*** Turtle Bay is a small rock-bound cove of the East River, at the foot of Forty-seventh Street. The banks are high and precipitous, and afforded a safe retreat for small vessels. Here the government had made a magazine of military stores, and these the Sons of Liberty determined to seize. Under the direction of Lamb, Sears, Willett, and M'Dougal, a party procured a sloop at Greenwich, came stealthily through the dangerous vortex of Hell Gate at twilight, and at midnight surprised and captured the guard, and secured the stores. The old store-house in which they were deposited is yet standing upon a wharf on the southern side of the little bay. The above view is from the bank at the foot of Forty-sixth Street. Beyond the rocky point on the north side of the bay is seen the lower end of Blackwell's Island, with the shore of Long Island in the distance. On the left of the old store-house, delineated in the annexed sketch, is seen the bridge across the mouth of Newtown Creek, a locality which will be mentioned presently in connection with a notice of the landing of troops under Sir Henry Clinton.
* The following-named gentlemen composed the committee of One Hundred: Isaae Low, Chairman; John Jay, Fraud's Lewis, John Alsop, Philip Livingston, James Duane, E. Duyekman, William Seton, William W. Ludlow, Cornelius Clopper, Abraham Brinekerhoff, Henry Remsen, Robert Ray, Evert Bancker, Joseph Totten, Abraham P. Lott, David Beekman, Isaae Roosevelt, Gabriel II. Ludlow, William Walton, Daniel Phoenix, Frederick Jay, Samuel Broome, John De Lancey. Augustus van Horne, Abraham Duryee, Samuel Verplanck, Rudolphus Putzema, John Morton, Joseph Hallett, Robert Benson, Abraham Brasher, Leonard Lispenard, Nicholas Hoffman, P. V. Brugh Livingston, Thomas Marsten, Lewis Pintard, John Imlay, Eleazar Miller, Jr.. John Broome, John B. Moore, Nicholas Bogart, John Anthony, Victor Bicker, William Goforth, Hercules Mulljin, Alexander M'Dougal, John Reade, Joseph Ball, George Janeway, John White, Gabriel W. Ludlow, John Lasher, Theophilus Anthony, Thomas Smith, Richard Liates, Oliver Templeton, Jacobus van Landby, Jeremiah Platt, Peter S. Curtenius, Thomas Randall, Lancaster Burling, Benjamin Kissam, Jacoh Lefferts, Anthony van Dam, Abraham Walton, Hamilton Young, Nicholas Roosevelt, Cornelius P. Low, Franeis Bassett, James Beekman, Thomas Ivers, William Dunning, John Berrien, Benjamin Helme, William W. Gilbert, Daniel Dunscombe, John Lamb, Richard Sharpe, John Morin Seott, Jacob van Voorhis, Comfort Sands, Edward Flemming, Peter Goelet, Gerrit Kettletas, Thomas Buchanan, James Desbrosses, Petrus Byvanek, Lott Embree.—See Dunlap's History of New York, ii., Appendix, ccxvi.
Removal of Cannons from the Battery.—Cannonade from the Asia.—Newspapers in the City.
the sturdy Son of Liberty was now called, he proceeded to the battery at nine o'clock on lhe evening of the twenty-third of August. Captain Vandeput, of the Asia, informed of the intended movement, sent a barge filled with armed men to watch the patriots. When they appeared, a musket ball was indiscreetly sent among them from the barge. It was answered by a volley, when the barge hastened to the Asia, bearing several men killed and wounded. That vessel opened her port-holes, and hurled three balls ashore in quick succession. Lamb ordered the drums to beat to arms; the church bells were rung, and while all was confusion and alarm, a broadside came from the Asia. Others rapidly followed, and several houses near the fort and Whitehall were injured by the grape and round shot. * No life was sacrificed, but terror seized the people. Believing the rumor that the city was to be sacked and burned, hundreds of men, women, and children were seen at midnight hurrying with their light effects to places of safety beyond the doomed town. Yet the patriots at the battery were firm, and in the face of the cannonade every gun was deliberately removed. Some of them afterward performed good service in the American cause. **
Deep feelings of exasperation moved the Sons of Liberty in the city after this cannonade, and Tryon's fears wisely counseled his flight. Mayor Hicks and others promised him protection, but he had more confidence in gunpowder, and on the nineteenth of October1775 he took refuge on board the British sloop of war Halifax, *** where he received his council, and, like Dunmore, attempted to exercise civil authority. **** Aided by Rivington. (v) with
* Among the houses injured at that time was the tavern of Samuel Fraunce (commonly called Black Sam, because of his dark complexion), on the corner of Broad and Pearl Streets, where Washington parted with his officers more than eight years afterward. That house, known as the Broad Street Hotel, was partly destroyed by fire in June, 1852. Freneau, in his Petition of Hugh Gaine, makes that time-server allude to the cannonade of the Asia, and say,
"At first we supposed it was only a sham,
'Till he drove a round ball through the roof of Black Sam."