CHAPTER IV

OLD ST. JOHN'S. "Still faces on Varick Street, sombre and unaltered, a stately link between the present and the past."OLD ST. JOHN'S. "Still faces on Varick Street, sombre and unaltered, a stately link between the present and the past."

"The house stood about three hundred yards back from the river, on ground which fell away in a gentle slope towards the waterside. The main entrance was from the east; and at the rear—on the level of the drawing-room and a dozen feet or so above the sloping hillside—was a broad veranda commanding the view westward to the Jersey Highlands and southward down the bay to the Staten Island Hills." The fanciful description goes on to picture Captain Warren sitting on this veranda, "smoking a comforting pipe after his mid-day dinner; and taking with it, perhaps, as seafaring gentlemen very often did in those days, a glass or two of substantial rum-and-water to keep everything below hatches well stowed. With what approving eye must he have regarded the trimly kept lawns and gardens below him; and with what eyes of affection theLaunceston, all a-taunto, lying out in the stream!"

I have called the description of the house "fanciful," but it is really not that, since the old house fell into Abraham Van Nest's hands at a later date, and stood there for over a century, with the poplars, for which it was famous, and the box hedges, in which Susanna had taken such pride, growing more beautiful through theyears. Not until 1865 was the lovely place destroyed by the tidal wave of modern building.

The Captain kept his town house as well,—the old Jay place, on the lower end of Broadway, but it was at the Manse that he loved best to stay, and the Manse which was and always remained his real and beloved home. In 1744 his seaman's restlessness again won over his domestic tranquillity and he was off once more in search of fresh adventures and dangers. Says theWeekly Post Boy, of August 27th, in that year:

"His Majesty's shipLaunceston, commanded by the brave Commodore Warren (whose absence old Oceanus seems to lament), being now sufficiently repaired, will sail in a few days in order once more to pay some of His Majesty's enemies a visit."

And it winds up with this burst:

"The sails are spread; see the bold warrior comesTo chase the French and interloping Dons!"

It was in the following year that he signally distinguished himself in the historic Siege of Louisbourg, winning himself a promotion to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue, and a knighthoodas well! It may seem a far cry from Greenwich, New York, to Louisbourg, but we cannot pass over the incident without sparing it a little space. Let me beg your patience,—quoting, in my own justification, no less a historian than James Grant Wilson:

"This Commodore Warren was one of those indefatigable and nervous spirits who did such wonders at Louisbourg, and it is with particular pride that his achievement should be remembered in a history of New-York, as he was the only prominent New-Yorker that contributed to Massachusetts' greatest Colonial achievement."

The capture of Louisbourg may be remembered by some history readers as a part of that English-French quarrel of 1745, commonly known as "King George's War," and also as the undertaking described by so many contemporaries as "Shirley's Mad Scheme." The schemewasrather mad; hence its appeal to Peter Warren, who was exceedingly keen about it from the beginning.

Louisbourg was a strong French fortress on Cape Breton Island, commanding the gulf of the St. Lawrence. Its value as a military stronghold was great, and besides it had long been afine base for privateers, and was a very present source of peril to the New England fishermen off the Banks. As far back as 1741 Governor Clarke of New York had urged the taking of this redoubtable French station, but it fell to the masterful Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, finally to organise the expedition. He had Colonial militia to the tune of four thousand men, and he had Colonial boats,—nearly a hundred of them,—and he had the approval of the Crown (conveyed through the Duke of Newcastle); but he wanted leaders. For his land force he chose General Pepperrill, an eminently safe and sane type of soldier; for the sea he, with a real brain throb, thought of Captain Peter Warren. Francis Parkman says: "Warren, who had married an American woman and who owned large tracts of land on the Mohawk, was known to be a warm friend to the provinces." He was at Antigua when he received the Governor's request that he take command of the "Mad Scheme." Needless to say, the Captain was charmed with the idea, but he had no orders from the King! He refused almost weeping, and for two days was plunged in gloom. Imagine such a glorious chance for a fight going begging!

Then arrived a belated letter from Newcastle in England, telling him to "concert measureswith Shirley for the annoyance of the enemy." Warren was so afraid that some future orders would be less vague, and give him less freedom, that he set sail for Boston with a haste that was feverish. He had with him three ships,—theMermaidandLauncestonof forty guns each, and theSuperbeof sixty. But those two wretched days of delay! He fell in with a schooner from which he learned that Shirley's expedition had started without him!

