posts, was the acquisition, at Ticonderoga, of one hundred and twenty
pieces of cannon, some swivels, mortars, and small arms; and at Crown
Point, of sixty-one cannon and some small stores.
The Green Mountain Boys were at this time under sentence of outlawry
from the Provincial Government; but after the good service they had done
at Ticonderoga, they were formed into a separate regiment, and permitted
to nominate their own officers. Their services to the cause of
Independence are well known.
[Illustration]
VIEW FROM FORT PUTNAM.
* * * * *
This fort, which commands the military position of West Point, and which
was considered so important during the revolutionary war, is now in
ruins, and is visited by all travellers for the superb view which it
affords of the sublime pass of the Highlands. This was the great key
which Arnold’s treachery intended to give into the hands of the English;
and, associated with the memory of the unfortunate André, and with other
painful events of the conspiracy, it possesses an interest which is
wanting to other objects of the same description in our country.
Washington’s visit of inspection to Fort Putnam, and the other redoubts
on this side the river, was made only two or three hours before his
discovery of the treason of Arnold, at that moment as he supposed in
command at West Point. The commander-in-chief was expected to arrive the
evening before, and had he done so, Arnold would probably never have
escaped. Having accidentally met the French minister, M. de Lucerne, at
Fishkill, however (eight miles above), he was induced to pass the night
there for the purpose of some conference, and set off early in the
morning on horseback, sending on a messenger to Mrs. Arnold that himself
and suite would be with her to breakfast. Arriving opposite West Point,
near a small redoubt called Fort Constitution, Washington turned his
horse from the road. Lafayette, who was then in his suite, called out,
“General, you are going in the wrong direction; you know Mrs. Arnold is
waiting breakfast for us.” “Ah,” answered Washington, “I know you young
men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold, and wish to get where she is as
soon as possible. Go and take your breakfast with her, and tell her not
to wait for me: I must ride down and examine the redoubts on this side
the river.” Two of the aides rode on, found breakfast waiting, and sat
down at once with General Arnold and his family. While they were at
table, a messenger came in with a letter for Arnold, which announced the
capture of André, and the failure and betrayal, of course, of the whole
conspiracy. Showing little or no emotion, though his life hung upon a
thread, he merely said to one of his aides that his presence was
required at West Point; and, leaving word for General Washington that he
was called over the river, but would return immediately, he ordered a
horse and sent for Mrs. Arnold to her chamber. He then informed her
abruptly that they must part, possibly for ever, and that his life
depended on his reaching the enemy’s lines without delay. Struck with
horror at this intelligence, she swooned and fell senseless. In that
state he left her, hurried down stairs, mounted a horse belonging to one
of his aides that stood saddled at the door, and rode with all speed to
the bank of the river. A boat with six men was in waiting; and,
pretending that he was going with a flag of truce, he pulled down the
stream, and arrived safe on board the Vulture sloop of war, lying some
miles below.
Having finished his inspection of the redoubt, Washington arrived at
Arnold’s house, received the message, and concluded to cross immediately
and meet Arnold at West Point. As the whole party were seated in the
barge moving smoothly over the water, with the majestic scenery of the
highlands about them, Washington said, “Well, gentlemen, I am glad, on
the whole, that General Arnold has gone before us, for we shall now have
a salute; and the roaring of the cannon will have a fine effect among
these mountains.” The boat drew near to the beach, but no cannon were
heard, and there was no appearance of preparation to receive them.
“What!” said Washington, “do they not intend to salute us!” At this
moment an officer was seen making his way down the hill to meet them,
who seemed confused at their arrival, and apologized for not being
prepared to receive such distinguished visitors. “How is this, Sir,”
said Washington, “is not General Arnold here?” “No, Sir,” replied the
officer, “he has not been here these two days, nor have I heard from him
within that time.” “This is extraordinary,” said Washington; “we were
told he had crossed the river, and that we should find him here.
