A few days afterward, while a body of Continental troops lay at Northcastle, one of the American commanders, wish-ing to make use of a large quantity of corn stalks, made an arrangement with a Quaker farmer named William Carpenter, for all he could furnish from his corn then standing, and con-sisting of a field of twelve acres. To expedite the business, a detachment of military was ordered out, which cut down, husked, and carried up the whole crop into his granary. All this was accomplished in a single day, and Friend Carpenter was much gratified with the operation. He manifested upon the occasion, the well known kindness of his disposition, by borrowing all the pots and kettles in the neighborhood, and making Indian pudding enough to give the soldiers a hearty supper of suppawn and milk, which they declared to be the greatest treat they had since the commencement of the campaign. During the civil commotions that preceded the declaration of independence, tea drinking was proscribed. Good Whig husbands generally found it easy to abstain from a decoction which was deemed unpatriotic and had become unpopular; but wives longed for the forbidden beverage and not unfre-quently enjoyed it. During the summer of '76, however, tea became scarce in the interior of the country, and those who possessed a stock of the article, held it fast, in the expectation of a great rise in its value. This led to female insurrection in several of the counties that bordered upon the Hudson River. Storehouses containing the covered Bohea, at the time al-most the only kind of tea in general use, were besieged by thirsty housewives, sometimes for several days in succession, and for the most part successfully; the owners being at length compelled to sell by retail, at reasonable prices.