US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0014/00149.txt

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$Unique_ID{USH00149}
$Pretitle{11}
$Title{Our Country:  Volume 3
Chapter LXIX}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{washington
fort
british
army
lee
americans
congress
howe
france
general}
$Volume{Vol. 3}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 3
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 3
Date:        1905

Chapter LXIX

     Fire-Ships - Battle on Harlem Plains - Captain Hale, the Spy - Great Fire
in New York - The United States and France - Beaumarchais in England -
Committee of Secret Correspondence - American Commissioners in Paris -
Washington Pleads for a Permanent Army, and is Dissappointed - Forts
Washington and Lee - General Lee, John Adams, and Washington - British and
American Armies in Westchester - Battle at White Plains - Retreat into New
Jersey - Incidents of the Capture of Fort Washington - Prison-Ships and Their
Victims.

     THE patriots who marched from the city to Harlem Heights were drenched by
a shower, and slept in the open air that night.  The stars were hidden by
clouds until morning.  Before the dawn of the 16th, a ruddy light suddenly
glared along the Palisades and illumined the Hudson many miles.  It was the
flame of Captain Silas Talbot's fire-brig, with which he attempted to burn the
British shipping in the Hudson.  He failed but the vessels were scared away,
leaving a free communication between the strong work on Mount Washington and
Fort Lee, on the crown of the Palisades opposite.

     A few hours later some Virginians under Major Leitch, and Connecticut
Rangers commanded by Colonel Knowlton, were engaged in a severe fight, on
Harlem Plains, with British infantry and Highlanders, using several pieces of
artillery, and commanded by General Leslie, who was in charge of the British
advance-guard.  They fought desperately with varying fortunes, till Washington
reinforced the Americans with some Marylanders and New Englanders, with whom
Generals Putnam, Greene and others took part to encourage the men. The British
were pushed back, and climbed to the high, rocky ground at the northern end of
the Central Park east of the Eighth Avenue.  There they were reinforced by
Germans and Britons.  Washington now fearing an ambush, and unwilling to bring
on a general engagement, ordered a retreat.  This affair greatly inspirited
the Americans, though Major Leitch and Colonel Knowlton were killed, and about
sixty others were slain or wounded.  Howe was displeased with Leslie's
movement, and rebuked him for imprudence.  The British chief did not make any
aggressive movement for about three weeks afterward.

     During that period Washington strengthened his defenses, and gained much
information respecting the British army.  He greatly lamented the death of
Knowlton, whose Rangers, called "Congress' Own," had acted as a sort of body-
guard for the commander-in-chief before the Life-Guard were organized.
Captain Nathan Hale, before mentioned, was one of Knowlton's most trusted
officers, and was chosen by his colonel from among other volunteers for the
perilous service of a spy.  He entered the British camp as a plain young
farmer, and made sketches and notes unsuspected.  At length a Tory kinsman
betrayed him, and he was taken before General Howe at the Beekman mansion.
Hale frankly avowed his name, rank, and his character of a spy, which his
papers revealed, and Howe ordered him to be hanged the next morning (September
22, 1776), without even the form of a trial.  All night he was tortured by the
taunts of a brutal jailer in Beekman's green-house, in which he was confined;
and in the morning he was delivered to the savage Provost-marshal Cunningham
for execution.  Hale was denied the services of a clergyman and the use of a
Bible; but the more humane officer who superintended the execution, furnished
him with materials to write letters to his mother, betrothed, and sisters.
These Cunningham destroyed in the presence of the victim of his brutality,
while tears and sobs marked the sympathy of the multitude of spectators of the
scene.  Hale met death with firmness.  With unfaltering voice he said: "I only
regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." These were the last
words uttered by the young patriot, then only a little more than twenty-one
years of age.

     At that moment the smoke of the smoldering embers of a great
conflagration was hovering over the city of New York.  At one o'clock in the
morning of the 21st, a fire burst out in a low groggery near Whitehall.  It
swept up and across Broadway, laying Trinity Church and more than four hundred
tenements in ruins.  While it was raging the exasperated soldiers, who had
expected winter shelter in the buildings, charged the disaster to the Whigs.
Some of them, who came out in the gloom to save their property, were murdered
by bayonets, or were cast into the flames and perished.  General Howe, in his
report, without a shadow of truth, declared the accident to have been the work
of conspirators.