However, our visit must not be in vain. Since we have come, we must look
round a little, and see in what state things are with you.” He then
ascended the hill, examined Fort Putnam and the other fortifications,
and returned to Arnold’s house, where the treason was at once revealed.
This had occupied two or three hours, however, and Arnold was beyond
pursuit. Washington retained his usual calmness, though Arnold was one
of his favourite officers, and had been placed at West Point by his own
personal influence with Congress. He called Lafayette and Knox, showed
them the proofs, and only said to the former, “Whom can we trust now!”
[Illustration]
VIEW OF STATE STREET, BOSTON.
* * * * *
Boston is situated at the head of Massachusetts bay, on a peninsula
about four miles in circumference, and is about three miles in length,
and one mile and twenty-five rods, where widest, in breadth, and is
connected with the main land at the south end by a narrow isthmus,
called the Neck, leading to Roxbury. The town is built in an irregular
circular form round the harbour, which is studded with about forty small
islands, many of which afford excellent pasture; and are frequented in
summer by numerous parties of pleasure. The harbour is formed by Nahant
Point on the north, and Point Alderton on the south, and is so capacious
as to allow five hundred vessels to ride at anchor in a good depth of
water, while the entrance is so narrow as scarcely to admit two ships
abreast. The entrance is defended by Fort Independence, belonging to the
United States, on Castle Island, and by Fort Warren, on Governor’s
Island. There is another fort, called Fort Strong, on Noddle’s Island.
Alterations and additions have of late years greatly improved the
appearance of Boston. The streets, which were formerly almost without an
exception narrow and crooked, have been in a great degree rendered wide
and commodious; the old wooden structures have in the greater part of
the city been replaced by handsome buildings of stone or brick. In the
western part, particularly, there is much neatness and elegance. The
splendour of the private buildings here, is not equalled in any other
part of the Union.
The literary institutions of this city are of the first order. The
public libraries contain 70,000 volumes. The Boston Athenæum is the
finest establishment of its kind in the United States; its library
contains above 25,000 volumes, and a reading-room, in which the most
esteemed periodicals, from all parts of the world, may be found. If we
add to these the library of Harvard College, in the neighbourhood, of
40,000 volumes, making the number of books within the reach of the
citizens 110,000, it must be allowed that Boston offers to the scholar a
more advantageous residence than any other spot in the western world.
STATE STREET, called King Street in the days of Stamp-acts and “the
Regulars,” is the main artery of the heart of New England. The old State
House, which stands at the head of it, was called the Town House, and
was first erected in 1660. It is honourably mentioned in a book of
travels, written in a pleasant vein, by “John Josselyn, Gent.” who
visited the colonies in 1663. “There is also a Town House,” he says,
“built upon pillars, where the merchants may confer. In the chambers
above they hold their monthly courts. Here is the dwelling of the
Governor (Bellingham). On the south there is a small but pleasant
common, where the gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their
marmalet madams, as we do in Moorfields, till the nine o’clock bell
rings them home to their respective habitations; when presently, the
constables walk the rounds to see good order kept, and to take up loose
people.” The State House has been twice burnt, and rebuilt. A council
chamber, ornamented with full-length portraits of Charles II. and James
II. formerly occupied the east end; and it was in this chamber that
James Otis declared before a court of admiralty, that “taxation without
representation is tyranny,”—a phrase which became, before long, a
slogan in the mouths of the people. “Then and there,” writes President
Adams, “was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the
arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there, the child
Independence was born.” It was upon a trial of the question of “Writs
for Assistance,” a power which was required by the Board of Trade to
enforce some new and rigorous Acts of Parliament touching trade; and
Otis opposed the Attorney-General. “As soon as he had concluded,” says
the historian, “Otis burst forth as with a flame of fire, with a
promptitude of classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summary
of historical events, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic
glance into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, which
carried all before him.” This was the preparation for the resistance to
the Stamp Act, and the Revolution soon followed.
