USA > New York > Westchester County > Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution > Part 51
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On the second of July,6 General Howe and the army which be commanded, whose entrance into the harbor of New York, a few days before, has been already noticed, occupied Staten-Island-Richmond- county-with the military and naval forces which he had brought from Halifax, say seven thousand, five hundred, and fifty-six, rank and file, including those
1 Vide pages 137-159, ante.
" Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Mercurii, 9 ho., A.I., Au- ** gust !4, 1776."
3Gilbert Drake seemed to care very little for the respect of poster. ity ; and his ill-conduct in the management of his monetary dealings with others, after the establishment of the Peace, led the Grand Jury to Indict him, on a charge of extortion, (Records of the Court, in man- uscript, County-clerk's office, at the White Plains.)
A Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Sabbati, A.M., June 15 " 1776."
5 Vide page 162, ante.
& General lowe's Observations on a pamphlet entitled Letters to a No- birman, 47.
See, also, Gogerd Home to Lord George Germain, "STATEN ISLAND, 7th "July, 1776:" General Washington to the President of the Continental Congress, " New York, July 3, 1776."
: Vide pages 103, 164, aute.
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who were sick ; " and, as has been already stated, the
It is not now known, if it was ever known, what the inhabitants of that beautiful i-land, remembering the | result of that carly movement of the Royal Army sentence of outlawry which had been pronounced against them, by the Provincial Congress, and the multiplied outrages to which they had been sub- jected, on warrants of the same body, by those who claimed to be the special defenders of the Rights .of Man ; and being, also, relieved from apprehensions
would have been, had General Howe's purposes been duly executed; but there can be little doubt that, with no more than the small force which was then under his commandand with the reinforcements which an early success would have surely brought to him, from Richmond, Kings, and Queens-counties, the of a renewal of their sufferings, "testified their 'insufficiently armed and ill-appointed handful of " loyalty by all the means in their power," furnishing : half-hearted men whom General Washington com- the new-comers with "fresh Provisions, Carriages, " Horses, etc.,"2 and meriting, from him, the high praise which General Howe awarded to them, in his strength of the Rebellion would have been surely despatches to the Home Government.5 manded or endeavored to command, would have been entirely overcome; and that, thereby, the physical broken.3 But "the bright designs " of God had been directed to an entirely different end; and the up- lifted hand of General Howe fell, harmlessly, with- out striking the meditated and well-aimed and powerful blow -- during the night, after the Fleet had anchored in Grave-end-bay, and while the prepara- tions for landing the troops, at the approaching day- break, were in progress, and while the soldiery, smarting under the disgrace which had befallen it, at Boston, was eagerly preparing to recover its pro- fessional respectability, in an encounter, in the field, with those by whom it had been, there, humiliated, somebody, history does not say whom although intel- ligent conjecture undoubtedly supplies the informa- tion, approached the commanding General with "particular information of a strong pass, upon a "ridge of craggy heights, covered with wood, that lay "in the route the Army must take, only two miles " distant from the front of the enemy's encampment "and seven from Gravesend, which the rebels would "undoubtedly occupy before the King's troops could
It is proper that we shall say, in this connection, that General Howe, on his arrival at Sandy-hook, ou the twenty-fifth of June, had been met by Governor Tryon and many others, "fast friends to Govern- " ment," from whom he had received "the fullest " information of the state of the rebels," and of their situation and defences, in the City of New York and on Long Island. His inquiries, concerning the face of the country between Gravesend and Brooklyn and concerning the military works which had been thrown up, bad afforded information which had been so entirely satisfactory that he had determined to land the Army, at Gravesend, immediately, and to move, from that base, without the slightest delay and with only the small effective force which was then under his command, on the insufficient works which, at that carly day, had been constructed in Kings-county. For the proscention of that purpose, two days after the arrival of the Fleet and the Army, at Sandy Hook, [July 1, 1776,] the former had been moved up to Gravesend-bay, now so universally known to New Yorkers as one of their Summer resorts, in order that the troops might be landed, at daybreak, on the following morning, [July 2, 1776,] and, thence, make the first movement in the Campaign, against the insignificant works and yet more insignificant foree which, at that time, were clustered around Brooklyn.4
1 General Howe's Obserrations, 45, " General Howe's Observations 30.
3 General Hore to Lord fieurge Germaine, "STATEN ISLAND, 7th July, "1776," General Howe's Oberentivas, 50.
+tienand Washington's maand for obtaining intelligence were very defective-how should it have been otherwise, among those whom the Provincial Congress had sonred by the ontrages intheted on thest or on their neighbors and friends? He was not informel of the arrival of General Howe, until three daysafter it had occurred; and then only through information received through a prisoner, whom the Schuyler, armed sloop had captured.
