was a fellow lodger of Ogle's, and to make him some amends for the roughness of this usage, they shortly after took him drunk to the dancing assembly, where, through the instrumentality of this unworthy son of the church, they contrived to excite a notable hubbub. Though they had escaped, as already mentioned, at the coffeehouse, yet their repeated malfeasances had brought them within the notice of the civil authority, and they had more than once been in the clutches of the mayor of the city. This was Mr. S―, a small man, of a squat, bandy-legged figure; and hence, by way of being revenged on him, they bribed a negro, with a precisely similar pair of legs, to carry him a billet, which imported, that as the bearer had in vain searched the town for a pair of hose that might fit him, he now applied to his honour to be informed where he purchased HIS stockings.

"I have been told that General Lee, when a captain in the British service, had got involved in this vortex of dissipation; and although afterwards so strenuous an advocate for the civil rights of the Americans, had been made to smart severely for their violation, by the mayor's court of Philadelphia.

"The common observation, that when men become soldiers, they lose the character and feelings of citizens, was amply illustrated by the general conduct of the British officers in America. Their studied contempt of the mohairs, by which term all those who were not in uniform were distinguished, was manifest on all occasions. And it is by no means improbable that the disgust then excited, might have more easily ripened into that harvest of discontent which subsequent injuries called forth, and which terminated in a subduction of allegiance from the parent land."

These sparks did at length become flame; and we shall still suffer our author to speak for himself. With him we have some pride in contrasting the following harmless wantonnesses with the atrocities of the French, and, we may add, Spanish and Greek revolutions.

"Among the disaffected (royalists) in Philadelphia, Dr. Kearsley was pre-eminently ardent and rash. An extremely zealous loyalist, and impetuous in his temper, he had given much umbrage to the Whigs; and, if I am not mistaken, he had been detected in some hostile machinations. Hence he was deemed a proper subject for the fashionable punishment of tarring, feathering, and carting. He was seized at his own door by a party of the militia, and, in the attempt to resist them, received a wound in his hand from a bayonet. Being overpowered, he was placed in a cart provided for the purpose, and, amidst a multitude of boys and idlers, paraded through the streets to the tune of the rogues' march. I happened to be at the coffee-house when the concourse arrived there. They made a halt, while the Doctor, foaming with rage and indignation, without his hat, his wig dishevelled and bloody from his wounded hand, stood up in the cart and called for a bowl of punch. It was quickly handed to him; when, so vehement was his thirst, that he drained it of its contents before he took it from his lips. What were the feelings of others on this lawless proceeding I know not, but mine, I must confess, revolted at the spectacle. I was shocked at seeing a lately respected citizen so cruelly vilified, and was imprudent enough to say, that, had I been a magistrate, I would, at every hazard, have interposed my authority in suppression of the outrage. But this was not the only instance which convinced me that I wanted nerves for a revolution. It must be admitted, however, that the conduct of the populace was marked by a lenity which peculiarly distinguished the cradle of our republicanism. Tar and feathers had been dispensed with, and, excepting the injury he had received in his hand, no sort of violence was offered

by the mob to their victim. But to a man of high spirit, as the Doctor was, the indignity, in its lightest form, was sufficient to madden him: it probably had this effect, since his conduct became so extremely outrageous, that it was thought necessary to confine him. From the city he was soon after · removed to Carlisle, where he died during the war.

"A few days after the carting of Mr. Kearsley, Mr. Isaac Hunt, the attorney, was treated in the same manner, but he managed the matter much better than his precursor. Instead of braving his conductors like the Doctor, Mr. Hunt was a pattern of meekness and humility; and at every halt that was made, he rose and expressed his acknowledgments to the crowd for their forbearance and civility. After a parade of an hour or two, he was set down at his own door, as uninjured in body as in mind. He soon after removed to one of the islands, if I mistake not, to Barbadoes, where, it was understood, he took orders.

"Not long after these occurrences, Major Skene, of the British army, ventured to show himself in Philadelphia. Whatever might have been his inducement to the measure, it was deemed expedient by the newly constituted authorities to have him arrested and secured. A guard was accordingly placed over him at his lodgings, at the city tavern. The officer to whose charge he was especially committed, was Mr. Francis Wade, the brewer, an Irishman of distinguished zeal in the cause, and one who was supposed to possess talents peculiarly befitting him for the task of curbing the spirit of an haughty Briton, which Skene undoubtedly was. I well recollect the day that the guard was paraded to escort him out of the city on his way to some other station. An immense crowd of spectators stood before the door of his quarters, and lined the street through which he was to pass. The weather being warm, the window sashes of his apartment were raised, and Skene, with his bottle of wine upon the table, having just finished his dinner, roared out, in the voice of a Stentor, God Save great George our King. Had the spirit of seventy-five in any degree resembled the spirit of Jacobinism, to which it has been unjustly compared, this bravado would unquestionably have brought the major to the lamp post, and set his head upon a pike; but as, fortunately for him, it did not, he was suffered to proceed with his song, and the auditory seemed more generally amused than offended."