I daresay, being a sailor and Irish, our Captain expressed himself exhaustively just then; but he recovered speedily and told the schooner to send him every British ship she met in her voyage; then he changed his course and beat straight for Canseau, determined to be in that expedition after all. He certainly was in it, and a brisk time he had of it, too.

At Canseau they were all tied up three weeks, drilling and waiting for the ice to break, but they were thankful to get there at all. The storms were severe, as may be gathered by this account of their efforts to get into Canseau, written by one of the men: "A very Fierce Storm of Snow, som Rain and very Dangerous weather to be so nigh ye Shore as we was; but we escaped the Rocks and that was all."

Pepperrill was thankful enough to see the Captainand his squadron,—it was four ships now, as the schooner had picked up another frigate for him,—but the two commanders were destined to rub each other very much the wrong way before they were through. Pepperrill was a man who took risks only very solemnly and with deliberation, and who was blessed with endless patience. Warren took risks with as much zest as he took rare food and rich wine, and in his swift, full and exciting life there had never been place or time for patience! When the siege actually commenced, the poor Captain nearly went wild with the inaction. He wanted to attack, to move, to do something. Pepperrill's calm judgment and slow tactics drove him distracted, and they were forever at odds in spite of a secret respect for each other. In speaking of the contrast between them, Parkman, after describing Pepperrill's careful management of the military end, says: "Warren was no less earnest than he for the success of the enterprise.... But in habits and character the two men differed widely. Warren was in the prime of life, and the ardour of youth still burned within him. He was impatient at the slow movement of the siege."

The Siege of Louisbourg started by Warren's and Pepperrill's demand that the fortress surrender, and the historic answer of Duchambon,the French commander, that they should have their answer from the cannon's mouth. It is not my purpose to tell of it in detail, for it lasted forty-seven days and strained the nerves of everyone to the breaking point. But one or two things happened in the time which, to my mind, make our Captain seem a very human person. There was, for instance, his amazing kindness, as unfailing to his captives as to his own men. When the great French man-of-warVigilantcame to the aid of the beleaguered fortress, Warren joyously captured the monster, in full sight of Louisbourg and under the big guns there. It was this incident, by the bye, for which he was knighted afterwards. The French captain, Marquis de la Maisonfort, who was Warren's prisoner, wrote in a letter to Duchambon: "The Captain and officers of this squadron treat us, not as their prisoners, but as their good friends."

Warren went wild with rage when he heard of the horrors that had befallen an English scouting party which had fallen into the hands of a band of Indians and Frenchmen, and hideously tortured. He wrote stern protests to Duchambon, and it was at this time that he urged Pepperrill most earnestly to attack. But the more phlegmatic officer could not see it in that way. Warren then argued with increasing heat that by thistime the French reinforcements must be near, and could easily steal up under cover of the fog which was thick there every night. When Pepperrill still objected he lost his temper entirely, and said and wrote a number of peppery things. "I am sorry," he said, "that no one plan, though approved by all my captains, has been so fortunate as to meet your approbation or have any weight with you!"

Pepperrill explained imperturbably that Warren was trying to take too much authority upon himself. Captain Peter sent him a furious note: "I am sorry to find a kind of jealousy which I thought you would never conceive of me. And give me leave to tell you I don't want at this time to acquire reputation, as I flatter myself mine has been pretty well established long before!"

And then, as full of temper as a hot-headed schoolboy, he brought out a letter from Governor Shirley expressing regret that Captain Warren could not take command of the whole affair,—"which I doubt not would be a most happy event for His Majesty's service."

Even this could not shake the General's superhuman calm. He was indeed so quiet about it, and so uniformly polite, that his fiery associate was simply obliged to cool off. He was of too genuinely fine fibre to bear a grudge or to makea hard situation harder, and he consented to compromise, saying truly that at such times it was "necessary not to Stickle at Trifles!"

At last the time came for action, and on the seventeenth of June they took Louisbourg, in a most brilliant and stirring manner, and Warren was so wild with delight that he could not contain himself. He scribbled a note to Pepperrill which sounds like the note of a rattle-pated college lad instead of a distinguished naval commander: "We will soon keep a good house together, and give the Ladys of Louisbourg a gallant Ball."

He probably gave that ball, too, though there doesn't seem to be any record of it. He certainly had a beautiful time going about making speeches to the troops, amid much cheering; and dispensing casks of rum in which to drink his health and King George's! He was made the English Governor of the fortress temporarily, and when the news of their capture reached England both commanders were knighted and Peter Warren was made Rear Admiral of the Blue.