On the same day on which that intelligenco was received by him. General Washingion wrote to the Continental Congress : " I could wish "General Howe and his armament not to arrive yet, as not more than "a thousand Militia have como in, and our whole force. inchvling the "troops at all the detached posts and un board the armed vesels, "which are comprehended in our Hotarws, is but small atul inconsider. "alde when compared with the extensive lives they are to defend and, "most probably, the Army that he brings. i have to further intelli- "gence about him than what the Lieutenant" ( Davison, of the armed " xhoop Scheyler] "mentions; but it is extremely protable his accounts "and conjectures are true," (General Washington to the Porsubest of the
Continental Congress, "NEW York, 27 June, 1776," postscript dated " June ++ 2×th."]
On the following day, General Washington wrote thus : "I suppose "the whole fleet will be in, within a day or two." [It all arrive on that duy.] "I am hopeful, before they are preparel to attack, that I "shall get some reinforcements. Be that as it may, I shall attempt "to make the best disposition I can of our troops, in order to give them "a proper reception, and prevent the rain and destruction they are " meditating against me," (General Washington to the President of the Co- tinental Congress," New York, 23 June, 1776.")
A few days after General Washington laul this conveyed the Intel- ligence of the weakness of his command, to the Continental Congress, the Adjutant-general of the Army is said to have written to a nym fer of the same Congress, on the same subject, in these words: " With an "Army of force, before, and a secret one, behind, we stand on a point " of land with six thousand oll troops, if a year's service of about half "can entitle them to the name, and about fifteen hinmlred new levies, "of this Province, many distflected and more doubtful. In this sitt. "ation we are: every man in the Army, front the General to the Pri- "vate, acquainted with one true situation, is exceedingly discouraged. "Had I known the true posture of affairs, no consideration would have "tempted me to have taken an active part of this scene ; mind this s r. "timent is universal." (Adjutant general Joseph Feel "to a Mandar of " Congress," "NEW YORK, July 1, 177"," quoted by Dr. Gordon, in his History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the Cured Nestes of toria, Edition, London : 17%, ii , 7% )
8 " General Howe is sufficiently strong, considering the goodurss of his " troupe, to make a sucresful attempt upon the Americans ; bist being "in daily expectation of the reinforcements from Enrope, he will un. "doubtedly remain inactive till their arrival," Gunlon's History, etc .. London edition, il, 274. .
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
"get up to it; and, from the minutest description, "judging an attack upon this post, so strong by " nature and so near the front of the enemy's works, unite with that Committee in sending a Delegation to the proposed Congress of the Continent which had been called for the purpose of securing a proper and " to be too hazardous an attempt, before the arrival of : united opposition to the measures of the Ministry "the troops with Commodore Hotham," > [from and, as far as possible, a redress of the grievances of Europe,] "daily expected," the General " declined the Colonies, the great body of the farmers in that County disregarded that invitation; aud that the very few who accepted it, either personally or by " the undertaking ; "and, consequently, the day-break came and went without the promised debarkation of the Army ; the Fleet weighed its anchors, " passed the ; their local Committees, assembled at the Court-house, " Narrows," came too at the watering place, where it in the White Plains ; called one of the principal land- holders of the County, who was, also, at that time a Representative of the County in the General Assembly of the Colony, Frederic Philipse by name, to the Chair ; and siguified the opposition to the measures of the Home Government, of, at least, those who were present, by authorizing the Delegation who had been elected to represent the City and County of New - York, to represent, at the same time, the County of Westchester, in that general assemblage of Delegates.3 again east its anchors ; the Army was landed on Staten Island, as already stated; " the first mistake of the Campaign was committed; the first disastrous delay was inaugurated ; General Washington and his feeble command were, for the time, spared; and the Re- bellion was not suppressed. With an abundant naval force under his command, General Howe commanded and controlled all the waters which were near him ; and Gravesend-bay need not have been regarded as the only base which he could have occupied-he could have turned the flank of any or of all the lines, either of hills or of armed rebels, and have landed his command either in frout or on the rear of either of the latter, as he should have determined ; and he could have led his abundantly supplied, admirably disciplined, and thoroughly willing command to an immediate and effeetual suecess, had not his willing ears listened to those who inclined to Peace, and had not his sympathies controlled his judgment and over- eome his sense of duty with the hope that the day of reconciliation-of reconciliation to be secured through himself-was not yet passed. He hesitated ; and the golden opportunity passed away, never to be re- turned.
