This event was delayed in order to make arrangements for the benefit of the Loyalists in the city and state, and it was not until late in October when Carleton notified Washington of his determination to leave our shores.
On the second of November, Washington issued his "Farewell Address to the Armies of the United States" ** from Rocky Hill, and on the fourteenth of the same month he conferred with Governor Clinton, *** and made arrangements to enter and take possession of the city. Clinton issued an appropriate proclamation on the fifteenth, and summoned the officers of the civil government to meet him in council at East Chester. A day or two afterward, Washington, Clinton, and Carleton held a conference at Dobbs's Ferry (see page 195), and the twenty-fifth was fixed upon as the time for the exodus of the British troops. Both parties adopted measures for the preservation of order on the occasion. On the morning of that day—a cold, frosty, but clear and brilliant morning—the American troops, under General Knox, **** who had come down from West Point and encamped at Harlem, marched to the Bowery Lane, and halted at the present junction of Third Avenue and the Bowery. There they remained until about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the British left their posts in that vicinity and marched to Whitehall. (v) The
* The Loyalists, fearful of meeting with unpleasant treatment from the irritated Americans, prepared to leave the country in great numbers, and fled to the British province of Nova Scotia. The delay in question was in consequence of a want of a sufficient number of transports to convey these people and their effects. A further notice of the Loyalists will be found in the Supplement.
** This, like his letter to the governors, was an able performance. After affectionately thanking his companions in arms for their devotedness to him through the war, and for their faithfulness in duty, he gave them sound and wise counsel respecting the future, recommending them, in a special manner, to support the principles of the Federal government, and the indissolubility of the union.
*** George Clinton was born in Ulster eounty, New York, in 1739. He chose the profession of the law for his avocation. In 1768, he was elected to a seat in the Colonial Legislature, and was a member of 'he Continental Congress in 1775. He was appointed a brigadier in the army of the United States in 1776, and during the whole war was active in military affairs in New York. In April, 1777, he was elected governor and lieutenant governor, under the new Republican Constitution of the state, and was continued in the former office eighteen years. He was president of the convention assembled at Poughkeepsie to consider the Federal Constitution in 1788. He was again chosen governor of the state in 1801, and three years afterward he was elected Vice-president of the United States. He occupied that elevated position at the time of his death, which oeeurred at Washington City in 1812.
**** Henry Knox was born in Boston in 1750. He was educated at a common sehool, and at the age of twenty years commenced the business of bookseller in his native town. He was engaged in that vocation when the Revolutionary storm arose, and his sympathies were all with the patriots. He was a volunteer in the battle of Bunker Hill, and for this and subsequent services Congress commissioned him a brigadier, and gave him the command of the artillery department of the army, which he retained during the whole war. He was always under the immediate command of Washington, and was with him in all his battles After the capture of Cornwallis, Congress commissioned him a major general. In 1785, he succeeded Lincoln in the office of Secretary of War, which position he held for eleven years, when he retired into private life. He died at Thomaston, Maine, in 1806, at the age of about fifty-six years. To General Knox is conceded the honor of suggesting that noble organization, the Society of the Cincinnati.
* (v) The British claimed the right of possession until noon of the day of evacuation. In support of this claim, Cunningham, the infamous provost marshal exercised his authority. Dr. Alexander Anderson, of New York, related to me an incident which fell under his own observation. He was then a lad ten years of age, and lived in Murray, near Greenwich Street. A man who kept a boarding-house opposite ran up the American flag on the morning of the twenty-fifth. Cunningham was informed of the fact, and immediately ordered him to take it down. The man refused, and Cunningham attempted to tear it down. At that moment the wife of the proprietor, a lusty woman of forty, came out with a stout broomstick, and beat Cunningham over the head so vigorously, that he was obliged to decamp and leave the "star-spangled banner" waving. Dr. Anderson remembers seeing the white powder fly from the provost marshal's wig.