State Street has been the scene of most of the events of a very public
nature, which are recorded in the annals of Boston. The balcony of the
State House is the popular pulpit, and hence was read the Declaration of
Independence, and from hence declaimed Colonel David Crockett, who
“could lick his weight in wild-cats.” In 1770 the “Boston massacre” took
place in State Street. For several days preceding the event, there had
been disturbances between the king’s soldiers and the townspeople, which
had put the officers on the alert. The soldiers were collected into the
barracks before night, and sentinels were placed around them at all
hours to prevent difficulty. One of these sentinels was stationed in a
narrow alley, and was striking fire against the walls with his sword,
for amusement, when two or three young men attempted to pass him. Having
orders to let no one pass, a struggle ensued, and one of the young men
received a wound on the head. The noise of the rencontre drew together a
considerable crowd, and as but few could enter the narrow scene of
action, the remainder listened to an inflammatory speech from “a tall
man, with a red cloak, and a white wig,” in the adjacent square. At the
close of the oration there was a general cry “To the main guard!” and
the crowd rushed tumultuously toward its station in State Street. On
their way they passed the Custom House, before the door of which stood a
single sentinel. Alarmed at their approach, he retreated up the steps,
and, the people collecting around, he sent word to the barracks, near
by, that he was attacked, and a company in a few moments arrived to his
assistance, and formed a half circle round the steps. The captain of the
day, named Preston, followed immediately, and the Custom House, which
stood at the corner of State and Exchange Streets, was soon thronged by
a considerable multitude. The soldiers were soon pressed upon very
closely by the mob, who were mostly armed with clubs; and those at a
distance soon began to throw snowballs, followed by fragments of ice,
stones and sticks, while from every side came the cry, “_Fire, if you
dare!_” The soldiers soon heard, or thought they heard, the order, and
they fired in quick succession from right to left. Two or three of the
guns flashed, but the rest were fatal. Three persons were killed on the
spot, two received wounds of which they died next day, and others were
more slightly injured. The people immediately dispersed, leaving the
dead bodies in the street, but returned in a few minutes; when the
soldiers aimed once more at them, but the commanding officer struck up
the guns with his sword. The drum was beat to arms, and several of the
officers, on their way to join the guard, were knocked down, and their
swords taken from them. Order was soon restored, and Captain Preston
delivered himself up for trial. The dead were buried with some pomp, and
when the excitement had subsided a little, Preston was tried and
acquitted.
State Street is at present a street of banks, insurance offices, and
similar institutions; and its side walk serves for the merchants’
exchange. The buildings are of granite, and some of them, particularly a
new bank, lately erected near Kilby Street, present very creditable
specimens of city architecture.
[Illustration]
NIAGARA FALLS, FROM CLIFTON HOUSE.
* * * * *
The most comprehensive view of Niagara is, no doubt, that from the
galleries of this hotel; but it is, at the same time, for a first view,
one of the most unfavourable. Clifton House stands nearly opposite the
centre of the irregular crescent formed by the Falls; but it is so far
back from the line of the arc, that the height and grandeur of the two
cataracts, to an eye unacquainted with the scene, are deceptively
diminished. After once making the tour of the points of view, however,
the distance and elevation of the hotel are allowed for by the eye, and
the situation seems most advantageous. This is the only house at Niagara
where a traveller, on his second visit, would be content to live.
Clifton House is kept in the best style of hotels in this country; but
the usual routine of such places, going on in the very eye of Niagara,
weaves in very whimsically with the eternal presence and power of the
cataract. We must eat, drink, and sleep, it is true, at Niagara as
elsewhere; and indeed, what with the exhaustion of mind and fatigue of
body, we require at the Falls perhaps more than usual of these three
“blessed inventions.” The leaf that is caught away by the Rapids,
however, is not more entirely possessed by this wonder of nature, than
is the mind and imagination of the traveller; and the arrest of that
leaf by the touch of the overhanging tree, or the point of a rock amid
the breakers, is scarce more momentary than the interruption to the
traveller’s enchantment by the circumstances of daily life. He falls
asleep with its surging thunders in his ear, and wakes—to wonder, for
an instant, if his yesterday’s astonishment was a dream. With the
succeeding thought, his mind refills, like a mountain channel, whose
torrent has been suspended by the frost, and he is overwhelmed with
sensations that are almost painful, from the suddenness of their return.
