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o recommend the employment of hordes of savages, and to prepare for confiscating the property of wealthy rebels by their execution or exile. The Virginians, since the expulsion of Lord Dunmore, free from war within their own borders, were enriching themselves by the unmolested culture of tobacco, which was exported through the Chesapeake; or, when that highway was unsafe, by a short land carriage to Albemarle Sound. On the ninth of May, Chap. X.} 1779 May 9. two thousand men under General Matthew, with fivehundred marines, anchored in Hampton Roads. The next day, after occupying Portsmouth and Norfolk, they burned every house but one in Suffolk county, and plundered or ruined all perishable property. The women and unarmed men were given over to violence and death. Parties from a sloop of war and privateers entered the principal waters of the Chesapeake, carried off or wasted stores of tobacco heaped on their banks, and burned the dwellings of the planters. Before the end of
Middlebrook (search for this): chapter 11
he great expedition was more tardy. Its command, which Gates declined, devolved on Sullivan, to whom Washington in May gave repeatedly the May. instruction: Move as light as possible even from the first onset. Should time be lost in transporting the troops and stores, the provisions will be consumed, and the whole enterprise may be defeated. Reject every article that can be dispensed with; this is an extraordinary case, and requires extraordinary attention. Washington to Sullivan, Middlebrook, 31 May, 1779. Yet Sullivan made insatiable demands Chap. X.} 1779. on the government of Pennsylvania. While he was wasting time in finding fault and writing strange theological essays, the British and Indian partisans near Fort Schuyler surprised and captured twenty-nine mowers. Savages under Macdonell laid waste the country on the west bank of the Susquehanna, till the Indians, by his own report, were glutted with plunder, prisoners, and scalps. Thirty miles of a closely settled c
George H. Moore (search for this): chapter 11
y Point and Verplanck's Chap. X.} 1779. Point. The garrison withdrew from their unfinished work at Stony Point. The commander at Verplanck's Point, waiting to be closely invested by water, on the second of June made an inglorious surrender. Moore's Diary, II. 163, 164. The June 2. British fortified and garrisoned the two posts which commanded King's ferry, and left the Americans no line of communication between New York and New Jersey, south of the highlands. A pillaging expedition, sship. Sir George Collier and Tryon, the British admiral and general, in their address to the inhabitants of Connecticut, said: The existence of a single habitation on your defenceless coast ought to be a constant reproof to your ingratitude. Moore's Diary, II. 190, note. The Chap. X.} 1779. July. British had already lost nearly a hundred and fifty men, but the survivors were gorged with plunder. The town of New London was selected as the next victim; but Tryon was recalled to New York
ers and privates were made prisoners. The war was marked by no more brilliant achievement. The diminishing numbers of the troops with Washington not permitting him to hold Stony Point, the cannon and stores were removed and the works razed. Soon afterwards the post was reoccupied, but only for a short time, by a larger British garrison. The enterprising spirit of Major Henry Lee, of Virginia, had already been applauded in general orders; and his daring proposal to attempt the fort at Paulus' Hook, now Jersey city, obtained the approval of Washington. The place was defended by a ditch, which made of it an island, and by lines of abattis, but was carelessly guarded. The party with Lee was undiscovered, until, in the morning of the nineteenth of August before day, they plunged Chap. X.} 1779. Aug. 19. into the canal, then deep from the rising tide. Finding an entrance into the main work, and passing through a fire of musketry from block-houses, they gained the fort before the
es of land at the end of the war; pensions were promised to disabled soldiers and to the widows of those who should find their death in the service; half-pay for life was voted to the officers. Each division of the militia was required to furnish for the service one Chap. X.} 1779. May. able-bodied man out of every twenty-five, to be drafted by fair and impartial lot. Hening, x. 82. The law defining citizenship will be elsewhere explained; the code in which Jefferson, Wythe, and Pendleton adapted the laws of Virginia to reason, the welfare of the whole people, and the republican form of government, was laid before the legislature. The law of descents abolished the rights of primogeniture, and distributed real as well as personal property, equally among brothers and sisters. The punishment of death was forbidden, except for treason and murder. A bill was brought in to organize schools in every county, at the expense of its inhabitants, in proportion to the general tax-rat
Thomas Pownall (search for this): chapter 11
hat, in the coldest winter of the century, the virtue of the army was put to the severest trial; and that their sufferings for want of food, and of clothes and blankets, were borne with the most heroic patience. In this hour of affliction, Thomas Pownall, a member of parliament, who, from observation and research and long civil service in the central states and as governor of Massachusetts, knew the United States as thoroughly as any man in Britain, published in England, in the form of a memoth America, as being, what she is, an independent state. The new empire of America is like a giant ready to run its course. The fostering care with which the rival powers of Europe will nurse it, ensures its establishment beyond all doubt or danger. So prophesied Pownall to the English world and to Europe in the first month of 1780. Since the issue of the war is to proceed in a great part from the influence of European powers, it behooves us now to study the course of their intervention.
