29

A SECRET EXPEDITION.

ET. 44.1

CHAPTER III.

A SECRET EXPEDITION IN PREPARATION-SPECULATIONS CONCERNING IT-LETTER FROM LONDON-DESIGNS AGAINST NEW YORK AND THE HUDSON RIVER REGION -TRYON'S MOVEMENTS—CAPTAIN SEARS IN CAMP-HIS FORAY UPON RIVINGTON HIS PLAN FOR SECURING THE TORIES, APPROVED BY WASHINGTON AND LEE WASHINGTON'S CAUTION-LEE SENT TO CONNECTICUT-HIS INSTRUCTIONS HIS MOVEMENTS THERE-CO-OPERATION OF GOVERNOR TRUMBULLALARM IN NEW YORK -TIMIDITY OF THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY-FLIGHT OF TORIES -TROOPS ENTER THE CITY-SIR HENRY CLINTON IN THE HARBOR-HIS PEACEFUL PROFESSIONS AND DEPARTURE.

THE resolution of the continental Congress, adopted on the twenty-second of December, authorizing Washington to attack Boston in any manner he might think expedient, notwithstanding the town and property in it might thereby be destroyed, reached him at the beginning of January. This resolution gave strength to his own inclinations, and he determined, weak as his army was in numbers, to make an effort speedily to drive the enemy out of the New England capital. Recent movements of that enemy conspired to strengthen this resolution, and urged Washington to the execu tion of his designs as early as possible. At the close of December, he was assured that General Howe was fitting out a part of his fleet in Boston harbor for some secret enterprise, to be under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. At first it was thought by some, that Rhode Island and the coasts of Connecticut were its destination, but the season of the year (the bays and harbors being filled with ice) rendered such an expedition improbable. Finally, it became evident that the coasts of the southern states were to be the chief theatre of its operations.

Knowing the defenceless condition of the city of New York; the restraints under which the inhabitants of that town were kept

by the presence of the British man-of-war in the harbor, with the royal governor, Tryon, on board; and the desire of the imperial government to separate New England from the other colonies, by establishing a chain of military connection between New York and Canada, Washington apprehended that Sir Henry might first enter the waters around Manhattan island, and take possession of that key to the interior.*

As early as the fifth of October, a letter had been laid before the continental Congress, written by a well-informed person in London, which revealed a secret plan of operations formed by the ministry, and which had been sent to General Howe. It proposed to first secure possession of New York city, by the aid of Governor Tryon and the tory population, and next the city of Albany. Rigorous measures were to be used toward those who did not join the king's troops. They were to be declared rebels, and treated as such. The Hudson river, the East river, and the Sound, were to. be held in possession by small armed vessels; and all communication was to be cut off between the province of New York and those of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and consequently with all south of them. By these means the ministry and their friends expected to either starve the garrisons or retake the forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and open a safe intercourse between New York, Albany, and Quebec. "Thereby," said the writer, "they would offer the fairest opportunity to their soldiery and Canadians, in conjunction with. the Indians to be procured by Guy Johnson, to make continual irruptions into New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and so distract and divide the provincial forces, as to render it easy for the British army at Boston to defeat them, break the spirit of the Massachusetts people, depopulate their country, and compel an absolute subjection to Great Britain."+

The warnings of this letter were heeded by the Congress, and on

*An Iroquois chief, who, long before the Revolution, chalked out, for a British officer, a sketch of the features of the inland country, said, with jealous air but prophetic words, that Louisburg was one of the keys to it, and New York another, and that the power which might hold both would open the great chest and have Indians and all.-Smith's History of New York, ii., 181.

+ American Archives, 4th series, iii., 1281.

ET. 44.]

TRYON AT NEW YORK.

31

the seventh, that body ordered-"That the provincial convention of New York be directed immediately to render Hudson's river defensible;" to inquire into the best points whereon to erect small batteries, "so as to annoy the enemy on their passage;" to establish, "at proper distances, posts to be ready to give intelligence to the country in case of any invasion;" and "to take the most effectual method to obstruct the navigation of the said river, if, upon examination, they find it practicable."*

It was well known, at this time, that the machinations of Tryon were producing continual distractions in the politics of New York. He managed to keep together a large body of open and secret tories on Long Island; and by many artful intrigues and false promises, he encouraged the friends of the king in the interior to stand by their faith, while the Johnson family were busily engaged in winning the Six Nations of Indians over to the royal side.