In the winter of 1775-6, our author received his commission as captain in one of four battalions ordered by congress to be raised in Pennsylvania. He proceeded to the country to recruit, in which he experienced considerable difficulty; and we shall place two extracts together, one referring to a subsequent period when he had joined the army, to exhibit one of the contradictions to which we have alluded:

"This incident would be little worthy of relating, did it not serve in some degree to correct the error of those who seem to conceive the year 1776 to have been a season of almost universal patriotic enthusiasm. It was far from prevalent, in my opinion, among the lower ranks of the people, at least in Pennsylvania. At all times, indeed, licentious levelling principles are much to the general taste, and were, of course, popular with us; but the true merits of the contest were little understood or regarded. The opposition to the claims of Britain originated with the better sort: it was truly aristocratic in its commencement; and as the oppression to be apprehended had not been felt, no grounds existed for general enthusiasm. The cause of liberty it is true, was fashionable, and there were great preparations to fight for it; but a zeal, proportioned to the magnitude of the question, was

only to be looked for in the minds of those sagacious politicians, who inferred effects from causes, and who, as Mr. Burke expresses it, "snuffed the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.'

And, again,

"I have in vain endeavoured to account for the very few gentlemen and men of the world that, at this time, appeared in arms from this country, which might be considered as the cradle of the revolution. There were some, indeed, in the higher ranks, and here and there a young man of decent breeding, in the capacity of an aid-de-camp or brigade-major; but any thing above the condition of a clown, in the regiments we came in contact with, was truly a rarity. Was it that the cause was only popular among the yeomanry? Was it, that men of fortune and condition there, as in other parts of the continent, though evidently most interested in a contest, whose object was to rescue American property from the grasp of British avidity, were willing to devolve the fighting business on the poorer and humbler classes? Was it, in short, that they held the language of the world, and said,

"Let the gull'd fools the toils of war subdue,
Where bleed the many to enrich the few ?"

Or was it, that that simple way of thinking, and ill appreciation of military talent, which had made a drivelling deacon second in command, was then prevalent among them? Whatever was the reason, New England was far behind the other provinces in the display of an ardent, unequivocal zeal for the cause, in the quality of her officers; and notwithstanding that she has since shewn herself more prolific of liberal, well-informed, exigent men, than any other part of the union, her soldiery, at the time I am speaking of, was contemptible in the extreme."

The battle of Brooklyn, in defence of Long Island, was fought on the 27th of August, 1776; and the corps to which our author belonged marched into the American lines the following morning. The subsequent evacuation of Long Island, and ineffectual defence of Fort Washington in York Island, his own captivity, residence with a Dutch family as a prisoner in Long Island, &c. are all very graphically told; that is to say, such portions of each as bore himself and his own individual fortunes along with them. We cannot, however, afford to extract more than a very few scenes, chiefly relating to the period of the surrender of Fort Washington. In selecting these, we could wish that some of our countrymen made a better figure in them than they do; but they are highly dramatic, illustrate a striking portion of human nature and military life, and are not all bad, but much the

reverse.

"An officer of the 42d regiment advanced towards us, and as I was foremost, he civilly accosted me by asking me my rank. Being informed of this, as also of Forrest's, he inquired where the fort lay, and where Colonel Magaw was. I pointed in the direction of the fort, and told him I had not seen Colonel Magaw during the day. Upon this, he put us under the care of a sergeant and a few men, and left us. The serjeant was a decent looking man, who, in taking us into custody, bestowed upon us, in broad Scotch, the friendly admonition of, Young men, ye should never fight against your king. The little bustle produced by our surrender was scarcely over, when a British

officer on horseback, apparently of high rank, rode up at full gallop, exclaiming, What! taking prisoners! Kill them, kill every man of them. My back was towards him when he spoke; and although by this time there was none of that appearance of ferocity in the guard, which would induce much fear that they would execute his command, I yet thought it well enough to parry it, and turning to him, I took off my hat, saying, Sir, I put myself under your protection. No man was ever more effectually rebuked. His manuer was instantly softened: He met my salutation with an inclination of his body, and after a civil question or two, as if to make amends for his sanguinary mandate, he rode off towards the fort, to which he had inquired the way.

Though I had delivered up my arms, I had not adverted to a cartouchbox, which I wore about my waist, and which, having once belonged to his Britannic Majesty, presented in front the gilded letters G. R. Exasperated at this trophy on the body of a rebel, one of the soldiers seized the belt with great violence, and in the attempt to unbuckle it, had nearly jerked me off my legs. To appease the offended loyalty of the honest Scot, I submissively took it off and delivered it to him, being conscious that I had no longer any right to it. At this time a Hessian came up. He was not a private, neither did he look like a regular officer; he was some retainer, however, to the German troops; and was as much of a brute as any one I have ever seen in the human form. The wretch came near enough to elbow us; and half unsheathing his sword, with a countenance that bespoke a most vehement desire to use it upon us, he grinned out in broken English, Eh, you rebel, you dam rebel! I had by this time entire confidence in our Scotchmen; and therefore regarded the caitiff with the same indifference that I should have viewed a caged wild beast, though with much greater abhorrence."

