THE KNICKERBOCKER. VOL. XIII. APRIL, 1839. No. 4. THE BATTLE OF LONG-ISLAND. FROM A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. BY SAMUEL. WARD, JR. ALL knowledge is but history. Each fragment of the material world reveals a story of time and change, remote and endless. The principle is derived from facts, which symbolize the histories of observation and experiment, and these, in turn, involve those of the sage and philosopher, of their predecessors, and of by-gone ages. Upon each visible object is written, in familiar or in unknown characters, its history; and if we but knew the physiognomy of inanimate as well as of living creations, earth, stone, and plant would exhibit, as indeed they often do, to the naturalist, expressions as indicative of their past, as is man's countenance, with its furrow of care, or smile of joy, with passion's glow or its ashes, of his life and actions. The face of the globe, with the living imprint of God's hand upon it, unfolds a chapter in the history of the display of omnipotence, and we personify the history of our race, embodying its undying passions and imperfections, and reproducing its mortal and perishable beauty. The variegated cheek and scented breath of the flower, fade and expire in autumn; the vegetative life abides until the coming spring. All these proclaim the insignificance of time, the majesty of eternity. While the history of human nature is indelibly traced in each successive family of men, that of human creations has to be recorded in the archive, and rescued from the crumbling column. The work of the Almighty, the living principle and its attendants, dies not; the traces of men's labor are washed away by the succeeding tide. But here and there, where the forms have been preserved, they seem, when compared to the divine productions, not unlike the precise diagram, beside the harmonious and waving outlines of external natural beauty. The history we cultivate, is the natural history of society, of the joint efforts of bodies of men, to render the earth habitable for its increasing populations, and these, in turn, worthy the dwelling's protection, and grateful for its nourishment. Do not the nations of antiquity appear to have lived, and flourished, and toiled, that we might succeed to their power, inherit their experience, and reap the fruits of their labors? So also are we the servants of posterity. The road is an emblem of the destiny of those who made it; built for the use of a generation, passed over as the path to some near or distant land, suc ceeding races inquire not whose hands constructed it. They, too, are travelling toward their journey's end. History and time are ours; the index and dial-plate which measure our span, the foundations of our knowledge, and the standard of our computation, the instruments of spiritual and material comparison. But the one sits, like a queen, upon a throne, robed in purple, a sceptre in her hand, and on her brow a diadem, wherein each race of men enshrine a new jewel. Heroes and statesmen are her courtiers, and the brightest shapes of human intelligence hover around her. The other is creation's slave, fate's executioner; unerringly reckoning the debt of man and of nature, the minutes of life, the seasons of the year. He reaps, with a pitiless scythe, 'Harvests of souls by Hope matured, The spirit bright to life scarce lured, The heart that mourns its saddened hours.' Had authentic records preserved for us the whole experience of nations, the precious inheritance would have permanently advanced our material progress; and in a still greater degree will the heritage of accurate memorials of the men and events of modern civilization, of the motives of the one, and the causes of the other, enlighten posterity in the path of human improvement. The traces of early society are proofs of material and sensual progress; as for instance, the pyramid, and the bracelet upon the arm of the lonely king entombed within its giant walls. These are points of departure; for the distance accomplished may be measured; not so the route beyond. It is true, we know the virtues or the crimes of a few, in those days, when nations rose and fell, even as they now expand, and when the many felt not. They are now the lords of the earth. But only since the fiat lux of Guttemberg, have the people' begun to realize their long-withheld inheritance; and events are now chronicled, less to gratify the pride of the living, or the curiosity of the unborn, less for purposes of narration and romance, than to show the increased capabilities of man, and swell the page of his moral experience. Apart from the higher, the epochal incidents in the life of humanity, the epitomes of years, deeds, and nations, there are events which do not claim to be inscribed upon the page of general history; and yet, from the deep local influence they once exercised, still preserve a commemorative interest, and convey an impressive lesson. The great war of our independence is rife with such illustrations. Its memories and heroes crowd so thickly near us, that its history cannot yet be written. But as each day adds to the legendary store, and we draw nigh the hour when it may be traced, time silently distils the mass of events, and the mingled vapors which ascend from the alembic, will be condensed by impartiality into truth. The events we are about to recall, occurred in New-York, and its vicinity, between the months of September, 1775, and September, 1776. I am aware that these varying scenes and imperfect sketches may resemble a phantasmagoria, rather than pencillings of men and of actions. But they will be exhibited upon a curtain, stained with as noble blood as was ever shed in the cause of freedom; and though the hand that holds the transparent glass, be a feeble one; though faint the colors, and indistinct the outlines; the personages and scenes are not fictitious or fanciful; but once stood gallantly forth, with drawn sword or levelled musket, relieved by a battle-cloud rising from ground so near, that a cannon fired there at this moment, would startle with with its reverberations the peaceful echoes around us. The revolution was hardly three months old. But already from the cradle of liberty it had strangled