On the same second of July, and while the Royal Army was thus occupying Staten Island, the Conti- nental Congress, at Philadelphia, was considering the subject of Independeuee.
*
*
* * *
It will be remembered by the reader that, in 1774, when the County of Westchester was invited, by the Committee of Fifty-one, in the City of New York. to
1 Commodore Hotham did not reach New York until the twelfth of August, as will be seen, hereafter.
2 General Home to Lord George Germain, "STATEN ISLAND, ich Jaly. " 1776."
Sve, also; [Captain Hall's] History of the Civil War in America, i., 174 ; Stedman's History of the American War, i., 190, 191.
Stedman said, " the troops thus landed," [on Staten Island, ] " consisted "of two Battalions of Light Infantry; two of Grenadiers; the Fourth, " Fifth, Tenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty spy- "ruth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-eighth, Fortieth, Forty second, Forty-third, " Forty-fourth, Forty fifth, Forty-ninth, Fifty-second, Fifty sixth, Sixty- "third, and Sixty fourth Regnments of Foot ; parts of the Forty. sixth "and Seventy lirst Regiments ; und the Seventeenth Regiment of Light " Dragoun4. There were, besides, two Companies of Volunteers, raised "at New-York, consisting of one hundred men each. The total amount " was nine thousand bien"-in which latter statement, in general terms, be is contradicted by General Howe, in his Observations, (cide page 4, 191, 192, andr.) although he gave the aggregate, including the Officers and Staff, while General Howe included only " the Rank and File of his coinnland.
It will be remembered, also, that the General Assembly of the Colony, which was eonvened in January, 1775, although there was not, within it, a single "friend of the Government," every member having been an avowed member of the party of the Opposition, had presented the lamentable spectaele of a great party divided into factions, each seeking to secure the same great result, but by distinct and radically different means. In the confliets of factions, in that body, it will be remembered that no more consistent and no more steadfast opponents of the Home and Colonial Governments were seen than the two Representatives of the County of Westchester and the other two, who represented, respectively, the Manor of Cortlandt and the Borough Town of West- chester, although Frederie Philipse, representing the County, and Isave Wilkins, representing the Borough, were of one faction, and John Thomas, also repre- senting the County, and Pierre Van Cortlandt, rep- resenting the Manor of Cortlandt, were of the other and opposing faction.+
At the adjournment of the House, in April, 1775, these four gentlemen appeared to have returned to their respective homes, and to have remained there, without immediately participating in the political events of the day, except in the instance of Frederie Philipse and Isaac Wilkins, who, eight days after the adjournment of the General Assembly, united in the Declaration and Protest against the assembling of the Provincial Convention for the sole purpose of elceting Delegates to a second Congress of the Continent, which Declaration ond Protest a large number of the inhabitants of the County of Westchester then signed and published.5
It will be remembered, also, that among the carliest of those whom the handful of office-seekers, in the interest of themselves and of the Rebellion, proserib-
3 Vide pago 32, ante.
+ Vide pages 48, 49, ante.
3 Vida pages 72-74, ante.
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
ed, because of his action in the General 1-sembly- notwithstanding it was in an carne-t opposition to the Ministry and in an equally carne-t support of the demands of the Culony for a redress of grievances- because of his Declaration und Protest at the White Plains, and, undoubtedly, because of his understood authorship of some political tracts which were obnoxious to the controling political faction, Isaac Wilkins was obliged to seek personal safety in flight-he left his family and his estate and found a refuge in London.'
After having spent some months in retirement, Pierre Van Cortlandt resumed his place in the polit- ical turmoil of the period ; while Frederic Philipse and John Thomas, the former at Yonkers and the other in the Harrison Precinct, are not known to have taken any part whatever, in the partisan operations of that period.
