Plot to destroy Washington.

Declaration of Independence read to the Army.

Destruction of the King's Statue.

regulars and Hessian hirelings. These arrived in the course of a few days, and on the eleventh, Clinton and Parker, with their broken forces, joined them. Another debarkation took place on the twelfth, and there, upon the wooded heights of Staten Island, above Stapleton and Clifton, and upon the English transports, almost thirty thousand men stood ready to fall upon the Republicans. Already the Declaration of Independence had gone abroad;" the statue of the king in New York had been pulled down,3 and brave men, pledged to the support of the Continental Congress and its measures, were piling fortifications upon every eligible point around the devoted city.

1

1 A plot, originated by Tryon, to murder the American general officers on the arrival of the British, or at best to capture Washington and deliver him to Sir William Howe, was discovered at this time. It was arranged to blow up the magazine, secure the passes to the city, and at one blow deprive the Republicans of their leaders, and by massacre or capture annihilate the "rebel army." Mayor Hicks was one of the conspirators; and from his secure place on board the Duchess of Gordon, Tryon sent money freely to bribe Americans. Two of Washington's Guard were seduced, but the patriotism of a third was proof against their temptations, and he exposed the plot. Hicks, Gilbert Forbes (a gunsmith on Broadway), and about a dozen others, were immediately arrested, and sent prisoners to Connecticut. It was ascertained that about five hundred persons were concerned in the conspiracy. Thomas Hickey, one of the Guard, was hanged on the twenty-seventh of June, 1776. This was the first military execution in New York.-See Spark's Writings of Washington, iii., 438; Force's American Archives, vi., 1064; Ib., i. (second series), 117; Gaine's New York Mercury.

2 Washington received the Declaration of Independence on the ninth of July, with instructions to have it read to the army. He immediately issued an order for the several brigades, then in and near the city, to be drawn up at six o'clock that evening, to hear it read by their several commanders or their aids. The brigades were formed in hollow squares on their respective parades. The venerable Zachariah Greene (commonly known as "Parson Greene," the father-in-law of Mr. Thompson, historian of Long Island), yet (1852) living at Hempstead, at the age of ninety-three years, informed me that he belonged to the brigade, then encamped on the "Common," where the City Hall now stands. The hollow square was formed at about the spot where the Park Fountain now is. He says Washington was within the square, on horseback, and that the Declaration was read in a clear voice by one of his aids. When it was concluded, three hearty cheers were given. Holt's Journal for July 11, 1776, says, (6 In pursuance of the Declaration of Independence, a general jail delivery took place with respect to debtors." Ten days afterward, the people assembled at the City Hall, at the head of Broad Street, to hear the Declaration read. They then took the British arms from over the seat of justice in the court-room, also the arms wrought in stone in front of the building, and the picture of the king in the council chamber, and destroyed them, by fire, in the street. They also ordered the British arms in all the churches in the city to be destroyed. This order seems not to have been obeyed. Those in Trinity church were taken down and carried to New Brunswick by the Reverend Charles Inglis, at the close of the war, and now hang upon the walls of a Protestant Episcopal church in St. John's.

3 The statue of George the Third was equestrian, made of lead, and gilded. It was the workmanship of Wilton, then a celebrated statuary of London, and was the first equestrian effigy of his majesty yet erected. It was placed upon its pedestal, in the center of the Bowling Green, on the twenty-first of August, 1770. On the same evening when the Declaration of Independence was read to the troops in New York, a large concourse of people assembled, pulled down the statue, broke it in pieces, and sent it to be made into bullets. Ebenezer Hazard, in a letter to Gates, referring to the destruction of the king's statue, said, “His troops will probably have melted majesty fired at them." Some of the soldiers appear

to have been engaged in the matter, for on the following morning Washington issued an order for them to desist from such riotous acts in future.* The greater portion of the statue was sent to Litchfield, in Connecticut, and there converted into bullets by two daughters and a son of Governor Wolcott, a Mrs. and Miss Marvin, and a Mrs. Beach. According to an account current of the cartridges made from this statue, found among the papers of Governor Wolcott, it appears that it furnished materials for forty-two thousand bullets.

persuasions of her wealthy children could not lure her from that simplicity and the home of her early years of married life. She arose one morning, sat down by her table, leaned her head upon it, and expired like a waning ember, at the age of ninetyfive years. Almost all of the few who knew her half a century ago, had forgotten her.