its serpents at Lexington and Bunker Hill. The American army, encamped around Boston, owned WASHINGTON'S Command, and held at bay the beleaguered British. In the oppressed colonies, a spirit of resistance had organized the resolute yeomanry; and with the victories inscribed upon the national escutcheon, the patriotic chord was vibrating in every heart. War had not yet disturbed our goodly city, which lay in unconscious repose, on the mellow night of the twenty-third of August, 1775. One or two riots, the result of political faction, rather than of unadulterated rebellion, alone gave tokens of a turbulent spirit. The English governor, Tryon, still dwelt here, an object of courtesy, though of mistrust. In the North River, off the fort, lay the Asia, a British man-of-war, with whose presence people had become familiar. The public mind was in a state of vague apprehension. It remained for its hopes and fears to assume a definite shape. Toward midnight, our forefathers were aroused from their first slumbers, by the thunder of artillery. At that silent hour, the ominous sounds were unwelcome visitants. The cannon peals were relieved by the sharp discharge of musketry; and the stillness that ensued, was occasionally broken by the hasty footsteps of one summoned to his duty, with unbuckled sabre trailing on the ground, or by the agitated cry of a helpless woman, fleeing from the audible danger. Drums beat to arms, volley after volley announced the continuation of strife; and the half-wakened dreamer no longer mistook these cries of war for echoes of the eastern battles. As the night advanced, one body of men succeeding another was revealed by the blaze of torches, and the cumbrous wheels of the field-piece they were dragging, seemed to leave reluctantly the scene of conflict. By and by, troops of dwellers in the lower part of the town, escaped through the streets, from their menaced or shattered abodes, in confusion and fear. Was the enemy in the city? the Battery taken? Were the troops forced to retreat before a victorious foe? These interrogatories were breathed rather than spoken, or if put, were not answered. It was a memorable night, and something seemed to have delayed the approach of morning. The town was early astir. At break of day, many inhabitants were seen issuing from their dwellings, and wending their way to the Battery. To those already assembled there, when night uprolled her curtain of clouds, the glowing dawn that shot over our noble bay, disclosed traces of disorder, and ravages of cannon-ball, on the one hand, and on the other, the smoke still ascending from the angry artillery to the powder-stained rigging of the Asia. Moreover, the field-pieces, which but yesterday guarded the Battery, were gone. These the timid accepted as tokens of danger, and prepared to depart; the intrepid hailed them as auspicious omens of future victories. The twenty-one pieces of ordnance had been removed, by order of the Provincial Congress. Captain John Lamb's artillery corps, and the Sons of Liberty,' headed by King Sears,' were the heroes of the adventure. The efforts of the enemy to protect these royal stores, had proved unavailing. Warned of the intended movement, Captain Vandeput, of the Asia, detached an armed barge to watch, and if needful, interfere with, its execution. A musket discharged from this boat, drew Captain Lamb's volley, and a man on board was killed. The Asia fired three cannon. The drum beat to arms in the city. The man-of-war sustained the cannonade. Three citizens were wounded, and the upper parts of various houses near Whitehall and the Fort, received much injury. A son of Captain Lamb, whose regiment covered the cannon's retreat, is now living in this city, and in the rooms of the Historical Society' may be seen one of the very balls fired into New-York that night. Captain Sears, the other leader of this exploit, was one of our earliest patriots. As far back as the fifth of March, 1775, in an encounter between the Whigs and the Tories, the latter, being worsted, were said to have dispersed, lest King Sears, as he was called in ridicule, in his fury should head a mob, and do them some capital injury. He had been a member of the New-York Provincial Congress, had acted a conspicuous part in the excitements occasioned by the Boston Port Bill, and was in after months warmly recommended by General WASHINGTON to Major General Lee, for his zeal and fidelity. Immediately after this affair, he disappeared from our city, and sought, in Connecticut, livelier sympathies than were then to be encountered here. A detailed account of the Asia affair, and of its consequences, may be found in the columns of the 'New-York Gazette,' a newspaper issued in those days from the south-east corner of Wall and Pearl-streets, by one James Rivington, a loud-voiced royalist. It is almost impossible to turn over its time-stained leaves, filled with the records of frivolity and faction, of benevolence and crime, of the current opinions and absurdities, and of the wants and supplies of an olden day, without reflecting on that strangest feature of modern times, the press, or imagining how different would be our views of remote ages, had the nations we admire, possessed so authentic a source of history. The Romans have been shown, by a recent French writer,* to have had their journals; but these did not, like ours, chronicle the wishes and feelings, the hopes and the vices, of the many; else we should not eternally deplore lost decades, or incur danger of having our early faith controverted by the ingenuity of a Niehbuhr. James Rivington was, then, the editorial and proprietary publisher of the New-York Gazette,' and as the opposite party subsided in the expression of its political sentiments, and loyalism was no longer in terror of a Sears, he not only gave free vent to his own views, but so far forgot himself, as sadly to abuse those of his radical neighbors. Emboldened by their quiet reception of his denunciations, he expressed these in still more forcible tones, and doubtless exulted in this victory over whig opinions. It was high noon, on Thursday the twenty-third of November. The Gazette had been issued that morning, and the worthy editor was *M. VICTOR LECLERC |