     Let us leave the belligerent armies for a moment, and see what was doing
in the halls of legislation.  We have seen how eagerly France watched for
rebellion in America from the days of the Stamp Act excitement, as a means for
avenging the injuries she had received from Great Britain.  We have seen how,
from time to time, emissaries were sent to America by the French government,
during the quarrel between Great Britain and her colonies, to ascertain the
true state of public feeling here, with the hope of finding in the
dissatisfied Americans powerful allies in her intended struggle to recover
what perfidious Albion had taken from her.  She was always saying pleasant
things to the Americans, and trying to attract them to herself by professions
of friendship and sympathy.  This coquetry was taken seriously by the
colonies, and when the "time that tried men's souls" arrived - when Great
Britain had hired German soldiers to butcher or enslave her subjects in
America, the colonies naturally turned first to the French to ask for aid in
their struggle for freedom.  Silas Deane, as we have observed, was sent to
France by Congress in the spring of 1776, as a commercial agent to obtain
supplies for an army.

     At that time, Beaumarchais, an irrepressible Frenchman, conspicuous in
the literary and political world of Paris, was a secret agent of the French
government in watching the course of the British ministry toward the colonies,
and feeling the pulse of public opinion in England.  He was in London in 1775,
where he mingled freely with the politicians who hovered around Wilkes; and he
became satisfied that civil war in England and success on the part of the
Americans, then in open insurrection, were events not far in the future.  He
was convinced that the first reverse to British arms in America would be the
signal for a revolution in London, and in this he saw the golden opportunity
for France.  Lord Rochford, North's minister for Foreign Affairs, had said to
Beaumarchais I am much afraid, sir, that the winter will not pass without some
heads being brought down, either among the king's party or the opposition."
And John Wilkes (the leader of the British democracy) had boldly said to him,
at the end of a public dinner: "The king of England has long done me the honor
of hating me.  For my part, I have always done him the justice of despising
him.  The time has come for deciding which of us has formed the best opinion
of the other, and on which side the wind will cause heads to fall." These, and
a hundred other seditious and revolutionary sayings, the ardent Frenchman
repeated to Vergennes, the most energetic of the ministers of King Louis, and
said in a formal letter: "The Americans will triumph, but they must be
assisted in their struggle; for if they succumb, they would join the English,
turn round against us, and put our colonies in jeopardy.  We are not yet in a
fit state to make war.  We must prepare ourselves, keep up the struggle, and
with that view send secret assistance in a prudent manner to the Americans."
This was the key-note to the boasted friendship of his Most Christian Majesty"
- the prime motive for the "assistance" rendered by the king of France to the
Americans during the War of the Revolution, as we shall observe hereafter.

     Arthur Lee (brother of Richard Henry Lee), an aspiring young barrister
then in England, and whom Franklin had left in charge of the agency for
Massachusetts when he returned to America, became acquainted with
Beaumarchais's expressed desire to aid the Americans.  Of this he gave
information to the Congress, through his brother, who was a member of that
body.  They listened to Lee's reports secretly communicated, and became
impressed with the idea that aid might be obtained from France and other
European countries.  In November, 1775, they appointed the famous "Committee
of Secret Correspondence," with a deceptive announcement of their functions,
having Dr. Franklin as their chairman.  They were soon cautioned that Arthur
Lee could not be trusted with important negotiations, and persuaded the
Congress to send Silas Deane abroad for the purpose.

