The war in the North thereafter was confined, on the part of the British, to predatory raids along the coasts, of which "The Descent on Middlesex" is a fair example. On the afternoon of July 22, 1781, a party of Royalist refugees surrounded the church, where the people of Middlesex were at prayer, and took fifty of them captive, among them Schoolmaster St. John, of Norwalk, the author of the following ingenuous ballad describing their experiences.
THE DESCENT ON MIDDLESEX
[July 22, 1781]
July the twenty-second day,
The precise hour I will not say,
In seventeen hundred and eighty-one,
A horrid action was begun.
While to the Lord they sing and pray,
The Tories who in ambush lay,
Beset the house with brazen face,
At Middlesex, it was the place.
A guard was plac'd the house before,
Likewise behind and at each door;
Then void of shame, those men of sin
The sacred temple enter'd in.
[The reverend Mather] closed his book,
How did the congregation look!
Those demons plunder'd all they could,
Either in silver or in gold.
The silver buckles which we use,
Both at the knees and on the shoes,
These caitiffs took them in their rage,
Had no respect for sex or age.
As they were searching all around,
They several silver watches found;
While they who're plac'd as guards without,
Like raging devils rang'd about.
Run forty horses to the shore,
Not many either less or more;
With bridles, saddles, pillions on;
In a few minutes all was done.