* In a coarse Tory drama, entitled "The Battle of Brooklyn; a farce in two acts, as it was performed on Long Island on Tuesday, the twenty-seventh day of August, 1776, by the representatives of the Tyrants of America assembled, at Philadelphia,” published by Rivington, the destruction of the statue is attributed to Washington. A servant girl of Lady Gates is made to say, concerning the chief, "And more, my lady, did he not order the king's statue to be pulled down, and the head cut off." Mr. Greene described the statue to me as of the natural size, both horse and man. The horse was poised upon his hinder legs. The king had a crown upon his head; his right hand held the bridle-reins, the left rested upon the handle of a sword. The artist omitted stirrups, and the soldiers often said, in allusion to the fact, "the tyrant ought to ride a hard-trotting horse, without stirrups." Stephens, in his Travels in Greece, &c. (ii., 33), says, that in the house of a Russian major, at Chioff, he saw a picture representing the destruction of this statue. The major pledged him in the toast, "Success to Liberty throughout the world."

Effect of the Declaration.

Howe's Letter to Washington.

Commission of the Brothers.

Preparations for Battle.

On the arrival of General Howe at Sandy Hook, the Provincial Congress of New York adjourned to White Plains, and there, on the ninth of July, they reassembled, approved of the Declaration of Independence, and changed the title of the Assembly to Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York. The Declaration, however, offended many influential men, who, though warmly attached to their country, and yearning for a redress of grievances, shuddered at the thought of separation from Great Britain. Some closed their mouths in silence and folded their arms in inaction, while others, like Beverly Robinson, the Delancey's, and men of that character, actively espoused the cause of the king. The patriot army in New York was surrounded by domestic enemies, more to be dreaded than open adversaries, and this fact seemed favorable to the hopes of Howe, that the olive branch would be accepted by the Americans when offered.1 He soon perceived that much of loyalty was the child of timidity, and when his proclamations were sent abroad, offering peace only on condition of submission, the missiles proved powerless. Although doubtless desiring peace, he was obliged to draw the sword and sever the leashes of the blood-hounds of war.

2

In Hulks of

On the twelfth of July, the Rose and Phoenix ships of war, with their decks guarded by sand-bags, sailed up the bay, and passing the American batteries without serious injury, proceeded up the Hudson to Haverstraw Bay, for the double purpose of keeping open a communication with Carleton, who was endeavoring to make his way southward by Lake Champlain, and for furnishing arms to the Tories of West Chester. The vigilant Whigs would not allow their boats to land, and there they remained inactive for three weeks. the mean while, the belligerent forces were preparing for the inevitable battle. vessels were sunk in the channel between Governor's Island3 and the Battery, and chevaux de frise were formed there under the direction of General Putnam, to prevent the passage of the British vessels up the East River. A large body of troops were concentrated at Brooklyn, under General Greene; Sullivan and his little army hastened from the North ; two battalions from Pennsylvania and Maryland, under Smallwood, arrived, and the New York and New England militia flocked to the city by hundreds. On the first of August the American army in and around New York numbered about twenty-seven thousand men,

This

1 General Howe, and his brother, the admiral, were appointed by Parliament commissioners to treat for peace with the Americans. They were authorized to extend a free pardon to all who should return to and their allegiance; to declare penitent towns or colonies exempt from the penalties of non-intercourse; to offer rewards to those who should render meritorious services in restoring tranquillity. Howe sent proclamations to this effect ashore at Amboy, addressed to the colonial governors, and designed for general circulation among the people. The General Congress denounced it as a scheme to amuse and disarm the people," and exhorted them to perceive "that the valor alone of their country was to save its liberties.". Journal, ii., 260. At about the same time, Colonel Paterson, the British adjutant general, went to New York with a flag, bearing a letter from General Howe, addressed to "George Washington, Esq." was so addressed because the Briton was unwilling to acknowledge the official character of the "rebel chief." It was a silly movement; Washington penetrated the design, and refused any communication, unless addressed to General Washington. Paterson urged Washington not to be punctilious, pleading the necessity of waving all ceremony, for Howe came to cause the sheathing of swords, if possible. Washington was inflexible, and said, in reference to the commissioners, that they seemed empowered only to grant pardons; that those who had committed no fault needed no pardon, and that the Americans were only defending their rights as British subjects. Paterson returned, and Howe made no further attempts to correspond with "George Washington, Esq." Congress, by resolution, expressed its approval of the course of the commander-in-chief in this matter.