And in the height of the excitement a ship arrived at Louisbourg one fine day bearing Susanna herself, who had come in person to see that the hero of the day was really safe and sound!

A letter written from Louisbourg on September25th, and published in theWeekly Post Boy, gives this account:

"... The King has made the General a baronet of Great Britain; and 'tis said Mr. Warren will be one also, who is recommended by the Lords Justices to the King of Governor of this Place, and is made Rear Admiral of the Blue: He hoisted his Flag yesterday Afternoon on the Superbe, when he was saluted by the Ships in the Harbour, and the Grand Battery."

Soon after,—if we may trust James Grant Wilson's history,—he did indeed receive the Order of the Bath, and so henceforward we must give him his title,—Admiral Sir Peter Warren, no less! After he came home from Louisbourg, the city of New York was so well pleased with him that the council voted him some extra land,—which he really did not need in the least, having plenty already.

At least one more exploit was to be added to the wreath of Peter Warren's brave enterprises in behalf of his King and country. In 1747 the French again became troublesome. A fleet of French men-of-war under one La Jonquière, an able commander, was ordered to go and retake Louisbourg,—that, at least, among other things.Sir Peter went to join the English commander, Anson, off Cape Finisterre,—(the "End of the Earth") and acquitted himself there so gallantly and effectively that again his country rang with praise of him,—his country which then lay on two sides of the sea. America's pride in him is shown by some of the comments in the New York press, after he had so brilliantly helped in the capture of La Jonquière's ships. Here is, for instance, one letter from an eyewitness which was printed in the New YorkGazette, August 31, 1747:

"I have the Honour to send you some Particulars concerning the late Engagement on 3rd Instant off Cape Finisterre; which, tho' in the greatest degree conducive to the Success of that glorious Day, yet have not been once mentioned in the publick Papers.... You may be surpriz'd, Sir, when I assert, that out of the formidable English Squadron, but seven Ships were engag'd properly speaking. Concerning the Gallantry of three of them, which were the Headmost Ships, you have already had publick accounts; and my intention by this, is to warm your hearts with an Account of the Behaviour of two others, the Devonshire, Admiral Warren's Ship, and the Bristol, commanded by Capt. Montague."

The letter goes on to describe the battle minutely, telling how Warren came boldly up to the French Commodore's ship, and attacked her, "—And, having receiv'd her fire, as terrible a one as ever I saw, ran up within Pistol-shot and then returned it, and continued a brisk fire till the enemy struck." Then, he continues, Warren "made up to the Invincible" and attacked her, later seconded by Montague. Anson, the commanding Admiral, he adds rather drily, was at least a mile astern.

In the same edition of the paper which prints this letter, we find a little side light on the way in which Lady Warren spent her days when her magnificent husband was away at the wars. Between an advertisement of "Window Crown-Glass just over from England," and "A Likely Strong Negro Wench, fit for either Town or Country Business, to be sold," we find a crisp little paragraph:

"All Persons that have any Demands on the Honourable Sir Peter Warren, are desired to carry their accounts to his Lady, to be adjusted, and receive Payment."

Sir Peter was, as we have seen, not a person who could sit still and peacefully do nothing.Inactivity was always a horror to him; even his domestic happiness and his wholesome joy in his wife and daughters could not entirely fill his life when he was not at sea. His first naïve and childish pleasure in his immense fortune was an old story, and the King couldn't provide a battle for him every moment. The real events of his life were war cruises, but in between he began to take a hand in the politics of New York. He was high in favour with the English Throne—with some reason, we must admit—and he didn't mind stating the fact with the candour and doubtless the pride of a child of nature, as well as—who knows?—a touch of arrogance, as became a man of the world, and an English one to boot!

His brother-in-law, James de Lancey, was Chief Justice, and at sword's point with Clinton, the Governor of New York. De Lancey boasted politely but openly that he and Sir Peter had twice as much influence in England as had Clinton, which was probably quite true. Clinton was desperately afraid of them both. Just when Clinton felt he was making a little headway Warren was called to London to enter Parliament as the member for Westminster. This gave him more prestige than ever, and the Governor moved heaven and earth to discredit him in the eyesof the Lords of Trade in London. But just then heaven and earth were personified by the British Crown and Court, and they turned deaf ears to Clinton and listened kindly to the naval hero who had made himself so prime a favourite. Clinton firmly expected and fervently feared that Warren's influence would mean his eventful overthrow and not until our hero's death did he ever draw a breath that was free from dread.