These circumstances placed the whigs in New York in a dilemma that made them ever cautious and sometimes timid, for they knew not how extensive tory disaffection to the republican cause might be. This caution was misconstrued by loyalists as a hopeful hesitancy, if not an actual change of opinions; and from the cabin of the Duchess of Gordon, Tryon wrote to Howe, on the thirteenth of December, that the spirit of rebellion was decreasing in the colony of New York, and that five thousand troops could easily restore commerce and the royal government there. He offered to take the field, against the rebels, under Clinton; and expressed his belief that he could raise from two to three thousand tories, provided they could be put upon the regular establishment. He requested Howe to send him three thousand muskets with which to arm them, and a hundred thousand cartridges; and concluded his letter by saying, that in his present condition he saw no pros pect of getting ashore to resume his government.

Howe declined sending troops because he could not spare them, before spring; and he also declined sending the arms and ammunition then, because he thought such a movement, made before the * Journals of Congress, i., 199.

weapons could be used, would only serve to alarm and strengthen the insurgents. There can be no doubt, however, that Howe instructed Sir Henry Clinton to look into the harbor of New York, on his way south, consult with Tryon, and attack or spare the city as circumstances should dictate.

The more Washington reflected upon the expedition fitting out in Boston harbor, the stronger was his conviction that New York would be the first point of attack. The warning given to the Congress by the London letter, had awakened many anxious thoughts in his mind; and as opening events confirmed the assertions of the writer, he felt more and more impatient to strike the enemy in Boston a fatal blow, and then hasten westward to frustrate the designs of the government against the province of New York. But prudence would not allow him to detach a portion of his army for that purpose, while the enemy before him was increasing in strength; nor would prudence allow him to strike that enemy until fully prepared to give an effectual blow.

Captain Isaac Sears, one of the earliest and boldest of the Sons of Liberty in New York, who, from the period of the Stamp-act excitement until the time in question, had been distinguished there for his uncompromising and active hostility to the servants of the crown, and their abettors, was now in Washington's camp, and had laid before him a feasible scheme (which he had already proposed to leading men in Connecticut) for disarming the tories in the city of his adoption, and strengthening the republican cause there.

The timid proceedings of the provincial Congress of New York during the summer of 1775; the evident increase in the number of loyalists in that province, and the insolent abuse which Rivington, the tory printer, had poured upon Sears and his political friends, goaded him on to the perpetration of an act, justified, perhaps, by the exigencies of the times, but which was severely condemned by the friends of the crown, and the conservative whigs, while it was loudly applauded by the zealous republicans. Sears went into his native colony of Connecticut, raised a company of one hundred horsemen, led them toward New York, entered the

ET. 44.]

EXPLOITS OF CAPTAIN SEARS.

33

city at noonday, on the twenty-third of November, at the head of his troops, proceeded to the printing office of Rivington, at the foot of Wall street, placed a guard with fixed bayonets around it, put all the types into bags, destroyed the presses and other apparatus, and then, in the same order, amid the shouts of the populace, left the city, cheered by the tune of Yankee Doodle. On their way back to Connecticut, the invaders disarmed every tory in their path, and taking with them the Reverend Samuel Seabury (a highchurch clergyman), and two other loyalists, carried them in triumph to New Haven. There Rivington's types were cast into bullets.

Elated with this success, Sears wrote a letter to three of the Connecticut delegates in the continental Congress (Sherman, Dyer, and Deane), recommending the adoption of a similar system for the general disarming of the tories in New York and elsewhere. He expressed an opinion that a regiment of five hundred men might be raised for the purpose, in Connecticut, in the course of two days, if the enterprise should be sanctioned by the Congress, and that five hundred Sons of Liberty in New York would join them. He remarked: "We have little else to do this winter but to purge the land of such villains."* But Sears appears not to have been successful in that quarter; and being disappointed in his expectations of having the command of the little fleet then fitting out at Philadelphia, to cruise off the southern coasts, he repaired to headquarters, at Cambridge, in December, to lay his scheme for disarming the tories before the commander-in-chief. He portrayed the critical situation of New York; and he proposed that Wash

* Hollister's History of Connecticut, ii., 241.

"I have heard," he said, "that the command of the ships fitting out at Phila. is to be given to Captain Hopkins, which I am much surprised at, for I judged that that department was for me, which I had reason to expect from the hints given me by many members of the Congress; but it is too often the ease, when a man has done the most he gets the least rewards. It is not for the lucre of gain that I want the command of a squadron in the American navy, but it is because I know myself capable of the station, and because I think I can do my country more service in that department than in any other."—Sears's Letter to Sherman, Dyer, and Deane.

On the twenty-seventh of December, a whig in New York wrote to his friend in Connecticut, and said: "Just after you left town, the Phonix, a forty-gun ship, arrived and anchored just before Mr. Drakes, and in two or three days after, the Asia, in company with the Duchess of Gordon, came and anchored opposite to Peck's slip, so that we are highly honored. General Dalrymple is on board the Phoenix, and it is rumored that they have two hundred troops concealed on board, which has, for near a week past, kept us on pretty hard duty."