The characters are four generals: Washington, Putnam, Sullivan, Stirling; three Colonels: Lasher, a Shoemaker, Clark, a Retailer of Rum, and Remsen, a Farmer. Also there is a New England Parson, Chaplain to General Putnam, and his name is "Ebenezer Snuffle." Joe King and Noah are two servants, and Skinner is "a Thief employed by Putnam." There are only two women, "Lady Gates" and her servant, Betty.

The first scene lies "within the rebel lines, an Apartment at Brooklyn." Here Lord Stirling, who was famous for his intoxications, comes forth howling for his valet, who has grown so democratic that when Milord says, "Devil Damme Sir," he answers, "Pray who do you damn so?" He tells his master:

"You drank stinkabus enough last night to split the head of an Indian."

He twits Stirling on his paper manufactory as a source of counterfeit money, but at length takes mercy on him and fetches him some peach brandy-"it so admirably fits a man for the cabinet and the field." The sectional feuds and the cowardice of the Americans are ridiculed.

The second scene of this shapeless concoction is "a Room at Brooklyn Ferry," where Lady Gates, a woman of evident frivolity, is told by her maid that General Washington will wait on her after the Council.

Washington's moral character is now traduced. That famous and infamous interpolated paragraph in Harrison's letter concerning the imaginary washerwoman's daughter whom Harrison was going to "fit" for his general had evidently already begun its long career; for in this somewhat unquotable scene, Betty tells how the infirm and stingy "General Harrison" tried to prepare her for General Washington, whom she describes as "the sweetest, meekest, melancholy fighting Gentleman."

He was generous too, for he gave her a thirty dollar bill. The very frank conversation is interrupted by a noise outside; but it is only some New England colonels in a mutiny, refusing to fight.

The scene changes to Brooklyn Church where there is a council of the four generals and much Yankee bombast about destroying the British. Washington appears and the farce makes him say what he had often said, tragically:

"My apprehensions from the King's troops, believe me, are trifling compared with the risque we run, from the people of America at large."

Remorse overcomes him:

"O Sullivan! my heart never consented to this ruin of my native country."

Later, in soliloquy, he exclaims:

"O! cursed ambition! What have I sacrificed to thee?"

His bombast ends in a yawn:

"Heigh! ho! Bless me, so late, and my engagements to a lady not complied with."

The British often asserted that Washington kept safely away from the battle, and in the second act of the farce, at "Gwanas," i.e., Gowanus, he arrives late, having evidently been detained by the lady, to find everything in a general panic, his troops in retreat and most of them stuck in the mud. The play ends in this confusion.

With such burlesques of humor and pathos, the people amused themselves while waiting for news from the fronts. There had been a protracted lull for weeks.

Howe gave Washington a respite while he made ready to do what he might have done from the first. But he had his own difficulties. After the Battle of Long Island it had

wise.28 Now Lee besought Washington to flee from Harlem without delay.

And if Washington had taken his advice he would have relieved his record of a disaster that was almost fatal to his reputation at home and set the prospective foreign allies of America to looking for a general more reliable as an investment.

W

XXXV

A MONTH IN WESTCHESTER

HILE he was being misrepresented in the ribald farce, "The Battle of Brooklyn," Washington was playing a somewhat farcical rôle of his own on Harlem Heights.

Eighteen years before, when he was on his march to Fort Du Quesne with Forbes, he had written to Sally Fairfax from camp that he would rather be at home "playing a part in Cato... doubly happy in being the Juba to such a Marcia as you must make."1

Now he played to an audience of two Indians with his whole army as the supporting cast. The performance was at the request of General Schuyler, who was having trouble persuading the northern Indians to collect British scalps. instead of American. He had been called upon at Albany by two skeptical redskins, who wanted to see for themselves. So he wrote to Washington and suggested that they be shown round, and "some presents made them." "

2

Ten days later Washington answered describing the visit of the Cayugas, whom he called "Caughnugas," the little drama he played for them, and how he had all his troops drawn out to impress them:

"I showed them every civility in my power, and presented them with such necessaries as our barren stores afford and they were pleased to take. I also had them shown all our works upon this island, which I had manned to give 'em an idea of our force, and to do away the false notions they might have imbibed, from the tales which had been propagated among 'em. They seemed to think we were amazingly strong, and said they had seen enough without. going to our posts in Jersey, or to the other side of Harlem river.” 3

taken him two weeks to get boats enough to cross the East River.30

He was still a pauper in horses and wagons. He had bought a hundred horses from the Tories on Long Island, and hired eighty two-horse wagons with drivers, but he still had less than a fifth of the number necessary to the movement of his troops.31

Washington had been enlarging his army, but slowly and with little improvement in quality. The new nation had now a paper strength of 40,000 men and 2,400 officers, but less than half the number were both present and fit for duty, and they were scattered at various posts.32

Much time and money had been spent in perfecting Fort Washington which, with Fort Lee opposite and a string of booms, chains and submerged hulks, was supposed to prevent the British from going up the Hudson.

On October 8th, three British ships of war with two or three tenders ran the two forts and sailed blandly across the obstructions, to the acute dejection of the beholders.

Fort Washington's twin, Fort Lee, had been named after General Charles Lee as a tribute of a respect and a confidence that had rivalled the trust in Washington and now surpassed it. Lee was watched for anxiously on his return. from South Carolina, where, under his command, the British had been driven off from Charleston. Washington had written him with an informality and an affection he rarely displayed in his letters, signing himself, "Your most affectionate, G. Washington," and addressing him as "My Dear Lee."

"Notwithstanding I shall probably feel the effect, I do most cordially and sincerely congratulate you on your victory over Clinton and the British squadron at Sullivan's Island. A victory undoubtedly it is, when an enemy are drubbed, and driven from a country they were sent to conquer."

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