The Delaware Gazette

Reduction of the Army.

It is stated on the authority of the New-Orleans Gazette, that Gen. Hamilton has given the command of the troops to Col. Cushing, and is about to proceed to the northward for the benefit of his health.

Tho' the air of that destructive climate has already infected that hardy veteran, long inured to the damp and unhealthy vapors of the Carolina swamps; but which, to the positions selected for encampments by Wilkinson, are pure oxygen compared to virulent miasma. Since the purchase of Louisiana few persons have been able to discover the policy of government, in making the Mississippi the head quarters of the American army. The old and seasoned troops who had then long been deemed sufficient for the defence of our frontier posts, (even when threatened by Spanish invasion,) together with such auxiliary assistance as could be afforded, in case of necessity, from the resident militia, and the western volunteers, seemed in the opinions of most well-informed men, to be adequate to all military emergencies that could reasonably be looked for in that quarter. Was it not then, in order to gratify the avarice and pride of Wilkinson, the height of cruelty—did it not display a brutal insensibility of the sufferings of others, to enlist raw troops from the Eastern states to be deported to this American Walcheren, there to be destroyed by the humid & pestilential air of the country, while employed in clearing the sugar plantations of that suspected and impeached favorite? That man: to whom Talleyrand is but a child in intrigue, and Genet but a tyro in duplicity!

The history of the encampment at Terre aux Boeuf is a history of human suffering and misery that would draw a tear from the most insensible and obdurate—and when that pestilential encampment was raised for the purpose of removing the few emaciated survivors of this once select and robust set of men, six out of ten could scarcely move their skinny skeletons forward...while their general was snugly seated in the healthiest parts of the country, laughing at the credulity of his own government in becoming so easily his dupe, counting the proceeds of his Spanish pension: and, while many of his men were famishing for a draught of pure water, he was quaffing the rich wines of Andalusia out of golden goblets. Justice, though slow is certain and inflexible! These iniquities will be visited some where—God grant they may fall alone on the guilty.