     Lee was greedy for honors, and wished to win immortal renown by obtaining
material aid for his countrymen from France, as speedily as possible.  For
that purpose he misrepresented Congress to Beaumarchais, and Beaumarchais and
France to Congress.  When Deane arrived, Lee regarded him as a rival; and when
he found that agent and Beaumarchais making successful plans for obtaining
supplies from France, he uttered such slanders concerning both, that the
Congress withdrew their confidence from both.  At that juncture, early in the
autumn of 1776, the Congress sent Dr. Franklin as a Commissioner of the United
States to the French Court, with Deane and Lee as his assistants.  The
Congress had elaborated a plan for a treaty with France, by which it was hoped
the States would secure their independence.  They wished France to immediately
declare war against England, during which diversion they hoped to win their
independence, when they would make valuable commercial and territorial
concessions to the French monarch.  The Congress was also to stipulate that
the United States would never agree to be subject to the British crown, and
that in case of war neither party should make a definitive treaty of peace
without six months notice to the other.  Improving the hint given to Vergennes
by Beaumarchais, the Congress instructed the Commissioners in this wise: It
will be proper for you to press for the immediate and explicit declaration of
France in our favor, upon a suggestion that a reunion with Great Britain may
be the consequences of a delay."  On the 4th of January, 1777, Dr. Franklin
wrote to the Committee of Secret Correspondence from Paris: I arrived here
about two weeks since, where I found Mr. Deane.  Mr. Lee has since joined us
from London.  We have had an audience of the minister, Count de Vergennes, and
were respectfully received. We left for his consideration a sketch of the
proposed treaty.  We are to wait upon him to-morrow with a strong memorial,
requesting the aids mentioned in our instructions.  By his advice, we have had
an interview with the Spanish ambassador, Count D'Aranda, who seems well
disposed toward us, and will forward copies of our memorials to his court,
which will act, he says, in perfect concert with this."  So first began the
Foreign Diplomacy of the United States.

     Washington had, early in his chieftaincy, urged upon the Congress the
necessity of the establishment of a permanent army, and with prophetic words
had predicted the very evils arising from short enlistments and loose methods
of creating officers, which now prevailed.  While there was a brief lull in
active military operations after the battle on Harlem Plains, he again set
forth, in graphic pictures, the sad condition of his army, and the importance
of a thorough reform and reorganization of the forces, for he foresaw the
natural dissolution of his army, by the expiration of enlistments, only a few
weeks later.  The Congress had just resolved (September 10th) to form the army
anew into eighty-eight battalions, to be "enlisted as soon as possible, and to
serve during the war", but they were so afraid of the "military despotism"
implied by a standing army, that much of the efficacy of this longer term of
enlistment was neutralized by retaining the old method of levying troops by
requisitions upon the several States, and the appointment of officers by local
authorities without due regard to their qualifications. Washington was
compelled to relinquish all present hope of obtaining an efficient army for
the great work before him.  Yet he never despaired nor uttered a petulant word
of complaint, nor threatened to resign.  His duty as a patriot and soldier was
plain, and he pursued it.

     For almost a month Washington rested with the main body of his army on
Harlem Heights, watching the movements of Howe.  He had constructed strong
lines of fortifications across the narrow island, between the Harlem and
Hudson Rivers, and redoubts were planted at proper places to defend approaches
from the waters and the main land.  The crest of Mount Washington was crowned
with a five-sided earthwork, named Fort Washington.  It was two hundred and
thirty feet above tide-water, a mile northward of headquarters, with strong
ravelins and outworks, and mounting thirty-four great guns.  This was the
principal fortification within the American lines, and was commanded by
General Putnam. General Greene, the best leader in the army excepting
Washington, was in command of Fort Lee on the Palisades on the New Jersey
shore.

     At this time General Charles Lee was making his way toward the camp.  He
had been called from the Carolinas, by the Congress, to take the chief command
of the army in the event of Washington being disabled.  His fame was very
great, not because of anything of importance which he had done, but from what
it was supposed he was capable of doing.  But he was a charlatan, and
afterward became a traitor to a cause which he really despised, and supported
only from base motives.  He was a hot-headed and wrong-headed man, and
extremely vain.  He was proud of being an Englishman, and looked with contempt
upon his American associates.  Incapable of planning a campaign or executing a
complicated military movement, he had, by dash, audacity, boasting,
fault-finding, and the force of an imperious will and temper deceived the
Americans into a belief that he was a great soldier.  On his way north he had,
at Philadelphia, wrung from the Congress a grant of thirty thousand dollars,
as all indemnity for any losses of property which he might sustain in England
in consequence of his playing rebel and he came to Washington's army in the
field with the sanction of Congress as the delegated commander-in-chief on a
certain contingency.  Forever afterward he intrigued, as did Gates, for the
chief command by superseding Washington, until he was driven from the army in
disgrace.

