The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-05-25

Early in 1776 this brave but headstrong officer,
begged to be despatched from Boston to Connect
cut, for the purpose of raising volunteers, and of
reinforcing the New Jersey and New York bat
talions under his command. With Governor
Trumbull's aid, General Lee succeeded in evying
twelve hundred men among the jealous inhabit-
ants of that spirited province and reached New
York with his recruits on the fourth of Februa-
ry. He was met on the frontier by the earnest
entreaty of the committee of safety, who exer-
cised the powers of government during the re-
cess of our Provincial Congress, that he should
pause upon the borders of Connecticut. Captain
Parker, of the Asia man-of-war, had menaced the
town with destruction, should it be entered by
any large body of provincials. Undsmayed by
these threats, and disregardng the prayer of the
timd corporation, Lee crossed the confines. I'm
mediately after his arrival, conscious of the de-
signs of the British in this vital quarter, and of
the need of entire harmony between himself and
the local authorities he induced congress to take
its jurisdiction out of the hands of these officers,
and to detach from their own body committee Of
three, who with the council and himself, were to
confer upon plan of defence. His orders were
to fortify the town, to dsarm all persons unfriend
lily to the American cause, and especially Ito
watch and counteract the movements of band of
tories assembled on Long Island serpents,' says
be ruinous not to crush before their rattles are
grown This duty we may fancy him to have
undertaken with peculiar satisfaction. The oper
atoms of these tories and of Governor Tryon their
Corypheus, would prove an interesting theme of
research. 1t may be remarked, en- paSSaast that
though the city of New York was stained in
those days by strong imputations of torysm, the
stigma was unjust. In mixtures of colors, it re-
quires but little of darker hue to deepen the
brightest tints; and General Lee found the ma
jority well affected as any on the continent
During the short period of his stay, this officers
proceedings were extremely active. His intended
Notifications were projected on a comprehensive
scale. With an intelligent eye, he embraced the
extensive localities to be defended, and detected
their vulnerable points. A redoubt and battery at
Helgate were destined to prevent the passage of
the enemy's ships to and fro in the Sound. Sim
liar works were contemplated on the North River
and the oppugnahle portions of the town were re-
formed and strengthened. Long-Island was too
important field to escape his vigilance and he
fixed, for the location of an entrenched camp, up
on the very spot which subsequently became the
scene of conflict.
1t were presumptuous, nay useless, to attempt
to picture New York as she then was, when so
many readers, far more wildly than the writer
realize from memory the vast alterations less than
half century has produced in the metropolis OF
the new world. On the walls of the New Y orll
Historical Society rooms hang various interesting
maps, whereby some idea may be formed of those
ancient features and dimensions, from which, to
the present magnitude of our city, the transition
is as unparalleled as it seems incredible. The old
Knckerbocker town is laid down on one map as
it existed under the Stuyvesant dominion. In an
other may be found the English city, before and
after tina: disastrous fire, of which the ravages are
delineated in a separate drawing, by an ancient
eyewitness. General Lees letters represent mill
ary operations not easily traced upon the transform
ed surface. Broadway was barricaded two hun
dred yards in the of the dismantled fort, and
all the streets leading to it were to be defended by
barriers He speaks, too, of erecting batteries on
an eminence behind Trinity church. to picture
which to ones self at the present day, requires no
little stretch of the imagination.
know not whether these local changes NAV in
terest the reader, but to me they seem truthful IL
Illustrations of our fleeing destiny. Cities are the
theatres of nations, where the busy throng enact
an endless and varying drama, full of life and of
reality And, let me ask, what object can fill with
lonelier sense of desolaton the wanderer beneath
the sunny skies of Greece, or moon-illumined hea-
ven OF Italy, than the crumbling walls, the desert
ed benches, the voiceless echoes of the theatre
where the living representations ofthe poets fancy
were once deifed by the enthusiasm of the crowd
When the ruins of an old city become in turn the
foundations of new one, the pilgrim vanly seeks
the traces of the past and the lesson becomes still
more impressive.
10 be continued.
Progress of Reform.