnecessary to enter into at present. The officers have suffered but little compared with the men; for famine and cold were the forms in which death attacked us and these the officers could in some measure guard against.

Our loss in stores is beyond all credibility; would to God that were our only loss! The quantity of every description destroyed at Helvoetsluys, Rotterdam, Doesburg and Deventer, exceed all calculation. At the latter place, only during the two days the guards were there, 12,000 stand of arms were destroyed, intrenching tools innumerable, about 50,000 cwt of powder, some millions of musquets and ammunition, and 100 gun carriages, besides a number of guns, which were spiked and left behind. At Doesburg, it is thought about twenty times the quantity were destroyed.