82 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF “CANADA 
circular in which he promised the prospective members of his com- 
mand ‘their proportion of all rebel lands, etc.” The first muster of 
the corps was held on Staten Island in August, 1776, by Colonel 
Edward Winslow. For a while Rogers and his regiment were sta- 
tioned at an outpost near Marroneck, the strength of the organization 
attaining a maximum of over 400 men under its first commander, but 
hardships and neglect greatly reduced this number towards the end of 
the year and Rogers left for England, apparently on sick leave. The 
command now passed to Colonel French, and soon after to Major 
James Weymyss, who resigned in the middle of October, 1777, when 
John Graves Simcoe, formerly captain of the grenadier company of 
the 40th Regiment, became major commandant by Sir William Howe’s 
appointment. 
At this time the Queen’s Rangers were encamped with the British 
army at Germantown, Pennsylvania. A few days after the arrival 
of the army in Philadelphia, the Rangers, according to Simcoe, were 
“augmented with nearly an hundred men who had been enlisted by 
Capt. (John Ferdinand Dalziel) Smyth during the various marches 
from the landing of the army in the Chesapeake to this period” 
(October 23). The actual number of this accession is shown by the 
Muster Rolls to have been 61 men, besides Smyth and Lieutenant 
James Murray. On November Ist, the corps was again mustered, 
when it numbered 384 men. Considerable changes were also effected 
at this time in the list of officers, the earlier ones being superseded by 
“many gentlemen of the Southern colonies who had joined Lord Dun- 
more and distinguished themselves under his orders.” The regiment 
profited also by the addition of some volunteres from the army itself. 
The accession of Captain Smyth’s company increased the regiment to 
eleven companies, which were now equalized by distributing Smyth’s 
men among the others, while the eleventh was formed of Highlanders 
including several Scotchmen from North Carolina. Toward the end 
of 1777 the mounted men in the regiment were organized into a troop 
of Hussars, which in the following February numbered 30. The muster 
at the close of the previous December showed a total of 533 officers 
and men in the corps, or an increase of at least 222 since the arrival of 
Simcoe and his men in Philadelphia. This notable increase was in 
part attributed by the commander to ‘a very great desertion from 
Washington’s army this winter.” That Simcoe’s own force suffered 
severely during the months immediately following, whether from 
casualties or desertion, is indicated by his statement that in March 
(1778) it consisted only of ‘‘about 270, rank and file, and 30 cavalry.”’ 
1 Sabine, Am. Loyalists, 1847, 576, 578; Simcoe’s Journal, 1843, 18, vii; Rev. 
W. O. Raymond’s Note-book (unpublished). 

