ted out to me the faith to which, from the
Fourth inst. inclusive, I was bound. There was no help for it; I was a
Virginian--my godfathers had promised and vowed, in my name, that all
men were equally free (including, of course, the race of poor Gumbo),
that the idea of a monarchy is absurd, and that I had the right to alter
my form of government at pleasure. I thought of Madam Esmond at home,
and how she would look when these articles of faith were brought her to
subscribe; how would Hagan receive them? He demolished them in a sermon,
in which all the logic was on his side, but the U.S. Government has not,
somehow, been affected by the discourse; and when he came to touch upon
the point that all men being free, therefore Gumbo and Sady, and Nathan,
had assuredly a right to go to Congress: "Tut, tut! my good Mr. Hagan,"
says my mother, "let us hear no more of this nonsense; but leave such
wickedness and folly to the rebels!"

By the middle of August we were before New York, whither Mr. Howe had
brought his army that had betaken itself to Halifax after its inglorious
expulsion from Boston. The American Commander-in-Chief was at New
York, and a great battle inevitable; and I looked forward to it with
an inexpressible feeling of doubt and anxiety, knowing that my dearest
brother and his regiment formed part of the troops whom we must attack,
and could not but overpower. Almost the whole of the American army came
over to fight on a small island, where every officer on both sides knew
that they were to be beaten, and whence they had not a chance of escape.
Two frigates, out of a hundred we had placed so as to command the
enemy's entrenched camp and point of retreat across East River to New
York, would have destroyed every bark in which he sought to fly, and
compelled him to lay down his arms on shore. He fought: his hasty levies
were utterly overthrown; some of his generals, his best troops, his
artillery taken; the remnant huddled into their entrenched camp after
their rout, the pursuers entering it with them. The victors were called
back; the enemy was then pent up in a corner of the island, and could
not escape. "They are at our mercy, and are ours to-morrow," says the
gentle General. Not a ship was set to watch the American force; not
a sentinel of ours could see a movement in their camp. A whole army
crossed under our eyes in one single night to the mainland without the
loss of a single man; and General Howe was suffered