     John Adams, then the chairman of the Board of War, gave to Lee the
confidence which he always withheld from Washington.  When a letter from the
commander-in-chief, warning the Congress of the great dangers to which his
army was exposed, was read in that body, Adams treated it as the utterance of
a timid man.  The British force is so divided," he said, they will do no great
matter this fall and at that critical moment, when his energy was most needed
in his responsible position, he obtained leave of absence.  He had been
deceived by the perfidious Lee, who wished to did credit Washington's
sagacity, and who, at the very moment when Howe was moving to gain the rear of
Washington's army, wrote from Amboy, that the British would infallibly proceed
against Philadelphia," and leave the American army alone.

     On the 12th of October, Howe embarked a large portion of his army in
ninety flat-boats, and landed them on Throgg's Neck, a low peninsula jutting
out from the main of Westchester county.  He left a sufficient force under
Lord Percy to hold the city and guard the British lines toward Harlem.
Washington sent Heath to oppose Howe's landing, and to occupy lower
Westchester.  After encountering many difficulties from the opposition, Howe
finally took post on the heights of New Rochelle, across the road leading to
White Plains, where he was joined by General Knyphausen with a freshly arrived
corps of German troops.  Meanwhile Washington had sent McDougall, with his
brigade, four miles beyond Kingsbridge, and a detachment to White Plains.  He
wished to evacuate Manhattan Island entirely, but an order had come from
Congress to hold Fort Washington to the last extremity.  At a council of war
held on the 16th of October, he produced such proofs of the intention of the
British to surround his army, that it was determined to move them all into
Westchester excepting a garrison for Fort Washington.  That was commanded by
Colonel Magaw of the Pennsylvania line, with troops who came chiefly from that
State.  The army marched in four divisions, commanded respectively by Generals
Lee (who had just arrived), Heath, Sullivan and Lincoln, and moving up the
valley of the Bronx River, formed entrenched camps from the heights of Fordham
to White Plains.  On the 21st, Washington made his headquarters near the
village of White Plains.  General Greene commanded a small force that
garrisoned Fort Lee.

     After almost daily skirmishing, the two armies, each about thirteen
thousand strong, met in battle array at the village of White Plains, on the
28th of October.  The Americans were encamped behind hastily thrown up
entrenchments just north of the village, with hills in the rear to retreat to,
if necessary.  About sixteen hundred men from Delaware and Maryland, and
militia under Colonel Haslett, had taken post on Chatterton's Hill, a high
eminence on the west side of the Bronx, to which point McDougall was sent with
reinforcements on the morning of the 28th, with two pieces of artillery under
the charge of Captain Alexander Hamilton.  Howe's army approached in two
divisions, the right commanded by Sir Henry Clinton, and the left by Generals
De Heister and Erskine.  Howe was with the latter.  He had moved with very
great caution since his landing, and now, as he looked upon the Americans
behind their apparently formidable breastworks, he hesitated, and held a
council of war on horseback.  Then he inclined his army to the left, and on
the slopes southeast of the present railway station, he planted almost twenty
field-pieces.  Under cover of these his troops constructed a rude bridge
across the Bronx, over which British and German battalions passed, and
attempted to ascend the steep, wooded Chatterton's Hill to drive the Americans
from it.  Hamilton's cannon, which he had placed in battery, annoyed them
exceedingly.  They recoiled, when they were joined by reinforcements under
Leslie, foot and horse, and pushing up more gentle declivities, in the face of
a furious tempest of bullets, they drove the Americans from their position.
McDougall led his troops to Washington's camp, leaving the British in
possession of Chatterton's Hill.

     Howe dared not attack Washington's breastworks (composed chiefly of
cornstalks covered lightly with earth), but waited for reinforcements.  They
came, just as a severe storm of wind and rain set in.  When it ceased at
twilight on the 31st, Washington, perceiving Howe's advantage, withdrew under
the cover of darkness behind entrenchments on the hills of North Castle,
toward the Croton River.  Howe did not follow, but falling back, encamped on
the heights of Fordham.

     Washington called a council of war, when it was determined to retreat
into New Jersey with a large portion of the army, leaving all the New England
troops on the east side of the Hudson to defend the passes in the Highlands.
These troops were placed under the command of General Heath.  Five thousand
soldiers crossed the Hudson, some at Tarrytown and some at King's Ferry, now
Stony Point.  Washington, accompanied by Heath, Stirling (who had lately been
exchanged), Mifflin, and Generals George and James Clinton, rode to Peekskill,
whence they voyaged in a barge on a tour of inspection of the fortified points
in the Highlands, as far as Fort Constitution.  It was then decided to fortify
West Point opposite that fort.  Returning to King's Ferry, the chief hastened
southward, gathered his little army near Hackensack in the rear of Fort Lee,
and made his headquarters there, on the 14th of November.