After the Revolution some of the De Lanceys lost their lands because of their loyalty to the Crown, but in Sir Peter's time the sun shone for those who stood by the King.

But the day came speedily when Sir Peter sailed away to return no more, and I am sure every tree in Greenwich and every cobblestone in New York mourned him!

It was in 1747 that our hero was summoned to London, to enter Parliament and from that time on was a bright particular star in English society. Known as "the richest man in England," he was a truly magnificent figure in a magnificent day. Lady Warren, who was still a beauty and a wit, was a great favourite at Court, and writers of the day declared her to be the cleverest woman in all England. Think of what golden fortunes fell to the three Warren girls, who were now of marriageable age!

They made our old friend Peter Admiral of the Red Squadron as well as an M.P., and Lady Warren so splendidly brought out her daughters that Charlotte married Willoughby, Earl of Abingdon, and Ann wed Charles Fitzroy, Baron Southampton. The youngest girl, Susanna, chose a colonel named Skinner,—and New York, still affectionately inclined toward the Admiral's daughters, named streets after the husbands of all three! Our present Christopher Street used to be Skinner Road; Fitzroy Road ran northward, near our Eighth Avenue from Fourteenth Street far uptown; Abingdon Road, which was known colloquially and prettily as "Love Lane," was far, far out in the country until much later, somewhere near Twenty-first Street. Abingdon Square alone preserves one of the old family names, and in Abingdon Square I am certain some of those dear ghosts come to walk.

And still I find that I have not told the half of Sir Peter's story! I have not told of his adventures in the Mohawk country, where he travelled from sheer love of adventure and danger in the first place, and afterward established a fine settlement and plantation; of his placing there his sister's young son, William Johnson, later to be a great authority on matters pertaining to the Indians, and how he sent him out vast consignmentsof "rum and axes," to open negotiations with the Mohawks; how in his letter to his nephew he sounded a note of true Irish blarney, in cautioning him not to find fault with the horses supplied by a certain man, "since he is a relation of my wife's!" I have not told of his narrow escape from the Indians on one dramatic occasion; nor of his trip to the West Indies as an envoy of peace; nor of his services in Barbadoes which caused the people thereof to present him with a gorgeous silver monteith, or punch-bowl; nor of the mighty dinner party he gave at which the Rev. Mr. Moody said the historic grace: "Good Lord, we have so much to be thankful for that time would be infinitely too short to do it in. We must, therefore, leave it for eternity. Amen." I have said nothing of Sir Peter's attack of small-pox, which left his good-looking face badly marked, if we can believe the likeness modelled by Roubilliac; nor—but it would take volumes to tell the full and eventful story of this brave and gallant-hearted man, who died when he was only forty-eight, in the year 1752. It seems incredible that so much could have been crowded into so short a life. In death he was honoured quite as he deserved, for his tomb in the Abbey is a gorgeous and impressive one, and such men as the great French sculptor, and Dr. Johnson himself,had a hand in making it memorable in proportion to his greatness.

In looking over our hero's career we are struck by the absence of shadows. One would say that so unrelieved a record of success, of honour, glory, love and wealth, so much pure sunshine, so complete a lack of all trouble or defeat, must make a picture flat and characterless, insipid in its light, bright colours, insignificant in its deeper values. But it is not so. Peter Warren, the spoiled child of fortune, was something more than a child of fortune, since he won his good things of life always at the risk of that life which he enriched; and surely, no obstinately fortuitous twist of circumstances could ever really spoil him.

His honestly heroic qualities are his passport. He cannot seem smug, nor colourless, nor over-prosperous: he is too vivid and too vigorous. His childish vanity is nobly discounted by his childlike simplicity in facing big issues. The blue and gold which he wore so magnificently can never to us be the mere trappings of rank: they carry on them the shadows of battle smoke, and the rust of enviable wounds. Let us take his memory then gladly, and with true homage, rejoicing that its record of happiness appears as stainless as its history of honour, and well satisfiedto find one picture in which something of the sunshine of high gallantry seems caught, and for all time.