2 The chief plan of the campaign of 1776 was for Howe to attack New York and ascend the Hudson, while Carleton should come from Canada and form a junction. This would effectually cut off the Eastern States from the rest of the confederacy. Clinton, in the mean while, was to make war in the Southern States, and the American forces being thus divided, might be easily conquered. Their designs miscarried. Clinton was repulsed at Charleston, Carleton was kept at bay, and Howe did not pass the Highlands.

3 The original name of this island was Nutten. The rents of the land being a perquisite of the colonial governors, it was called Governor's Island. It was held as such perquisite until the close of Governor Clinton's administration. General Johnson, of Brooklyn, informed me that Clinton rented it to Dr. Price, who built a house of entertainment there, and laid out a race-course. Owing to the difficulty of taking race-horses to the island, it was abandoned after two or three years, and the course at Harlem was established.

Disposition of American Detachments.

Kip's Bay.

The Kip Family.

Bilious fever

but at least one fourth of them were unfitted by sickness for active duty. prostrated Greene about the middle of August, and Sullivan was placed in command at Brooklyn. A small detachment was ordered to Governor's Island; another was posted at Paulus' Hook, where Jersey City now stands, and General George Clinton, with a body of New York militia, was ordered to West Chester county to oppose the landing of the British on the shores of the Sound, or, in the event of their landing, to prevent their taking possession of the strong post at King's Bridge. Parson's brigade took post at Kip's Bay,1 on the East River, to watch British vessels if they should enter those waters. Such was the position of the two armies immediately antecedent to the battle near Brooklyn, at the close of August, 1776.

1 The family mansion of the Kips, a strong house built of brick imported from Holland, remained near the corner of Second Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, until July, 1850, when it was taken down. A pear-tree near, planted in 1700, bore fruit the present season. The house was built in 1641 by Samuel Kip, who was secretary of the council of New Netherlands, and at the time of its destruction was probably the oldest edifice in the State of New York. The sketch here given is from a painting in possession of the Reverend W. Ingraham Kip, D.D., of Albany, and gives its appearance at the time of the Revolution. The Kip family are among the oldest in this state.

He

KIP's House.

Ruloff de Kype (anglicized to Kip after the English took possession of New Netherlands) was the first of the name found in history. was a native of Bretagne, and was a warm partisan of the Guises in the civil wars between Protestants and Papists in the sixteenth century. On the defeat of his party, he fled to the Low Countries. He afterward joined the army of the Duke of Anjou, and fell in battle near Jarnac. He was buried in a church there, where an altar-tomb was erected to his memory bearing his coat of arms.* His son Ruloff became a Protestant, and settled in Amsterdam. His grandson, Henry, (born in 1576) became an active member of the Company of Foreign Countries," which was organized in 1588 for the purpose of exploring a northeast passage to the Indies. In 1635 he came to America with his family, but soon returned to Holland. His sons remained, bought large tracts of land, and were active in public affairs. One of them (Henry) was a member of the first popular Assembly in New Netherlands (see page 783), and married a daughter of De Sille, the attorney general. His brother Jacob bought the land at Kip's Bay, and a third son, Isaac, owned the property which is now the City Hall Park. Nassau Street was called Kip Street. In 1686 one of the family purchased the tract where the village of Rhinebeck, Dutchess county, now stands. It was called "the manor of Kipsburg." A part of this was sold to Henry Beekman, by whose grand-daughter, the mother of Chancellor Livingston, it passed into the Livingston family. At the opening of the Revolution, the Kip family were divided in politics; some held royal commissions, others were stanch Whigs. The proprietors of the Kip's Bay property were strong Whigs, but one of them, Samuel, was induced by Colonel Delancey to take the loyal side. He raised a company of cavalry, principally from his own tenants, joined Delancey, and was active in West Chester county, where, in a skirmish in 1781, he was severely wounded. He lived several years after the war, and suffered great loss of property by confiscation. For several years after the British took possession of York Island, Kip's house was used as head-quarters by officers. There Colonel Williams, of the 80th regiment, was quartered in 1780, and on the day when Andrè left the city to meet Arnold, Williams gave a dinner to Sir Henry Clinton and his staff. there and shared in the socialities of the hour. It was his last dinner in New York. Such is well authenticated tradition.-See Holgate's American Genealogies, page 109.