ll be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his belief; but all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. And we do declare that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind. Randall's Jefferson, i. 219, 220. These enunciations of Jefferson on the freedom of conscience expressed the forming convictions of the people of the United States; the enactment was delayed that the great decree, which made the leap from an established church to the largest liberty of faith and public worship, might be adopted with all the solemnity of calm and careful deliberation and popular approval. Who would wish that a state which used its independent right of initiating and establishin
y, congress, on the twenty-fifth of February, had directed Washington to protect the inland frontier and chastise the Seneca Indians. Of the two natural routes to their country, both now traversed by railroads, that of the Susquehanna was selected for three thousand men of the best continental troops, who were to rally at Wyoming; while one thousand or more of the men of New York were to move from the Mohawk river. Before they could be ready, a party of five or six hundred men, led by Van Schaick and Willet, made a swift march of three days into the country of the Onondagas, and, without the loss of a man, destroyed their settlement. The great expedition was more tardy. Its command, which Gates declined, devolved on Sullivan, to whom Washington in May gave repeatedly the May. instruction: Move as light as possible even from the first onset. Should time be lost in transporting the troops and stores, the provisions will be consumed, and the whole enterprise may be defeated. R
Adam Smith (search for this): chapter 11
on. The fleet and transports arrived off New Haven; and, at two in the morning of the fifth of July, one party July 5. landed suddenly on the west of the town, another on the east. Everything was abandoned to plunder: vessels in the harbor, public stores, and the warehouses near the sound, were destroyed by fire. The soldiers, demoralized by license, lost all discipline, 6. and the next morning retired before the Connecticut militia, who left them no time to execute the intention of General Smith to burn the town. At East Haven, where Tryon commanded, dwelling-houses were fired, and cattle wantonly killed; but his troops were in like manner driven to their ships. Some unarmed inhabitants had been barbarously murdered, others carried away as prisoners. The British ranks were debased by the large infusion of convicts and vagabonds recruited from the jails of Germany. On the afternoon of the seventh, the expedition 7. landed near Fairfield. The village, a century and a quart
prospering, with inhabitants so cultivated, had not in that day its parallel in England. The husbandmen who came together were too few to withstand the unforeseen onslaught. The Hessians were the first who were let loose to plunder, and every dwelling was given up to be stripped. Just before the sun went down, the firing of houses began, and was kept up through the night with little opposition, amidst the vain cries of distressed women and helpless children. Writings of Washington, ed. Sparks, VI. 367. Early the next morning the conflagration was made general. 8. When at the return of night the retreat was sounded, the rear-guard, composed of Germans, set in flames the meeting-house and every private habitation that till then had escaped. At Green Farms, a meeting-house and all dwellings and barns were consumed. On the eleventh, the British appeared before Nor- 11. walk, and burned its houses, barns, and places of public worship. Sir George Collier and Tryon, the British a
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