Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1899-10-26
llow above the height of Brookland fnow

yellow above the height of Brookland inow
Brooklyn.
Off Wall street lay many of Howe's fleet,
though the largest number was posted south
Of Nuttens island Governors island), in
readiness to oppose the French, who were
daily expected.
But in the fair harmony of sky and land
and water there was one discordant note.
The horrible hulk of the Jersey, within easy
scope of the eye, was directly opposite, and
more than once did l see her unload her
dead, and could almost hear the cry Of
Down, ye rebels, DOWN." as the patriot
prisoners were driven below at sunset.
Excepting in the shipyard and through
the sparsely built district lying betwixt the
line of Notifications and the city proper on
the westward side of the island, there was
scarcely rood OF land to which l could fee
and not come in contact with the evidence
of war. The quiet desolation or barrenness
of the former and the broad, green mead
ows, the song of birds, the harmonious hush
of nature and calmness of the evening skies
at the latter point were in marked contrast
with the hell lying close at hand Had the
devil come on earth in his proper person, as
some poet has made him out to have done,
and landed in New York, he would have
rubbed his hands and switched his barbed
tail in glee at the work of his emissaries who
were serving him as but few so-called Chris
tians serve the Almighty.
Barefaced inhumanity stalked before So
ciety and caused laugh. Cruelty had be-
come a pastime. Domesticity was dead.
Robbery seemed set to the music of pop
ular song, so universal it became, nor was
it confined to the confiscation of property
belonging to patriots. An uninitiated stran-
ger would have found some difficulty in de-
termining whether this brilliant assem-
blage was exerting itself as much toward
suppressing a rebellious people as it was
in making war on the kings treasury.
There may have been honest men in New
York during the summer of IT'S, but as yet
| had failed to strike them. Every one with
whom had to do was gambler, thief, or
a drunkard-frequently all three-and
dare swear that, were the truth known, one
term or the other applied to the whole
army, from Sir Henry Clinton to the last
subaltern, and from the bowe,less villain of
a provost marshal, Cunningham, to the low
est besotted turnkey under his thumb.
New York had ceased to be town. 1t
was nothing more than fortified camp, in
which neither justice nor mercy might be
found. Morally, it had become a vast, open
sore, spreading its corruption beyond itself.
Virtue was a weight on man and woman Il
speak but of the rule), and power the only
recognized right.
l was nightly depressed at this time.
Seasoned though | was, | shrank from life
as | saw it, and sickened of those into whose
company my policy forced me. In fact, l
might have made a shift to get myself from
this sink of heartless depravity, only my
gold still swung at the end of a cable within
pistol shot of the shore, and none knew it,
Many a night had | lain awake Matching
schemes to get aboard and recover it, but
they were worse than foolhardy, as knew
after a second thinking, so l took it out in
watching and bidingmy time.
AS the days sped, had little or no fear
for myself. Lounsbury was probably well