"As to see the prisoners was a matter of some curiosity, we were compli mented with a continual succession of visitants, consisting of officers of the British army. There were several of these present, when a serjeant-major came to take an account of us; and, particularly, a list of such of us as were officers. This serjeant, though not uncivil, had all that animated degagee impudence of air, which belongs to a self-complacent non-commissioned officer of the most arrogant army in the world; and with his pen in his hand, and his paper on his knee, applied to each of us, in turn, for his rank. He had just set mine down, when he came to a little squat militia officer from York county, who, somewhat to the deterioration of his appearance, had substituted the dirty crown of an old hat, for a plunderworthy beaver that had been taken from him by a Hessian. He was known to be an officer, from having been assembled among us for the purpose of enumeration. You are an officer, Sir? said the serjeant. Yes, was the answer. Your rank, Sir? with a significant smile. I am a keppun, replied the little man, in a chuff firm tone. Upon this, there was an immoderate roar of laughter among the officers about the door, who were attending to the process; and I am not sure I did not laugh myself. When it had subsided, one of them, addressing himself to me, observed, with a compliment that had much more of sour than sweet in it, that he was really astonished that I should have taken any thing less than a regiment. To remove as much as possible the sting of this sarcastic thrust at our service, for, I must confess, I was not sufficiently republican to be insensible of its force, I told him, that the person who had produced their merriment belonged to the militia, and that, in his line, as a farmer, he was no doubt honest and respectable."

"In the morning, a little after sunrise, a soldier brought me Mr. Becket's compliments, with a request that I would come down and breakfast with

him, bringing two of my friends with me, as he had not the means of entertaining more. I thankfully accepted his invitation, and took with me Forrest and Tudor. He was seated on a bench before the door, with a good fire before him, and the soldiers of the guard in a semicircle about him. Besides the bench, we were accommodated with a chair or two, and he gave us a dish of very good coffee, with plenty of excellent toast, which was the only morsel we had eaten for the last twenty-four hours; more fortunate in this than our fellow-sufferers, who got nothing until the next morning, when the first provisions were drawn. The soldiers were chatting and cracking their jokes on each other while we breakfasted; and I was surprised at the easy familiarity which seemed to prevail between them and their officer. But it appeared to be perfectly understood between them, that their coteries, though so near each other as that every word from either might be heard by both, were yet entirely distinct, and that each had an exclusive right to its own conversation; still they did not interrupt ours, being silent when we talked. The fact was, that Mr. Becket was the darling of his soldiers; and one of them told us, that we should find few men like him. I had here an opportunity to observe the striking difference between their appointments and ours. While our poor fellows were some of them already ragged, and even the best of them clad in flimsy thread-bare clothes, with worse stockings and shoes, these were tight and comfortable in body and limbs; and every soldier was accommodated with a woollen night-cap, which most of them had yet on.'

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Previously to entering the city, we were drawn up for about an hour, on the high ground near the East river. Here, the officers being separated from the men, we were conducted into a church, where, if I mistake not, we signed a parole. While in this building, which, with the addition of those spectators who pressed in along with us, was pretty much crowded, a portly, well-looking middle-aged, non-commissioned officer of the 42d regiment, approached me, observing, in a low voice, that he was sure he had seen me before: Was not my name ? I answered in the affirmative.

I thought so, said he, I have often seen you at your mother's in Philadelphia; and though you were then but a boy, I clearly retrace your features. As you are probably in want of money, may I beg of you to accept of this? slipping into my hand a dollar. I objected to taking it, as I might never have an opportunity of repaying him. No matter if you have not, said he; it is but a trifle, but such as it is, you cannot oblige me more than by accepting it. I accordingly put it in my pocket, the confusion and bustle of the scene preventing my taking measures for ascertaining the means of seeing him again; and, having never afterwards met with him, I am still indebted to this amount, together with the gratitude that is inseparable from it, to this worthy generous man, whose memory, it seems, was better than that of Colonel Stirling, Captain Grant, and many others, who had better means of recollection than this serjeant."

"Flatbush was the place assigned for the officers of our regiment as well as those of Magaw's. Here also were stationed Colonels Miles, Atlee, Rawlins, and Major Williams, the indulgence of arranging ourselves agreeably to our respective circles of acquaintance having been granted us.”"Mr. Forrest and myself were billeted on a Mr. Jacob Suydam. His house was pretty large, consisting of buildings which appeared to have been erected at different times, the front and better part of which was in the occupation of Mr. Theophilact Bache and his family from New York. Though we were in general civilly enough received, it cannot be supposed that we were very welcome to our Low Dutch hosts, whose habits of living were extremely parsimonious, and whose winter provision was barely sufficient for themselves.