The plan had been formed, by the British ministry, to take military possession of New York, Albany, and the Hudson river; to treat as rebels all who would not join the king’s forces; to station men-of-war, with armed sloops, so as to cut off all communication between the southern and the northern provinces.
Colonel Guy Johnson was to raise as large a force as possible, of Canadians and Indians, and ravage the provinces of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. “This,” it was said, “would so distract and divide the Provincial forces as to render it easy for the British army, at Boston, to defeat them, break the spirit of the Massachusetts people, depopulate their country, and compel the absolute subjection to Great Britain.”[113]
Sir Henry Clinton[114] was in command of this naval expedition. The fleet entered the harbor of New York on a morning of the Sabbath. The whole city was thrown into consternation. Many of the inhabitants immediately began to move their effects back into the country. Through all the hours of the day, and of the ensuing night, the rumbling of carts was heard in the streets, and boats were passing up the North and the East rivers, heavily laden with goods and merchandise.[115]
Clinton professed to be very much surprised at the alarm of the inhabitants. He said that he came with no hostile intent, but merely to pay a short visit to his friend Governor Tryon.
General Lee, dispatched by Washington, was already in the city, with a small escort. Quite an enthusiastic army hastily collected in Connecticut, was ready and eager to march for the defence of the place. Clinton could, with perfect ease, lay the city in ashes. But there were perhaps as many tories as patriots in the city; and the tories constituted the most opulent portion of the inhabitants. A general conflagration would consume their mansions and property.
It is also said that General Lee, whose eccentricities, seemed, at times, almost to amount to insanity, sent the menace to Colonel Clinton, that if he, by a bombardment, set a single house on fire, one hundred of Clinton’s most intimate friends should be chained by the neck, to the house, and there they should find their funeral pyre. Colonel Clinton knew well the character of General Lee, and that he probably would not hesitate to execute his threat.[116]
The Duke of Manchester, alluding to this event, in the House of Lords, said:
“My Lords: Clinton visited New York. The inhabitants expected its destruction. Lee appeared before it with an army too powerful to be attacked; and Clinton passed by without doing any wanton damage.”
The fleet disappeared, sailing farther south. Lee commenced, with great energy, arresting the tories and raising redoubts for the defence of the city. It would seem that Governor Tryon took refuge on board the Asia, which was anchored between Nutten and Bedlow’s Islands.
The British, in Boston, continued, during the remainder of the winter, within their tents. Gradually the American army augmented its forces. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the British officers to find amusement, their condition daily became more melancholy. Fuel was scarce; food still more so; sumptuous feasting impossible. The small-pox broke out. Poverty and suffering caused houses to be broken open and plundered. Crime was on the increase, which the sternest punishment could not arrest. The hangman was busy. The whipping post dripped with blood. Four, six, even a thousand lashes were inflicted on offenders. A soldier’s wife was convicted of receiving stolen goods. She was tied to a cart, dragged through the streets, and a hundred lashes laid on her bare back.