Dr. Johnson wrote thirty lines of eulogy of him, with the nicety and distinction of phrase which one would expect. Perhaps the simple ending of it is most impressive of all; so let us make it our own for the occasion:

"... But the ALMIGHTY,Whom alone he feared, and whose gracious protectionHe had often experienced,Was pleased to remove him from a place of Honour,To an eternity of happiness,On the 29th day of July, 1752,In the 49th year of his age."

If my days of fancy and romance were not past, I could find here an ample field for indulgence!—Abigail Adams, writing from Richmond Hill House, in 1783.

If my days of fancy and romance were not past, I could find here an ample field for indulgence!

—Abigail Adams, writing from Richmond Hill House, in 1783.

Dropdown

had left dear St. John's,—for this time my pilgrim feet were turned a bit northward to a shrine of romance rather than religion. I meandered along Canal, and traversed Congress Street. Congress, by the bye, is about two yards long; do you happen to know it?

In a few moments, I was standing in a sort of trance at that particular point of Manhattan marked by the junction of Charlton and Varick streets and the end of Macdougal, about two hundred feet north of Spring. And there was nothing at all about the scenic setting, you would surely have said, to send anyone into any kind of a trance.

On one side of me was an open fruit stall; on another, a butcher's shop; the Café Gorizia (with windows flagrant with pink confectionery),and the two regulation and indispensable saloons to make up the four corners.

In a sentimentally reminiscent mood, I took out a notebook, to write down something of my impressions and fancies. But there was a general murmur of war-inflamed suspicion, and I desisted and fled. How was I to tell them that there, where I stood, in that very citified and very nearly squalid environment (it was raining that day too), I could yet see, quite distinctly, the shadowy outlines of the one-time glorious House of Richmond Hill?

They were high gates and ornate, one understands. I visualised them over and against the dull and dingy modern buildings. Somewhere near here where I was standing, the great drive-way had curved in between the tall, fretted iron posts, to that lovely wooded mound which was the last and most southern of the big Zantberg Range, and seemingly of a rare and rich soil. The Zantberg, you remember, started rather far out in the country,—somewhere about Clinton Place and Broadway,—and ran south and west as far as Varick and Van Dam streets.

I had passed on Downing Street one house at least which looked as though it had been there forever and ever, but just here it was most commonplace and present-century in setting, and theroar of traffic was in my ears. But I am sure that I saw Richmond Hill House plainly,—that distinguished structure which was described by an eyewitness as "a wooden building of massive architecture, with a lofty portico supported by Ionic columns, the front walls decorated with pilasters of the same order and its whole appearance distinguished by a Palladian character of rich though sober ornament." We learn further that its entrance was broad and imposing, that there were balconies fronting the rooms on the second story. The inside of the house was spaciously partitioned, with large, high rooms, massive stairways with fine mahogany woodwork, and a certain restful amplitude in everything which was a feature of most of the true Colonial houses.

Thomas Janvier quotes from some anonymous writer of an earlier day: "From the crest of this small eminence was an enticing prospect; on the south, the woods and dells and winding road from the lands of Lispenard, through the valley where was Borrowson's tavern; and on the north and west the plains of Greenwich Village made up a rich prospect to gaze on."

Lispenard's Salt Meadows lie still, I suppose, under Canal Street North. I have not been able to place exactly Borrowson's tavern. Our old friend, Minetta Water, which flowed through thesite of Washington Square, made a large pond at the foot of Richmond Hill,—somewhere about the present junction of Bedford and Downing streets. In winter it offered wonderful skating; in summer it was a dream of sylvan loveliness, and came to be called Burr's Pond, after that enigmatic genius who later lived in the house.

One more description—and the best—of Richmond Hill as it was the century before last; this one written by good Mistress Abigail, wife of John Adams, one-time vice-president of the United States, during their occupancy of the place. Said she, openly adoring the Hill at all times:

"In natural beauty it might vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw. It is a mile and a half from the city of New York. The house stands upon an eminence; at an agreeable distance flows the noble Hudson, bearing upon its bosom innumerable small vessels laden with the fruitful productions of the adjacent country. Upon my right hand are fields beautifully variegated with grass and grain, to a great extent, like the valley of Honiton in Devonshire. Upon my left the city opens to view, intercepted here and there by a rising ground and an ancient oak. In front beyond the Hudson, the Jersey shores presentthe exuberance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. In the background is a large flower-garden, enclosed with a hedge and some every handsome trees. Venerable oaks and broken ground covered with wild shrubs surround me, giving a natural beauty to the spot which is truly enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in their liberty and security."

