parate States. It
was reported on board that the admiral had addressed a letter to General
Washington as simply to George Washington, Esquire, and that the
American commander-in-chief refused to receive it, on the ground that he
was at the head of a regularly constituted army and could only receive
communications under his proper title of general. Those who knew
General Washington, as I afterwards had the means of doing, were aware
that this was not owing to pride or ostentation, but from the importance
in the critical position in which he was placed of keeping up his
character and of asserting the legality of the cause in which he was
engaged. Whatever might have been then said of that truly great man,
ample justice will be done him in after ages, I am sure, among all ranks
and classes of opinion. However, as I do not profess to write a history
of the events of the war or of the public characters engaged in it, I
will return to my own private journal.

The Americans had for some time past, as I have mentioned, been
preparing fire-ships. This we knew from our spies. We had a number of
them on shore, or rather, there were a number of royalists who, having
no wish to join the rebellion, were ready by every means in their power
to aid in putting it down. A considerable number of these had been
removed by the rebel authorities, both from Long Island and the adjacent
districts, into the interior. Many were imprisoned, and some few who
had been discovered communicating with our party were executed as spies.
Even among the very men who were about Washington himself some were
found not true to him, and it was reported that plots had been laid, if
not against his life, at all events against his liberty, so that it
would not have surprised us had he been brought on board a prisoner.
But to return to the subject of the fire-ships. On the night of the
10th of August I had been put in charge of one of the squadron of boats
always held in readiness to repel any attack from those dangerous
engines of warfare. It had just gone four-bells in the first watch, the
night was cloudy though it was calm and sultry, when the Eagle, Captain
Duncan, made the signal that the enemy's fire-ships were approaching.
The officer in command of our boat squadron repeated the signal. "Give
way, my lads, give way?" he shouted, and away we all pulled up the
harbour. It was necessary to be silent and cautious in the extreme,
however, as soon as w