When the spirit of proscription was introduced into Westchester-county, destroying the peace which had previously prevailed among its rural inhabitants, Frederic Philipse was named among those who, with- out the slightest evidence of any wrong-doing, were to be arrested and dealt with." He does not appear to have been disturbed, however, until the organiza- tion of the notorious " Committee to Detect Conspira- " cies," of which mention has been already made; 3 when, at the head of the List of Suspected Persons, in Westchester-county, who were designated as the victims of that American Inquisition, was placed the name of "*FREDERIC PHILIPSEX"-the asterisk before the name indicating that he was "to be Sum- " moned ;" and the eross which followed the name indieating that he was " to be Arrested." 4
1
The Minutes of the Committee also indicate that on the twenty-seventh of June, 1776, an Order was made by that body, "That Summonses issue against the " following persons as inimical to the Cause and "rights of America, returnable on Wednesday the "third day of July next at ten o'clock in the forenoon "of the same day, viz: Frederick Philipse and "Samuel Merritt, which said Summouses signed by " all the members present af" were delivered to the "Secretary with directions to deliver them to the " messenger to be served." 5
The Summons thus issued was served on Frederic Philipse, at Philipsborough, the present City of Yonkers, on Saturday evening, the twenty-ninth of June; and, on the following Tuesday, [July 2, 1776,] he made the following reply to the Committee :
1 Vide page 78, ante. List of Westchester County Tories: Historical Manuscripts, etc. ; Mix. cellaneous Papers, xxXIV., 193. 3 Vida pages les-171, ante.
4 Minutes of the Committee to Dateet Couxpiravive, " Die Sabbati, 12 ho., " June 15, 1775:" Historial Manuscripts, etc., Miscellaneous Papers, xxxiv., 307, and xxx., 156. 6 Minutes of the Ceramitter to Intect Conspiracies, " Thursday, A.M., " June 27, 1776:" Historien Manuscripts, etc., Murellamana Papers, XXXF., 4x5.
"PHILIPSBOROUGH, July 2, 1776.
"GENTLEMEN :
"I was served on Saturday evening last with a " paper signed by you, in which you suggest that " you are authorized by the Congress to summon cer- " tain persons to appear before you, whose conduct " had been represented as inimical to the rights of "America, of which number you say I am one.
" Who it is that has male such a representation or " upon what particular facts it is founded, as you have " not stated them, it is impossible for me to imagine ; " but, considering my situation and the near and "intimate ties and connexions which I have in this "country," which can be secured and rendered
6 Frederic Philipse waw a native of the Colony ; and the family had been well known residents of New York for more than a century pre- celing the date of this letter, and was connected, by marriage, with that other leading families of America -- even George Washington had not scrupled to seek un alliatur with it, if tradition speaks truly.
The well-known Rev. Timothy Dwight, S. T. D., President of Yale- college, writing of Yonkers, in the Autumn of 1811, said, "it is remark- " able for nothing, except having been the residence of the family of " Philippe, one of the most distinguished of those which came, as Coloniais, " from the United Netherlands. Colonel Philips, the last branch " resident in this country, I knew well. He was a worthy and re- " spectable man, not often excelled in personal and domestic amiable- " ness. Mrs. Philippe was an excellent woman; and the children, the "eldest of whom was about seventeen, gave every promise of treading " in the same steps," (Tracks, in New England and New York, iii., " 442, 413.)
Mr. Bolton (History of Westchester county, Second Edition, i., 523, ) quot- ing from an original manuscript, in the handwriting of John Jay, Naid that that most zealous and most malignant of all Mr. Philipse's perse- entors, said of him, probably in the later years of the life of the writer, "Hlo was a well-tempered, amiable man ; and a kind, benevolent land- " lord. Ile had a taste for gardening, planting. &c., and employ-d " mich time and money in that way. * * * At the commencement " of our Revolution, be, Frederick Philipse, was inclined to the Whigs, " but was afterwards peremeded to favor the Tories .* Ile was removed " to Connecticut, on his parole. Nothing could have been more favor- "able to him, circumstanced as he then was, than to be placed in such "a state of tranquil neutrality. On a certain occasion, he obtained per - " mission to go to New York, while in possession of the enemy. On " being afterwards required to return, he very improperly and unwisely "yielded to the importunities of certain of his friends, and refused to " return. Ilis estate was cor.fiscated."
Sabine, notwithstanding his uotorions bitterness, repeated the story of the moral worth of this unwieldly, blind man, who lived on his estate, taking no part whatever in the partisan movements of the period. (Loyalists of the lateriran Revolution, original edition, 337, 533 ; revised elition, il., 186, 157.)