The historian, Mary L. Booth, commenting on the above, says:

"This rural picture of a point near where Charlton now crosses Varick Street naturally strikes the prosaic mind familiar with the locality at the present day as a trick of the imagination. But truth is stranger, and not infrequently more interesting, than fiction."

And now go back to the beginning.

A very large section of this part of the island was held under the grant of the Colonial Government, by the Episcopal Church of the city of New York—later to be known more succinctly as Trinity Church Parish. St. John's,—not built at that time, of course—is part of the same property. This particular portion (Richmond Hill), as we may gather from the enthusiasticaccounts of those who had seen it, must have been peculiarly desirable. At any rate, it appealed most strongly to one Major Abraham Mortier, at one time commissary of the English army, and a man of a good deal of personal wealth and position.

In 1760, Major Mortier acquired from the Church Corporation a big tract including the especial hill of his desires and, upon it, high above the green valleys and the silver pond, he proceeded to put a good part of his considerable fortune into building a house and laying out grounds which should be a triumph among country estates.

That he was a personage of importance goes without saying, for His Majesty's forces had right of way in those days, in all things social as well as governmental. He proceeded to entertain largely, as soon as he had his home ready for it, and so it was that at that time Richmond Hill established its deathless reputation for hospitality.

Mortier did not buy the property outright but got it on a very long lease. Though his first name sounds Hebraic and his last Gallic, he was, we may take it, a thoroughly British soul, for he called it Richmond Hill to remind him of England. The people of New York used to gossip excitedly over the small fortune he spent on those grounds, the house was the most pretentious that the neighbourhood had boasted up to that time. Of course the Warren place was much farther north, and this particular locality was only just beginning to be fashionable.

WASHINGTON ARCH. "... Let us hope that we will always keep Washington Square as it is today—our little and dear bit of fine, concrete history, the one perfect page of our old, immortal New York."WASHINGTON ARCH. "... Let us hope that we will always keep Washington Square as it is today—our little and dear bit of fine, concrete history, the one perfect page of our old, immortal New York."

A friend of the Commissary's, and a truly illustrious visitor at the Hill, was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, later Lord Amherst. He made Mortier's house his headquarters at the close of his campaigns waged against French power in America. He is really not so well known as he should be, for in those tangled beginnings of our country we can hardly overestimate the importance of any one determined or strategic move, and it is due to Amherst, very largely, that half of the State of New York was not made a part of Canada. Incidentally, Amherst College is named for him.

The worthy Commissary died, it is believed, at about the time that trouble started. On April 13th, in the memorable year 1776, General Washington made "the Hill" his headquarters, and the house built by the British army official was the scene of some of the most stirring conferences that marked the beginning of the Revolution.

At the vitally important officers' councils held behind those tall, white columns, there was one man so unusual, so brilliant, so incomprehensible, that a certain baffling interest if not actualromance attaches itself automatically to the bare utterance or inscription of his name,—Aaron Burr. He was aide-de-camp to General Putnam, and already had a vivid record behind him. It was during Washington's occupancy of Richmond Hill that Burr grew to love the place which was later to be his own home.

I confess to a very definite weakness for Aaron Burr. Few hopeless romanticists escape it. Dramatically speaking, he is one of the most striking figures in American history, and I imagine that I have not been the first dreamer of dreams and writer of books who has haunted the scenes of his flesh-and-blood activity in the secret, half-shamefaced hope of one day happening upon his ghost!

From the day of his graduation from college at sixteen, he somehow contrived to win the attention of everyone whom he came near. He still wins it. We love to read of his frantic rush to the colours, guardian or no guardian; of the steel in him which lifted him from a bed of fever to join the Canadian expedition; of his daring exploits of espionage disguised as a French Catholic priest; of a hundred and one similar incidents in a life history which, as we read it, is far too strange not to be true.

Spectacular he was from his birth, and eventoday his name upon a page is enough to set up a whole theatre in our imaginations. Just one incident comes to me at this moment. It is so closely associated with the region with which this book is concerned, that I cannot but set it down in passing.

The story runs that it was a mistake in an order which sent General Knox of Silliman's Brigade to a small fort one mile from town (that is, about Grand Street), known as "Bunker's Hill"—not to be confounded with the other and more famous "Bunker"! It happened to be a singularly unfortunate position. There was neither food nor water in proper quantities, and the munitions were almost non-existent. The enemy was on the island.

