of Virginia, arose in his place, and with his clear, musical voice, read aloud the Resolution, "That these united colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved."'

Benjamin Rush

This was an exceedingly bold step, and the resolution did not meet with general favor in Congress, at first. Many yet hoped, even against hope, for reconciliation, and thought it premature, and there were some timid ones who trembled while standing so near the borders of high treason. After debating the subject for three days, the further consideration of it was postponed until the first of July. A committee was appointed [June 11], however, to draw

sixty-third year of his age. A characteristic anecdote is told of his son, who was at school, in England, at the time the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. One day a gentleman asked his tutor, "What boy is this?" "He is the son of Richard Henry Lee, of America," the tutor replied. The gentleman put his hand on the boy's head, and said, "We shall yet see your father's head upon Tower Hill." The boy instantly answered, "You may have it when you can get it." That boy was the late Ludwell Lee, Esq.

1 On the 10th of May, Congress had, by resolution, recommended the establishment of independent State governments in all the colonies. This, however, was not sufficiently national to suit the bolder and wiser members of that body, and the people at large. Lee's resolution more fully expressed the popular will.

Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia; John Adams, of Massachusetts; Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania; Roger Sherman, of Connecticut; and Robert R. Livingston, of New York. Mr. Lee was summoned home to the bedside of a sick wife, on the day before the appointment of the committee, or he would doubtless have been its chairman.

up a declaration in accordance with the resolution, and were instructed to report on the same day when the latter should be called up. Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, the youngest member of the committee, was chosen its chairman, and to him was assigned the task of preparing the Declaration. Adams and Franklin made a few alterations in his draft, and it was submitted to Congress at the same hour when Mr. Lee's resolution was taken up for consideration. On the following day [July 2], the resolution was adopted by a large majority. The Declaration was debated almost two days longer; and finally, at about mid-day, on the 4th of July, 1776, the representatives of thirteen colonies unanimously declared them free and independent States, under the name of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Only John Hancock, the president of Congress, signed it on that day, and thus it first went forth to the world. It was ordered to be written on parchment, and on the 2d of August following, the names of all but two of the fifty-six signers,' were placed upon it. These two were added afterward. It had then been read to the army; at public meetings; from a hundred pulpits, and in all legislative halls in the land, and everywhere awakened the warmest responses of approval.

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Pursuant to instructions, General Howe proceeded toward New York, to meet General Clinton and Parker's fleet. He left Halifax on the 11th of June, [1776], and arrived at Sandy Hook' on the 29th. On the 2d of July he took possession of Staten Island, where he was joined by Sir Henry Clinton [July 11], from the South, and his brother, Admiral Lord Howe [July 12], with a fleet and a large land force, from England. Before the first of August, other vessels arrived with a part of the Hessian troops, and on that day, almost thirty thousand soldiers, many of them tried veterans, stood ready to fall upon the republican army of seventeen thousand men, mostly militia, which lay intrenched in New York and vicinity, less than a dozen miles distant.' The

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This document, containing the autographs of those venerated fathers of our republic, is carefully preserved in a glass case, in the rooms of the National Institute at Washington city. Not one of all that band of patriots now survives. Charles Carrol was the last to leave us. He departed in 1832, at the age of ninety years. See Supplement. It is worthy of remembrance that not one of all those signers of the Declaration of Independence, died with a tarnished reputation. The memory of all, is sweet.

2 Washington caused it to be read at the head of each brigade of the army, then in New York city, on the 9th of July. That night, citizens and soldiers pulled down the leaden equestrian statue of George III, which stood in the Bowling Green, and it was soon afterward converted into bullets for the use of the Continental army. The statue was gilded. The head of the horse was toward the Hudson River. The Rev. Zachariah Greene, yet [1856] living at Hempstead, Long Island, heard the Declaration read to the soldiers. He was in the army.

Sandy Hook is a low ridge of sand, extending several miles down the New Jersey shore, from the entrance to Raritan or Amboy Bay. Between it and the shore, the water is navigable; and near the mouth of Shrewsbury River, the ridge is broken by an inlet. Page 249.

Page 246.

There were about twenty-seven thousand men enrolled, but not more than seventeen thousand men were fit for duty. A great many were sick, and a large number were without arms,

Many of the ships passed through the Narrows, and anchored in New York Bay. Howe's flag-ship, the Eagle, lay near Governor's Island. While in that position, a bold soldier went in a submarine vessel, with a machine for blowing up a ship, and endeavored to fasten it to the bottom of the Eagle, but failed. He was discovered, and barely escaped. An explosion of the machine took place near the Eagle, and the commander was so alarmed, that she was hastily moved further down the Bay. This machine was constructed by David Bushnell, of Connecticut, and was called a torpedo. See Note 2, page 285.

grand object in view was the seizure of New York and the country along the Hudson, so as to keep open a communication with Canada, separate the patriots of New England from those of the other States, and to overrun the most populous portion of the revolted colonies. This was the military plan, arranged by ministers. They had also prepared instructions to their commanding generals, to be pacific, if the Americans appeared disposed to submit. Lord Howe' and his brother, the general, were commissioned to "grant pardon to all who deserved mercy," and to treat for peace, but only on terms of absolute submission on the part of the colonies, to the will of the king and parliament. After making a foolish display of arrogance and weakness, in addressing General Washington as a private gentleman, and being assured that the Americans had been guilty of no offense requiring a "pardon" at their hands, they prepared to strike an immediate and effective blow. The British army was accordingly put in motion on the morning of the 22d of August [1776], and during that day, ten thousand effective men, and forty pieces of cannon, were landed on the western end of Long Island, between the present Fort Hamilton and Gravesend village.