Andrè was

The device was a shield. On one side, occupying a moiety, was a cross. The other moiety was quartered by a strip of gold; above were two griffins, and below an open mailed hand. There were two crests, a game-cock, and a demi-griffin holding a cross: the legend, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum."

Powder cloud;

And his broad sword was swinging, and his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet loud:

There the blue bullets flew,

And the trooper jackets redden at the touch of the leaden

Rifle breath;

And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six-pounder,

Hurling Death!”’

KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE.

N Thursday morning, the twenty-second of August, 1776, the British troops. under General William Howe landed upon Long Island, in the vicinity of New Utrecht. Four thousand men crossed the ferry from Staten Island, at the Quarantine Ground, to Denyse's strong stone house, where Fort Hamilton now stands, and landed under cover of the guns of the Rainbow, anchored where Fort La Fayette looms up in the center of the Narrows. Some riflemen, under Colonel Edward Hand, posted on the hill above, retired toward Flatbush. An hour afterward, British and Hessian troops poured over the sides of the English ships and transports, and in long rows of boats, directed by Commodore Hotham, five thousand more soldiers landed upon Long Island, in the bow of Gravesend Bay (at a place known as Bath, in front of New Utrecht), under cover of the guns of the Phonix, Rose,1 and Greyhound. The chief commanders of the English were Sir Henry Clinton, Earls Cornwallis and Percy, and Generals Grant and Sir Will iam Erskine. Count Donop, who was killed at Red Bank in 1777, landed, with some Hessians, with the first division, and on the a August, twenty-fifth, a the veteran De Heister,2 1776. with Knyphausen, and two Hessian brigades, also landed near New Utrecht. The

VIEW AT Gravesend BAY.3

whole invading force was about ten thousand men well armed, with forty cannons. Lieutenant-colonel Dalrymple remained to keep Staten Island.

1 The Rose and Phenix, after remaining in Haverstraw Bay three weeks, had passed the American batteries and joined the fleet. See page 802.

2 Lieutenant-general De Heister was an old man, and warmly attached to his master, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. The long voyage of almost fourteen weeks dispirited him, "and," says Sir George Collier, "his patience and tobacco became exhausted." A sniff of land breeze revived him. "He called for Hock, and swallowed large potations to the health of his friends.”

3 This view is from the road on the high shore, a little below Fort Hamilton, looking southeast; the house in the center belonged to Simon Cortelyou, a Tory, during the Revolution, and has not been altered. Gravesend Bay is seen beyond the house, and the distant land is Coney Island beach.

Alarm in New York.

General Putnam.

General John Morin Scott

When this movement of the enemy was known in New York, alarm and confusion prevailed. Re-enforcements were sent to General Sullivan, then encamped at Brooklyn, and the next day the veteran General Putnam2 was ordered thither by Washington, to take the supreme command there. The military works on Long Island had been constructed under the immediate direction of General Greene, who made himself acquainted with every important point between Hell Gate and the Narrows. Unfortunately, he fell sick, and none knew so well as he the importance of certain passes in the rear of Brooklyn. The chief fortifications were within the limits of the present city, while at the passes alluded to

