The newspapers of the time, in which the above advertisements appear, are an interesting study. From them one gets an admirable picture of the city during the British occupation—of the business, amusements, and daily routine. One is soon reminded that New York was under martial law. The statute price of the loaf always headed the column, by order of the Major-General commanding, followed by terrible threats against the farmers on Long Island if they did not bring their hay, without further delay, to the city for sale. Notices to the refugees from rebel districts, informing them where they could obtain work, were regularly inserted, for the Commandant would have no idlers in the place. Authority for lotteries was occasionally notified, the proceeds to go to the aged and invalid poor; and theatrical advertisements were frequent.
The Garrison Dramatic Club, whose profits went to assist the soldiers' wives, was composed of officers of the Garrison, who were assisted in their performances by young ladies—daughters of New York merchants—whose parts were played, according to the critics of the time, "with great propriety, spirit, and accuracy." The receipts of the Club in one year, amounted to 9,500l., all of which, after deducting unavoidable expenses, was spent in charity.
The rules of the theatre were somewhat arbitrary. Not merely had the places to be secured and paid for before the day of performance, but the takers were compelled to send their servants at half-past four in the afternoon to keep their seats until the curtain rose at seven. It must have been a ludicrous sight during these two hours and a half—that dusky audience with nothing to hear, those crowded spectators with nothing to see.
One of the chief actors in the club was Major Williams, of the Artillery, who was also Brigade-Major of the Garrison. In the Library of the Historical Society in New York there is yet to be found frequent and favourable mention of this officer's rendering of Macbeth and Richard III.
Possibly an undue value may easily be attached to the opinions of an audience which was, doubtless, more or less, composed of the actors' friends; but it has been recorded that nothing was so popular,—no wit, humour, or buffoonery so welcome, even to the gallery,—as hits at the rebels during the performance.
The newspapers of the day were the 'Mercury,' published on Monday; 'Robertson's Loyal American Gazette,' on Thursday; and the 'General Advertiser,' on Friday. But there was one more reliable, and more generally read, than any of these,—the 'Gazette,' published every Wednesday and Saturday, by a man called Rivington, famed for his hospitality and as a bon vivant, but who proved eventually to be a traitor. About 1781 he began to see that, under the influence of the French Alliance and dissension in England, the rebel cause was brightening. While, therefore, still continuing to utter the most loyal sentiments in his journal, he supplied the enemy, in rather an ingenious way, with all the latest intelligence. Being a bookbinder as well as publisher, and being wholly unsuspected, he was permitted to send books to the Jerseys and elsewhere for sale. In the binding of the books were concealed despatches for Washington, who was thus supplied with the latest news from New York and England.
From advertisements in the various newspapers, the price of tea during the British occupation would appear to have averaged 18s. per lb.; corn varied with the punctuality or otherwise of the convoys from Ireland,—a strange thing to read of in days when America is known as the grain-producing country of the world; and claret, from some reason or other, was cheap and plentiful. There are, in the Royal Artillery Record Office, permit-books of General Pattison's from which the filial affection of the subalterns in the Garrison can be gauged by the amount of claret they received permission to send from New York to their anxious parents.
But, returning to No. 1 Broadway, on the Bowling Green, where the General lived, let the reader accompany him on his rounds. His chestnut horse is at the door, and Captain Adye and Captain-Lieutenant Ford, his Quartermaster, are waiting for him. The house in which he lives was formerly occupied by Sir Henry Clinton, now the Commander of the Forces, and afterwards by General Robertson, the immediate predecessor of General Pattison as Commandant of New York. The next house, No. 3 Broadway, had been occupied by Sir William Howe, on the first occupation of New York by the English forces in 1776, and was destined to be the residence of the arch-renegade, Arnold.
The General is a wiry, muscular man, of about fifty-four years of age;—his staff were mere boys, and yet he outlived them both. The characteristic which struck every one most was his courtly urbanity: every hat which was raised by passers-by was courteously acknowledged; and for every one whom he knew there was a pleasant, kindly word. He looks even brighter and more cheery this morning than usual, and, judging from the barely-suppressed merriment of his staff—when he is not looking—there is evidently some cause for cheerfulness. The joke is this. If James Pattison excels in one thing more than another, it is in correspondence. Last night had found him in a good vein, and his staff are still chuckling over some letters which they had copied this morning. Let three be selected, with a judicious blending of love and war, and let preference be given to the first. The General was, in the strongest and most benevolent sense, a father to his officers; there was no one in whose affairs he was not ready to take an interest; and his sympathy with all under his command is visible in every line of his correspondence. As the student sits among his letter-books, in the Dryasdust Record Offices looking out on the muddy Thames, there are times when, out of the yellow pages and faded writing, there seems to shape itself a figure, which, even at this distance of time, has such a loveable reality about it, that he seems to have known it as a dear friend. In return for the interest the General felt in and showed for his officers, he asked but one thing—their confidence; and the extent of his private correspondence shows that he did not ask in vain.
But there had been an exception,—unconscious, perhaps, but not unnoticed. A giddy subaltern had fallen in love. The General hardly expected to be told of this. In those days, as now, it might be predicated of subalterns that "'tis their nature to!" But this youth resolved to marry, and did not tell his resolution. He was away in Florida; there were no regular posts; perhaps the General might not approve of it; and, besides, those sweet hours of bliss were too dear to be interrupted by extraneous correspondence. So he was married. At first all was happiness. Love was still in every room of the cottage; and the General, like everything else, was forgotten. But there came a day when, in that little cottage, there were "Rooms to let," for Love had taken umbrage at a threadbare ruffian, called Poverty, who had taken up his abode. So, like the Prodigal Son in the Parable, the mournful subaltern remembered his General, and, writing a doleful letter as to the expenses of the married state, suggested a happy arrangement by which his income might be improved. To which the General had overnight penned the following reply. The reader will bear in mind that the General, like St. Peter, was himself also a married man.