The persecution of Frederic Philitse and the robbery of his family, mainly through the two lay's, is a subject which some one will, here. after, Le very likely to examine and expose, in all its native ugliness, to the censure of the world.
* No one knew better than John Jay that there was aholher canse than that named, which led Frederic Philipse to dissent from the doings of John Jay, James Duane, Governeur Morris, at d. Frederic Philips" contione! to be a member of the Colonial party of tire Opposition, in New York, until, by the advice of the Committee of which John Jay was one of the minster spirits and the Chairman, he was seized by the military power and sent into exile ; and the scheme and trick by means of which those exiles who had been allowed to go into New York, did not receive the notices which Governot Trumbull sent for their return, aff. rdling a pretext for the sequestration of their large estates, was not a secret to those who were, the i, in the ring of " patriotic" money-seekers, nor is it a secret to na, now.
Common respect for the truth should have led John Jay to have tobl the whole of the story concerning Frederic Philipse's visit to New York and his stay there, or to have wait nothing concerning it.
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
" happy to me only by the real and permanent pros- "purity of America, I should have hoped that suspi- "cions of this harsh nature would not be easily " harboured. However, as they have been thought of " weight sufficient to attract the notice of the Congress, " I can only observe that, conscious of the upright- "ness of my intentions and the integrity of my con- " duet, I would most readily comply with your Sum- "mons, but the situation of my health is such as " would render it very unadvisable for me to take a "journey to New York, at this time. I have had the "misfortune, Gentlemen, of being deprived, totally, "of the sight of my left eye; and the other is so "mnehi affected and inflamed as to make me very "cautious how I expose it, for fear of a total loss of "sight. This being my real situation, I must request "the favour of you to excuse my attendance, to- "morrow ; but you may rest assured, Gentlemen, that " I shall punetually attend, as soon as I can, eon- " sistent with my health; flattering myself, in the "meantime, that, upon further consideration, you "will think that my being a friend to the rights "and interests of my native country is a fact so "strongly implied as to require no evidence on my " part to prove it, until something more substantial " than mere suspicion or vague surmises are proved " to the contrary.
" I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble "servant FREDERICK PHILIPSE.
"To LEONARD GANSEVOORT, PHILIP LIVINGSTON, "THOMAS TREDWELL, LEWIS GRAHAM, GOUV-
"ERNEUR MORRIS, THOMAS RANDALL, Es- "quires." 1
As the Provincial Congress, as well as its Com- mittee to Detect Conspiracies, had hurriedly left the City of New York before the day appointed for the hearing of Frederic Philipse and Samuel Merritt ; 2 and as only one of the members of the Committee had lingered, after the Congress and the Committee had retired ; 3 the proceedings against them, at that time, were evidently suspended-the suspension of the persecution of Mr. Philipse, however, was speedily followed by a similar proceeding, of which mention will be made, hereafter.
The fourth Provincial Congress was directed to meet at the Court-house, in the White Plains, ou
until the following day. Tuesday, the ninth of July, the Deputies from a majority of the Counties appeared, produced their Credentials, and organized the Con- gress. General Nathaniel Woodhull was chosen for its President ; and John Mckesson and Robert Benson, the Secretaries of the former Congresses, were continued in the same places, in this.5
There were only five Deputies present from the City of New York, although twenty-one had been elected; but every member of the Deputation from Westchester-county-Colonel Lewis Graham, Colonel Pierre Van Cortlandt, Major Ebenezer Lockwood, William Paukling, Captain Jonathan Platt. Samuel Haviland, Zebadiah Mills, Colonel Gilbert Drake, Jonathan G. Tompkins, General Lewis Morris, and Gouverneur Morris-was present.6 Of the latter Captain Platt, Colonel Van Cortlandt, Zebadiah Mills, and General Lewis Morris were new members."
After a letter from the Delegation of the Colony in the Continental Congress, bearing date the second of July, " on the subject of Independence, and request- "ing instructions from this Congress,"" had been read, a second letter from the Delegation, of a subsequent date, "enclosing the Declaration of Independence," was also read, and referred to a Committee consisting of John Jay and Abraham Brasier, of the City of New York, Abraham Yates, Junior, of Albany-county, and John Sloss Hobart and William Smith, of Suffolk.9
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