3

1 Many Whig families left the city, and for seven long years of exile they endured privations with heroic fortitude. Many of their houses were destroyed by fire, and others were ruined by military occupants. 2 Israel Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the seventh of January, 1718. He was a vigorous, athletic lad, and in 1739 we find him cultivating land in Pomfret, Connecticut. He was appointed to the command of the first troops raised in Connecticut for the French and Indian war in 1755, in which capacity the reader has met him several times in these volumes. He returned to his farm after the peace, where he remained until he heard of the affair at Lexington. At the head of Connecticut troops, he distinguished himself in the battle of Bunker Hill. He was one of the four major generals appointed by Congress in 1775. His services during the war are mentioned in many portions of this work, and we will not repeat them here. His last military services were performed at West Point and vicinity in 1779, where he was chiefly engaged in strengthening the fortifications. Paralysis of one side impaired the activity of his body, but his mind retained its powers until his death. He lived in retirement after the war, and died at Brooklyn, Windham county, Connecticut, on the twentyninth of May, 1790, aged seventy-two years. His remains repose beneath

a marble slab in the grave-yard south of the village, upon which is an appropriate inscription.† 3 Over all the sites of Revolutionary fortifications, near Brooklyn, the modern city is rapidly spreading. Streets and avenues reticulate the whole area, and it is difficult now to identify the consecrated places.

* I have before me a manuscript letter, written by a daughter of General John Morin Scott, from Elizabethtown, three days after the landing of the British on Long Island, which exhibits the alarms and privations to which wealthy families, who had left the city, were subjected. After mentioning their hourly expectation of the landing of the British at Elizabethtown Point, she says: "We have our coach standing before our door every night, and the horses harnessed ready to make our escape, if we have time. We have hardly any clothes to wear; only a second change." Warned by Governor Livingston to leave Elizabethtown, the family of General Scott fled at night to Springfield, in the midst of a terrible thunder-storm. The writer continues: "We were obliged to stop on the road and stay all night, and all the lodging we could get was a dirty bed on the Hoor. How hard it seems for us, that have always been used to living comfortable! Papa, with his brigade, has gone over to Long Island, which makes us very uneasy. Poor New York! I long to have the battle over, and yet I dread the consequences." This letter is in the possession of her grandson, Charles S. M'Knight, Esq., of New York. JOHN MORIN SCOTT was an early opponent of British oppression, the coadjutor of Sears, Lamb, Willett, and others. He was a descendant of the baronial family of Scott

of Ancram, Teviotdale, Scotland, and was born in New York in 1730. He graduated at Yale College in 1746. He adopted the profession of the law, married Helena Rutgers, of New York, and made that city his field of active usefulness. With William Livingston, of New Jersey, his voice and pen boldly advocated extreme measures, and, because of his ultra Whig principles, the timid ones defeated his election to the General Congress in 1774. He was one of the

The Moring tak

most active and influential members of the General Committee of New York in 1775, and was a member of the Provincial Congress that year. On the ninth of June, 1776, he was commissioned a brigadier, which office he held until March, 1777. He was with his brigade in the battle of Long Island, and was one of the Council of War called by Washington to decide whether to fight longer or retreat. He was afterward with General Heath in the lower part of West Chester, but left the service in March, 1777, when he was appointed secretary of the State of New York. He was a member of the General Congress in 1782 and 1783. In 1784 he was elected an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He died on the fourteenth of September of the same year, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. His remains lie in Trinity church-yard with those of his ancestors, close by the railing on Broadway, north of the great entrance-door to the church. I am indebted to John Morin Scott, Esq., of Philadelphia, a grandson of the general, for the materials of this brief sketch.

"This monument is erected to the memory of the Honorable ISRAEL PUTNAM, Esq., major general in the armies of the United States of America; who was born at Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts, on the seventh day of January, 1718, and died at Brooklyn, in the State of Connecticut, on the twenty-ninth day of May, A.D. 1790. Passenger, if thou art a soldier, go not away till thou hast dropped a tear over the dust of a Hero, who, ever tenderly attentive to the lives and happiness of his men, dared to lead where any one dared to follow. If thou art a patriot, remember with gratitude how much thou and thy country owe to the disinterested and gallant exertions of the patriot who sleeps beneath this marble. If thou art an honest, generous, and worthy man, render a sincere and cheerful tribute of respect to a man whose generosity was singular; whose honesty was proverbial; and who, with a slender education, with small advantages, and with powerful friends, raised himself to universal esteem, and to offices of eminent distinction by personal worth, and by the diligent services of a useful life."