2

Already detachments of Americans under General Sullivan, occupied a fortified camp at Brooklyn, opposite New York, and guarded seven passes on a range of hills which extend from the Narrows to the village of Jamaica.' When intelligence of the landing of the invading army reached Washington, he sent General Putnam,' with large reinforcements, to take the chief command on Long Island, and to prepare to meet the enemy. The American troops on the island now [August 26], numbered about five thousand. The British moved in three divisions. The left, under General Grant, marched along the shore toward Gowanus; the right, under Clinton and Cornwallis, toward the interior of the island; and the center, composed chiefly of Hessians, under De Heister, marched up the Flatbush road, south of the hills.

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GENERAL PUTNAM.

Clinton moved under cover of night, and before dawn on the morning of

'Richard, Earl Howe, was brother of the young Lord Howe [page 197], killed at Ticonderoga. He was born in 1725, and died in 1799.

2 The letters of Lord Howe to the American commander-in-chief, were addressed, "George Washington, Esq." As that did not express the public character of the chief, and as he would not confer with the enemies of his country in a private capacity, Washington refused to receive the letters. Howe was instructed not to acknowledge the authority of Congress in any way, and as Washington had received his commission from that body, to address him as "general," would have been a recognition of its authority. He meant no disrespect to Washington. Congress, by resolution, expressed its approbation of Washington's dignified course.

3 General Nathaniel Green had been placed in command of this division, but having been prostrated by bilious fever, about a week before the landing of the British at the Narrows, Sullivan was placed at the head of the troops.

Israel Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1718. He was a very useful officer during the French and Indian war, and was in active service in the continental army, until 1779, when bodily infirmity compelled him to retire. He died in 1790, at the age of seventy-two years. ⚫ Page 246.

the 27th, he had gained possession of the Jamaica pass, near the present East New York. At the same time, Grant was pressing forward along the shore of New York Bay, and at day-break, he encountered Lord Stirling,' where the monuments of Greenwood cemetery now dot the hills. De Heister advanced from Flatbush at the same hour. and attacked Sullivan, who, having no suspicions of the movements of Clinton, was watching the Flatbush Pass. A bloody conflict ensued, and while it was progressing, Clinton descended from the wooded hills, by the way of Bedford, to gain Sullivan's rear. As soon as the latter perceived his peril, he ordered a retreat to the American lines at Brooklyn. It was too late: Clinton drove him back upon the Hessian bayonets, and after fighting desperately, hand to hand, with the foe in front and rear, and losing a greater portion of his men, Sullivan was compelled to surrender.

As usual, misfortunes did not come single. While these disasters were occurring on the left, Cornwallis descended the port-road to Gowanus, and attacked Stirling. They fought desperately, until Stirling was made prisoner. Many of his troops were drowned while endeavoring to escape across the Gowanus Creek, as the tide was rising; and a large number were captured. At noon the victory for the British was complete. About five hundred Americans were killed or wounded, and eleven hundred were made prisoners. These were soon suffering dreadful horrors in prisons and prison-ships, at New York.' The British loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was three hundred and sixty

seven.

It was with the deepest anguish that Washington had viewed, from New York, the destruction of his troops, yet he dared not weaken his power in the city, by sending reinforcements to aid them. He crossed over on the following morning [August 28], with Mifflin, who had come down from the upper end of York island with a thousand troops, and was gratified to find the enemy encamped in front of Putnam's lines, and delaying an attack until the British fleet should co-operate with him. This delay allowed Washington time to form and execute a plan for the salvation of the remainder of the army, now too weak to resist an assault with any hope of success. Under cover of a heavy fog, which fell upon the hostile camps at midnight of the 29th, and continued until the morning of the 30th, he silently withdrew them from the camp,' and,

1 William Alexander, Lord Stirling, was a descendant of the Scotch earl of Stirling, mentioned in note 2, page 80. He was born in the city of New York, in 1726. He became attached to the patriot cause, and was an active officer during the war. He died in 1783, aged fifty-seven years. Stirling was sent immediately on board of the Eagle, Lord Howe's flag-ship.

Among the prisoners was General Nathaniel Woodhull [Note 1, page 198], late president of the provincial Congress of New York. He was taken prisoner on the 30th, and after being severely wounded at the time, he was so neglected, that his injuries proved fatal in the course of a few days His age was fifty-three. See Onderdonk's Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island.

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Page 352. During the night, a woman living near the present Fulton Ferry, where the Americans embarked, having become offended at some of the patriots, sent her negro servant to inform the