He rises and throws up his window, and there it flashes, and thunders,
and agonizes—the same almighty miracle of grandeur for ever going on;
and he turns and wonders—What the deuce can have become of his
stockings! He slips on his dressing-gown, and commences his toilet. The
glass stands in the window, and with his beard half achieved, he gets a
glimpse of the foam-cloud rising majestically over the top of the
mahogany frame. Almost persuaded, like Queen Christina at the fountains
of St. Peter’s, that a spectacle of such splendour is not intended to
last, he drops his razor, and with the soap drying unheeded on his chin,
he leans on his elbows, and watches the yeasty writhe in the abysm, and
the solemn pillars of crystal eternally falling, like the fragments of
some palace-crested star, descending through interminable space. The
white field of the iris forms over the brow of the cataract, exhibits
its radiant bow, and sails away in a vanishing cloud of vapour upon the
wind; the tortured and convulsed surface of the caldron below shoots out
its frothy and seething circles in perpetual torment; the thunders are
heaped upon each other, the earth trembles, and—the bell rings for
breakfast! A vision of cold rolls, clammy omelettes, and tepid tea,
succeeds these sublime images, and the traveller completes his toilet.
Breakfast over, he resorts to the colonnade, to contemplate untiringly
the scene before him, and in the midst of a calculation of the progress
of the Fall towards Lake Erie,—with the perspiration standing on his
forehead, while he struggles to conceive the junction of its waters with
Lake Ontario,—the rocks rent, the hills swept away, forests prostrated,
and the islands uprooted in the mighty conflux,—some one’s child
escapes from its nurse, and seizing him by the legs, cries out
“_Da-da_.”
The _ennui_ attendant upon public-houses can never be felt at Clifton
House. The most common mind finds the spectacle from its balconies a
sufficient and untiring occupation. The loneliness of uninhabited
parlours, the discord of baby-thrummed pianos, the dreariness of great
staircases, long entries, and bar-rooms filled with strangers, are pains
and penalties of travel never felt at Niagara. If there is a vacant
half-hour to dinner, or if indisposition to sleep create that sickening
yearning for society, which sometimes comes upon a stranger in a strange
land, like the calenture of a fever,—the eternal marvel going on
without is more engrossing than friend or conversation, more beguiling
from sad thought than the Corso in carnival-time. To lean over the
balustrade and watch the flying of the ferry-boat below, with its
terrified freight of adventurers, one moment gliding swiftly down the
stream in the round of an eddy, the next, lifted up by a boiling wave,
as if it were tossed up from the scoop of a giant’s hand beneath the
water; to gaze hour after hour into the face of the cataract, to trace
the rainbows, delight like a child in the shooting spray-clouds, and
calculate fruitlessly and endlessly by the force, weight, speed, and
change of the tremendous waters,—is amusement and occupation enough to
draw the mind from any thing,—to cure madness or create it.
[Illustration]
VIEW FROM HYDE PARK.
* * * * *
The Hudson at Hyde Park is a broad, tranquil, and noble river, of about
the same character as the Bosphorus above Roumeli-bissar, or the
Dardanelles at Abydos. The shores are cultivated to the water’s edge,
and lean up in graceful, rather than bold elevations; the eminences
around are crested with the villas of the wealthy inhabitants of the
metropolis at the river’s mouth; summer-houses, belvideres, and
water-steps, give an air of enjoyment and refreshment to the banks, and,
without any thing like the degree of the picturesque which makes the
river so remarkable thirty or forty miles below, it is, perhaps, a more
tempting character of scenery to build and live among.