Whether Major Burr, of Putnam's division, was sent under some regular authority, or whether he characteristically had taken the matter into his own hands, the histories I have read do not tell. But they do tell of his galloping up, breathless on a lathered horse, making the little force understand the danger of their position, pleading with his inimitable eloquence and advancing the reasons for their retreat at once. The men were stubborn; they did not want to retreat. But he talked. He proved that the English could take the scrap of a fort in four hours; he exhorted andurged, and at last he won. They said they would follow him. From that moment he took charge, and led them along the Greenwich Road through the woods, skirting the swamps, fording the rivers, to Harlem, to safety and to eventual victory.

This was only one of many instances in which his wit, his eloquence, his good sense, his leadership and his unquestioned personal daring served his country and served her well.

When Washington moved his headquarters to the Roger Morris house near the Point of Rocks, a period of comparative mystery descended for a time upon Richmond Hill. During the ensuing struggle, and before the formal evacuation of New York, the house is supposed to have been occupied off and on by British officers. But in 1783 they departed for good! and in 1789, Vice-president John Adams and Mistress Abigail came to live there.

We have already read two examples of Mrs. Adams' enthusiastic outpourings in regard to Richmond Hill. She was, in fact, never tired of writing of it. A favourite quotation of hers she always applied to the place:

"In this path,How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each stepShall wake fresh beauties; each last point presentA different picture, new, and each the same."

That entire neighbourhood was rich in game,—we have already seen that the Dutch farmers thought highly of the duck shooting near the Sand Hill Road, and that Minetta Brook was a first-class fishing stream. Birds of all sorts were plentiful, and the Adamses did their best to preserve them on their own place. But too keen sportsmen were always stealing into the Richmond Hill grounds for a shot or two. "Oh, for game laws!" was her constant wail. In one letter she declares: "The partridge, the woodcock and the pigeon are too great temptations for the sportsman to withstand!"

And please don't forget for one moment that this was at Charlton and Varick streets!

The House on the Hill was the home of quite ceremonious entertaining in those days. John Adams, in another land, would surely have been a courtier—a Cavalier rather than a Roundhead. John T. Morse, Jr., says that the Vice-president liked "the trappings of authority." The same historian declares that in his advice to President Washington, "... he talked of dress and undress, of attendants, gentlemen-in-waiting, chamberlains, etc., as if he werearranging the household of a European monarch."

Gulian C. Verplanck (sometimes known by the nom de plume of "Francis Herbert"), wrote in 1829, quite an interesting account of Richmond Hill as he personally recalled it. He draws for us a graphic picture of a dinner party given by the Vice-president and Mrs. Adams for various illustrious guests.

After entering the house by a side door on the right, they mounted a broad staircase with a heavy mahogany railing. Dinner was served in a large room on the second floor with Venetian windows and a door opening out onto the balcony under the portico. And then he gives us these vivid little vignettes of those who sat at the great table:

In the centre sat "Vice-president Adams in full dress, with his bag andsolitaire, his hair frizzed out each side of his face as you see it in Stuart's older pictures of him. On his right sat Baron Steuben, our royalist republican disciplinarian general. On his left was Mr. Jefferson, who had just returned from France, conspicuous in his red waistcoat and breeches, the fashion of Versailles. Opposite sat Mrs. Adams, with her cheerful, intelligent face. She was placed between the Count du Moustier, the French Ambassador, in his red-healedshoes and earrings, and the grave, polite, and formally bowing Mr. Van Birket, the learned and able envoy of Holland. There, too, was Chancellor Livingston, then still in the prime of life, so deaf as to make conversation with him difficult, yet so overflowing with wit, eloquence and information that while listening to him the difficulty was forgotten. The rest were members of Congress, and of our Legislature, some of them no inconsiderable men. Being able to talk French, a rare accomplishment in America at that time, a place was assigned to me next the count."

Verplanck goes on to describe the dinner. He says that it was a very grand affair, bountiful and elaborately served, but the French Ambassador would taste nothing. He took a spoonful or two of soup but refused everything else "from the roast beef down to the lobsters." Everyone was concerned, for that was a day of trenchermen, and only serious illness kept people from eating their dinners. At last the door opened and his own privatechef,—quaintly described by Verplanck as "his body-cook,"—rushed into the room pushing the waiters right and left before him, and placed triumphantly upon the table an immense pie of game and truffles, still hot from the oven. This obviously had been planned as a pleasant surprise for the hosts. Du Moustiertook a small helping himself and divided the rest among the others. The chronicler adds, "I can attest to the truth of the story and the excellence of thepâté!"

