His character leaves much to be desired. He had been charged with
forgery, or complicity in it, seems to have had no scruple in matters of
business, and after the war was accused of treasonable dealings with the
French and Spaniards in the west.[457] He was ambitious and violent, yet
able in more ways than one, by no means uneducated, and so skilled in
woodcraft, so energetic and resolute, that his services were invaluable.
In recounting his own adventures, his style is direct, simple, without
boasting, and to all appearance without exaggeration. During the past
summer he had raised a band of men, chiefly New Hampshire borderers, and
made a series of daring excursions which gave him a prominent place in
this hardy by-play of war. In the spring of the present year he raised
another company, and was commissioned as its captain, with his brother
Richard as his first lieutenant, and the intrepid John Stark as his
second. In July still another company was formed, and Richard Rogers was
promoted to command it. Before the following spring there were seven
such; and more were afterwards added, forming a battalion dispersed on
various service, but all under the orders of Robert Rogers, with the
rank of major.[458] These rangers wore a sort of woodland uniform, which
varied in the different companies, and were armed with smooth-bore guns,
loaded with buckshot, bullets, or sometimes both.
[Footnote 455: A large engraved portrait of him, nearly at full length,
is before me, printed at London in 1776.
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