All along, in this part of the river, occur the “landings,” which are
either considerable towns in themselves, or indicate a thickly settled
country in the rear. The immense steamers that ply on the Hudson leave
and receive passengers at all these points, and, to a person making the
passage for the first time, the manner and expedition of this operation
is rather startling. In the summer time, the principal steam boats
average from five to seven hundred passengers, and there is usually a
considerable number to go ashore and come off at each place. A mile or
two before reaching the spot, a negro makes the tour of the boat, with a
large hand-bell, and, in an amusing speech, full of the idioms of his
own race, announces the approach, and requests those who are going
ashore to select their baggage. This done, the steamer, gliding over the
smooth water at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles in the hour, sheers
in toward the shore, and the small boat is lowered, with the captain in
her at the helm; the passengers are put on board, and away she shoots at
the end of a line gradually loosened, but still kept tight enough to
send her, like an arrow to her mark. The moment she touches the pier,
the loose line is let out from the steamer, which still keeps on her
way, and between that moment and the exhaustion of the line, perhaps
thirty seconds, the baggage is thrown out, and taken in, passengers jump
ashore, and embark, and away shoots the little boat again, her bow
rising clear over the crest of her own foam, with the added velocity of
the steamer at full speed, and the rapid hauling in of the crew. I never
have failed to observe a look of astonishment on the part of the
subjects of this hurried transfer, however used to it by frequent
repetition; and a long sigh of relief, as they look about on the broad
and steady deck, or tread the ground beneath them if they have gone
ashore, follows as invariably. As the boat is hauled up again, the negro
crier reappears with his bell, and, looking the newly arrived group
close in the face, cries out, as if they were a mile off, “All pas’ng’rs
as hasn’t paid their passage, please walk to the cap’n’s office and
settLE-E-E!!”—the whole sentence recited in the most monotonous tone
till the last syllable, which rises suddenly to a ludicrous scream,
prolonged as long as his breath will continue it.
Many fatal accidents occurred formerly from this practice; but there is
now more care and time taken about it, and the accidents, if any, are
rather ludicrous than serious. I was going to Albany, some years ago, on
board a very crowded boat, and among the passengers were a German and
his wife, emigrants of the lower class. They had been down stairs at
dinner, and the husband came up in search of his wife, who had preceded
him, just as a crowded boatful were going ashore at Poughkeepsie. Either
fancying it the end of his journey, or misunderstanding the man who was
busy with the baggage, he threw in his bundle, and was peeping through
the crowd of ladies on the stern for his wife; when one of the men,
impatient of his delay, drew him in, and away he flew to the pier. He
sprang ashore with the rest, his bundle was thrown after him, and, as
the steamer sped away, we saw him darting about in the crowd to find his
_vrouw_, who by this time had missed him, and was running from side to
side, in quite as great embarrassment on board. The poor woman’s
distress was quite pitiable, and when, at last, one of the passengers,
who had observed them together, pointed out to her her husband, in his
flat cap and foreign _bleuse_, standing on the receding pier, with his
hands stretched out after the boat, her agony could no longer be
controlled. She was put ashore at the next landing to return by the
“down boat;” but as another boat up the river arrived soon after at
Poughkeepsie, the probability was, that he would embark again to follow
her, and they would thus cross each other by the way; with scarce a word
of English, and probably very little money, they may be hunting each
other to this day.
[Illustration]
VILLAGE OF SING-SING.
* * * * *
Sing-Sing is famous for its marble, of which there is an extensive
quarry near by; for its State prison, of which the discipline is of the
most salutary character; and for its academy, which has a high
reputation. It may be said, altogether, to do the State some service.
The county of West Chester, of which this is the principal village on
the Hudson, has been made the scene of, perhaps, the best historical
novel of our country, and, more than any other part of the United
States, suffered from the evils of war. The character and depredations
of the “cow-boys” and “skinners,” whose fields of action were on the
skirts of this neutral ground, are familiar to all who have read “the
Essay” of Mr. Cooper. A distinguished clergyman gives the following very
graphic picture of West Chester county in those days:—