     On the day of the battle at White Plains, Knyphausen, with six German
battalions, crossed the Harlem River at Dyckman's Bridge (present head of
navigation), and encamped on the plain between Fort Washington and
Kingsbridge.  The Americans in the redoubts near by stood firm till the fort
was closely invested by the foe.  Washington had left it and Fort Lee in
charge of Greene.  When he heard of the peril that menaced it, he advised that
officer to withdraw the garrison and stores, but left the matter to Greene's
discretion.  When, on the 15th, he reached Fort Lee, he was disappointed in
not finding his wishes gratified.  Greene desired to hold the fort as a
protection to the river; Congress had ordered it to be held till the last
extremity, and Magaw, its commander, said he could hold out against the whole
British army until December.  Washington was not satisfied of its safety, but
yielded his judgment and returned to Hackensack.  There, at sunset, he
received a copy of a reply which Magaw had made to a summons of Howe to
surrender, accompanied by a threat to put the garrison to the sword in case of
a refusal.  To this summons Colonel Magaw replied, protesting against the
savage menace, and declaring that he would defend the post to the last
extremity.  Washington immediately rode to Fort Lee.  Greene had crossed over
to the island.  The chief started in a row-boat in the same direction, and met
Greene on the river in the starlight returning with Putnam.  They told the
chief that the garrison were in fine spirits, and confident that they could
successfully defend themselves.  It was then too late to withdraw them, and
Washington returned to Fort Lee, but was not satisfied.

     Howe had planted heavy guns on the lofty banks of the Harlem River just
above the present High Bridge, and from there he opened a severe cannonade
early in the morning of the 16th, upon the northern outworks of Fort
Washington, to cover the landing of attacking troops from a flotilla of
flat-boats which had passed up the Hudson in the night, and been concealed in
Spuyten Duyvel Creek.  These outworks were defended on the northeast by
Colonel Rawlings, with Maryland riflemen and militia from Mercer's Flying Camp
under Colonel Baxter.  The lines toward New York were defended by
Pennsylvanians commanded by Colonel Lambert Cadwallader.  Magaw commanded in
the fort.  Rawlings and Baxter occupied redoubts on rugged and heavily-wooded
hills.

     The attack was made by four columns.  Knyphausen, with Hessians and
Waldeckers, moved from the plain along the rough hills nearest the Hudson
River on the north at the same time Lord Percy led a division of English and
Hessian troops to attack the lines on the south.  General Matthews, supported
by Lord Cornwallis, crossed the stream near Kingsbridge, with guards, light-
infantry, and grenadiers, under cover of the guns near the High Bridge, while
Colonel Sterling, with the 42nd regiment of Highlanders, crossed at a point a
little above the High Bridge.  Knyphausen divided his forces.  One division
under Colonel Rail (killed at Trenton a few weeks afterward) drove the
Americans from Cock Hill Fort, a small redoubt near Spuyten Duyvel Creek,
while Knyphausen, with the remainder, penetrated the woods near Tubby Hook,
and after clambering over rocks and felled trees, attacked Rawlings in a
redoubt afterward called Fort Tryon.  Meanwhile Percy had driven in the
American pickets at Harlem Cove (Manhattanville), and attacked Cadwallader at
the advanced line of entrenchments.  A gallant fight ensued, when Percy
yielded and took shelter behind some woods.