No one doubts the courteous intentions of the Count, but something tells me that that excellent housewife and incomparable hostess, Mistress Adams, was not enchanted by the unexpected addition to her delicious and carefully planned menu!

It is Verplanck, by the bye, who has put in a peculiarly succinct way one of the most signal characteristics of New York—its lightning-like evolution.

"In this city especially," he says, "the progress of a few years effect what in Europe is the work of centuries." A shrewd and happily tongued observer, is Mr. Verplanck; we shall have occasion, I believe, to refer to him again.

The Adams' occupancy of Richmond Hill House was, we must be convinced, a very happy one. It was a house of a flexible and versatile personality, a beautiful home, an important headquarters of many state affairs, a brilliant social nucleus. Washington and his wife often went there to call in their beloved post-chaise, and there was certainly no dignitary of the time and the place who was not at one time or another a guestthere. In the course of time, the Adamses went to a new and fine dwelling at Bush Hill on the Schuylkill. And dear Mistress Abigail, faithful to the house of her heart, wrote wistfully of her just-acquired home:

"It is a beautiful place, but the grand and sublime I left at Richmond Hill"...

In 1797, the house went to a rich foreigner named Temple. I quote the chronicles of old New York, but can give you little information concerning this gentleman. The only thing at all memorable or interesting about him seems to have been the fact that he was robbed of a large quantity of money and valuables while at the Hill, that the thieves were never discovered and that for this reason at least he filled the local press for quite a time. His occupancy seems to have been short, and, save for the robbery, uneventful (if he really was a picturesque and adventurous soul, I humbly ask pardon of his ghost, but this is all I can find out about him!)—for it was in that self-same year that the Burrs came to live at Richmond Hill, and Temple passed into obscurity as far as New York history is concerned.

Mrs. Burr, that older Theodosia who was the idol of Aaron Burr's life, had died three yearsbefore, and little Theo was now the head of his household. Have you ever read the letters that passed between these three, by the bye? They are so quaint, so human, so tender—I believe that you will agree with me that such reading has more of charm in it than the most dramatic modern novel. They bemoan their aches and pains and cheer each other up as though they were all little Theo's age. "Passed a most tedious night," writes Mrs. Burr, and adds that she has bought a pound of green tea for two dollars! And—"Ten thousand loves.Toujours la votreTheodosia."

Burr writes that he has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a draught "composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs." When their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair. "Stage after stage without a line!" complains Theodosia the mother, in one feverishly incoherent note. And Theodosia the daughter, even at nine years old, had her part in this correspondence.

Her father writes her that from the writing on her last envelope, he thought the letter must come from some "great fat fellow"! He advises her to write a little smaller, and says he loves to hear from her. Then he whimsically reproaches her for not saying a word about his last letter to her,nor answering a single one of his questions: "That is not kind—it is scarcely civil!"

When little Theodosia was eleven her mother died, and henceforward she was her father's housekeeper and dearest companion. She is said to have been beautiful, brilliant and fascinating even from her babyhood, and certainly the way in which she took charge of Richmond Hill at the age of fourteen would have done credit to a woman with at least another decade to her credit.

Burr had a beautiful city house besides the one on the Hill, but he and Theo both preferred the country place, and they entertained there as lavishly as the Adamses before them. Burr had a special affection for the French, and his house was always hospitably open to the expatriated aristocrats during the French Revolution. Volney stopped with him, and Talleyrand, and Louis Philippe himself. Among the Americans his most constant guests were Dr. Hosack, the Clintons, and, oddly enough, Alexander Hamilton! Hamilton, one imagines, found Burr personally interesting, though he had small use for his politics, and warned people against him as being that dangerous combination: a daring and adventurous spirit, quite without conservative principles or scruples.

Burr is described by one biographer as being"a well-dressed man, polite and confident, with hair powdered and tied in a queue." He stooped slightly, and did not move with the grace or ease one would have expected from so experienced a soldier, but he had "great authority of manner," and was uniformly "courtly, witty and charming." During one of those legal battles in which he had only one rival (Hamilton) it was reported of him that "Burr conducted the trial with the dignity and impartiality of an angel but with the rigour of a devil!"

Gen. Prosper M. Wetmore, who adores his memory and can find extenuation for anything and everything he did, writes this charming tribute:

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