The boys were acting a play with my
militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not
the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into
the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life's
glorious game!

The last "hit" which I saw played, was gallantly won by our side; though
'tis true that even in this parti the Americans won the rubber--our
people gaining only the ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and
ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue
were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne's
unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening
to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to
deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close
of the month of September, '77; that, could it have but advanced a
fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed
Dis aliter visum. The delay here was not Sir Henry Clinton's fault, who
could not leave his city unprotected; but the winds and weather which
delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had long awaited from
England. The fleet which brought them brought us long and fond letters
from home, with the very last news of the children under the care of
their good Aunt Hetty and their grandfather. The mother's heart yearned
towards the absent young ones. She made me no reproaches: but I could
read her importunities in her anxious eyes, her terrors for me, and her
longing for her children. "Why stay longer?" she seemed to say. "You
who have no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your
countrymen--why continue to imperil your life and my happiness?" I
understood her appeal. We were to enter upon no immediate service of
danger; I told her Sir Henry was only going to accompany the expedition
for a part of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance over,
and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family once more united in
England.

A force of three thousand men, including a couple of slender regiments
of American Loyalists and New York Militia (with which latter my
distinguished relative, Mr. Will Esmond, went as captain), was embarked
at New York, and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson River, that
presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my mind: nor was
any fire opened upon us from those beetling cliffs and precipitous
"palisades," as they are