     While Rawlings and Cadwallader were keeping the assailants at bay,
Matthews and Sterling were making important movements.  The former pushed up
the wooded heights from his landing-place on the Harlem River, drove Baxter
from his redoubt (afterward named Fort George), and stood a victor upon the
hills overlooking the open fields around Fort Washington.  Sterling, with his
Highlanders, after making a feigned landing, dropped down to a point within
the American lines, and rushing up a sinuous pathway, captured a redoubt on
the summit, with two hundred men.  Perceiving this, Cadwallader, who was
likely to be placed between two fires, retreated along the road nearest the
Hudson, battling all the way with Percy, who closely pursued him.  When near
the upper border of Trinity Cemetery (One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street), he
was attacked on the flank by Sterling, who was pursuing across the island to
intercept him.  He passed on and reached the fort with a loss of a few killed,
and about thirty made prisoners.  Meanwhile the German and British assailants
on the north, who were as four to one of the Americans in number, pressed the
latter back to the fort, when Rail sent a summons to Magaw to surrender.  This
was soon followed by a like summons from Howe.  The fight outside had been
desperate.  The ground was strewn with the mingled bodies of Americans,
Germans, and Britons.  Resistance to pike, ball, arid bayonet, wielded by five
thousand veteran soldiers, was now vain, and at noon Magaw yielded.  At
half-past one o'clock the British flag waved over the fort in triumph, where
the American flag had been unfurled in the morning with defiance.  The
Americans had lost in killed and wounded not more than one hundred men; the
British had lost almost a thousand.  The garrison that surrendered numbered,
with militia, about twenty-five hundred, of whom over two thousand were
disciplined regulars.  Knyphausen received Magaw's sword, and to the Germans
and Highlanders were justly awarded the honors of the victory.  Washington,
standing on the brow of the Palisades at Fort Lee, with the author of "Common
Sense" by his side, witnessed the disaster with anguish, but could afford no
relief forever, and was named Knyphausen.  The fort was lost to the Americans
Its unfortunate garrison filled the prisons of New York and crowded the
British prison-ships, wherein they were dreadful sufferers.

     The Jersey was the most noted of the floating British prisons.  She was
the hulk of a six-gun ship lately dismantled, and placed in Wallabout Bay near
the present Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Sometimes more than a thousand prisoners were
confined in her at one time, where they suffered indescribable horrors from
unwholesome food, foul air, filth, and vermin, and from smallpox, dysentery,
and prison fever, that slew them by scores.  Their treatment was often brutal
in the extreme, and despair reigned there almost continually. Every night, the
living, the dying, and the dead were huddled together.  At sunset each day was
heard the savage order, accompanied by horrid imprecations - "Down, rebels,
down!" and in the morning the significant cry - "Rebels, turn out your dead."
The dead were then selected from the living, sewed up in blankets, taken upon
deck, carried on shore and buried in shallow graves.  Full eleven thousand
victims were taken from the Jersey, and so buried, during the war.  Their
bones were gathered and placed in a vault by the Tammany Society of New York
in 1808, with imposing ceremonies.  That vault is at the southwestern corner
of the Navy Yard, where their remains still rest.  Several years ago a
magnificent monument dedicated to the martyrs of the British prisons and
prison-ships was erected in Trinity Churchyard, near Broadway, at a point over
which speculators were trying to extend Albany street through the property of
that corporation.  The street was not opened.  So patriotism triumphed over
greed.

     Philip Freneau, a contemporary, and sometimes called the Poet of the
Revolution, wrote a long poem, in three cantos, in 1780, entitled The British
Prison Ships, in which he assumed the character of one of the victims.  He
bitterly complained of the American Loyalists or Tories, who bore a
conspicuous part in the horrid scenes.  Of these he wrote:


"That Britain's rage should dye our plains with gore, And desolation spread
through every shore, None e'er could doubt, that her ambition knew - This was
to rage and disappontment due But that those monsters whom our soil
maintain'd, Who first drew breath in this devoted land, Like famished wolves
should on their country prey, Assist its foes, and wrest our lives away.  This
shocks belief - and bids our soil disown Such friends, subservient to a
bankrupt crown."


     He gives the following picture of suffering: "No masts or sails these
crowded ships adorn, Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn!  Here nightly ills
oppress the imprison'd throng - Dull were our slumbers, and our nights too
long.  From morn to eve along the decks we lay, Scorch'd into fevers by the
solar ray; No friendly awning cast a welcome shade; Once was it promis'd, and
was never made.  No favors could these sons of death bestow, 'Twas endless
cursing, and continual woe; Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage, And
this lost empire swells their soul with rage.

     The poet referred to the British commissary of prisons in New York, in
the following lines: "Here, generous Britain, generous, as you say, To my
parch'd tongue one cooling drop convey; Hell has no mischief like a thirsty
throat, Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat."