HUDDY CAPTURED AT TOM'S RIVER.

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men who were garrisoning a rude fort, or block-house, which stood just north of the bridge at the village of Tom's River in Ocean county. This fort was attacked by the enemy, the expedition for that purpose being composed of forty refugees under the command of Captain Evan Thomas and Lieutenant Owen Roberts, of the Bucks county (Pa.) volunteers. They embarked at New York on the morning of Wednesday, the twentieth of March, on whaleboats manned whaleboats manned by Lieutenant Blanchard and eighty seamen. It was not until after midnight that the entire party landed at Coates Point on the north side of Tom's River. They were joined by a detachment of Ocean county refugees commanded by Richard Davenport. Securing a guide in one William Dillon, the force stole silently through the woods in the direction of the village, and at daylight on Sunday morning suddenly charged the fort. Captain Huddy and his men made a gallant defence with swivels, muskets and pikes, but the block-house was finally carried by assault after the garrison had exhausted its ammunition, one-third of the men being killed.

The brave commander was conveyed to New York, and subsequently to Sandy Hook, where he was confined, heavily ironed, in the hold of a guard-ship. Six days after Huddy was taken, a refugee named White, a Shrewsbury carpenter, was captured by a party of county light-horse. He was placed in charge of three men, the father of one of whom had been murdered the year before by some loyalists, White being of the party. The wheel of fortune had made an unhappy revolution for this Shrewsbury carpenter. When his guard was relieved he was found dead, the explanation being given that he had been shot while endeavoring to escape. There is no doubt, however, that a son had cruelly avenged the murder of a father. Though this occurred after the capture of Huddy, the refugees, eager for a pretence whereby his death could be encompassed, charged him with being privy to the killing of White. Without listening to a defence, or even going through the form of a trial, poor Huddy was hurried to Gravelly Point by a band of sixteen loyalists under one Captain Lippencott, and there barbarously hanged on a gallows hastily formed of three fence-rails and a flour-barrel. It is said that he died with extraordinary firmness, and that with

a serene mind and a steady hand he drew up his will on the head of the barrel from which, a few moments later, he was forced to spring into eternity. His murderers left a label affixed to his breast upon which was written an attempted justification of their act, ending with: "Up goes Huddy for Philip White." Richard Lippencott, the self-constituted executioner, was a renegade Jerseyman and an officer in a refugee regiment, the King's Rangers, whose colonel, Robert Rogers, had preceded Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe in the command of the Queen's Rangers.

This inhuman murder filled the country with indignation, and urgent demands were made that immediate punishment should be visited upon the murderer. Thereupon the authorities insisted that the British commands should deliver up Lippencott, threatning that, otherwise, one of the English officers in their hands must die in his stead. In furtherance of this retaliatory measure eight captains and five lieutenants, who were on their paroles in Pennsylvania, were directed to report at Lancaster, in order that the victim might be selected. They assembled on the morning of the twenty-fifth of May in a room of the Black Bear tavern,-twenty mounted dragoons waiting in the inn yard to bear away the unfortunate who should be chosen.

In the presence of Brigadier-General Moses Hazen, commandant; his aide, Captain White; Mr. Witz, commissary of prisoners; Major Gordon, a paroled British officer in the charge of prisoners; and the dragoon officer, the lots were drawn. The names of the thirteen British officers were written on separate slips of paper and placed in a hat; another hat contained thirteen slips of the same size, all blank but one, which was inscribed, "unfortunate." Captain White and the commissary held the hat while two drummer-boys simultaneously drew the papers. When the one was reached on which was written "unfortunate," it appeared with a slip containing the name of Captain Asgill of the "Foot Guards" who was the youngest officer present; he was a youth possessing many graces of mind and person, and was of high connections in England. At once, upon the result of the drawing being known, the brigadier turned to the dragoonofficer, saying,-"This gentleman, Sir, is your prisoner." The meeting then broke up, every one in tears excepting the young man selected. Major Gordon prevailed upon General Hazen to

CAPTAIN ASGILL AT CHATHAM.

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delay the departure until Tuesday the twenty-seventh; on that day Asgill and Gordon left Lancaster for Philadelphia, escorted by the dragoons. From there the unfortunate British officer was sent to the Jersey line at Chatham, the place assigned for his execution, and put in charge of Colonel Elias Dayton of the 2d New Jersey regiment. Washington wrote the colonel on the

fourth of June directing him:

Treat Captain Asgill with every tenderness and association, and politeness consistent with his present situation which his rank, fortune, and connections, together with his private state, demands.

A few days later, Washington, fearing that Dayton was following his instructions too literally, thus wrote him again:

Sir, I am informed that Captain Asgill is at Chatham without a guard, and under no restraint. This, if true, is certainly wrong; I wish to have the young gentleman treated with all possible tenderness consistent with his present situation, but considered as a close prisoner and kept in the greatest security. I request, therefore, that he may be sent immediately to the Jersey line where he is to be kept close prisoner in perfect security till further orders.

At first it appeared as if nothing could avert the dire extremity of Asgill's execution. Washington was deeply afflicted by the unhappy fate menacing the young officer, but, after deliberation, his determination had been firmly fixed on retaliation as the only means of preventing a continuance of refugee iniquities. The sympathies of America and Europe were aroused in behalf of Asgill, who was but little more than a boy. Sir Guy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry Clinton in the command of the British army, successfully appealed to Washington for delay. Later he submitted the result of a court-martial, whereby Lippencott had been exonerated on the ground that William Franklin, ex-colonial governor of New Jersey and the then president of the "Board of Associated Loyalists,” had given verbal orders for the execution of Huddy because, as it was claimed, he had been a persecutor of the king's faithful subjects in New Jersey. Sir Guy, who was a man of broad views and great humanity, broke up this "Board of Loyalists," and in a communication to Washington declared that notwithstanding the acquittal of Lippencott he "reprobated the measure, " and gave assurances of prosecuting a further inquiry.

Meanwhile the commander-in-chief and congress were besieged with communications and memorials praying that the life of the

proposed victim might be spared. Finally the sympathies and good offices of our country's valued allies, the French, were enlisted, and Count de Vergennes, representing the court of France, made a strong appeal to congress in behalf of clemency. In support of this appeal he presented a most tender and pathetic letter that had been addressed to him by the British officer's mother, pleading, as only a mother could plead, that mercy might supersede the necessity for retaliation. This, together with the prospect of a speedy peace, rendering the motive for avengement as a preventative of future murder unnecessary, materially changed the situation of affairs.

There was another circumstance that powerfully influenced congress and the country in sustaining altered views regarding the fate of the young soldier. Washington had been very much distressed that General Hazen had been unable to send him for purposes of retaliation an officer who was an unconditional prisoner. Asgill was among those who had surrendered with Cornwallis. The fourteenth article of the capitulation expressly excluded all the prisoners from liability to be used as hostages in subsequent reprisals, and the British Major Gordon on the twenty-seventh of May had protested strongly in writing against a violation of the terms of surrender. Washington in a letter to the secretary of war on the fifth of June acknowledged being sorely embarrassed by the possible infringement of the article of surrender, and begged that the secretary would transmit to him his views, and those of members of congress with whom he had talked on the subject. As the days went on, public feeling grew stronger that, even if poor Huddy was unavenged, good faith demanded that retaliation should not be visited on the British in the person of Captain Asgill. So, altogether, it began to appear as if he was not destined to atone for the death of the American captain.

On the twenty-fifth of August General Washington ordered Colonel Dayton to leave his charge on parole at Morristown, and on the seventh of November congress, recognizing the altered sentiment of the country, directed that the prisoner should be unconditionally set at liberty. And thus, happily, historians, in writing of the closing year of the Revolution, have not been forced to devote a chapter to the recital of the distressing details of a final blood reprisal.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Peace-Prostration of the Country After the War-American Loyalists and Their Experiences-The Inquisition Against William Melick and the Confiscation of His Property.

Of all the general orders issued by Washington to the army during the war, none was received with more profound satisfaction than the one dated, "Head Quarters, Chatham, April 18th, 1783," which directed the cessation of hostilities. It further ordered that an accompanying proclamation of peace should be read the next evening at the head of every regiment of the army, after which the brigade chaplains were to render thanks to Almighty God for "over-ruling the wrath of man to his own glory, and causing the rage of war to cease among the nations." At the same time an extra ration of liquor was to be issued to every soldier, to drink "Perpetual peace and happiness to the United States of America."

On the third of September the final treaty of peace was signed at Paris, and definite treaties entered into with other countries, whereby the liberty and independence of the United States were fully acknowledged, and the country was received among the great family of nations. There was nothing left for the patriot army to do but to disband. Furloughs were freely granted to the soldiers, who upon going home were not required to return. On the third of November the entire army was discharged, and thus a force of nearly ten thousand men were dismissed and dispersed over the states without, with but one exception, tumult or disorder. The officers received five years' full pay in money, or, at their election, half pay for life. The case of the privates was, indeed, hard. The general government found itself power