Colonel Malcolm immediately sent fifty men from his regiment, to take possession of the Court House, and ordered a company of rangers under his command, to reconnoitre toward the east and south. None of Washington's officers probably felt so much re-lieved by the withdrawal of the enemy as the worthy and patriotic Malcolm, who for eight days had maintained a perilous position on Merritt's Hill, within musket shot of one of the British advanced posts, and a mile distant from the American lines. In a letter written by him during this same

60 THE MCDONALD PAPERS afternoon to John McKesson he says: "It is now past three o'clock. The enemy are moved off to our right, i.e. to the heights of northwest of the Court House. I can make no farther discoveries in this quarter, but that I am delivered from troublesome neighbours, and have a prospect of sleep tonight." After the nightfall of this day, Major Austin of Massachu-setts, who was posted on the American left, was sent out with a scouting party. He returned about midnight, "heated with liquor" as was generally said, and ordered his men to set fire to most of the buildings in the lower part of the village. The Court House, Presbyterian church, and six or seven dwelling houses were consequently burnt to the ground. In his general orders of the ensuring day, Washington denounced condign punishment against the authors of this mischief. Major Austin was immediately brought to trial before a Court Martial which sentenced him to be reprimanded, but General Lee ordered a new Court Martial "with a charge of wanton, cruel and barbarous treatment of helpless women and children, not only unworthy the character of an officer, but of a human creature." On this second trial it appeared, that one of the houses burnt was filled with women and children, who had returned from the place of refuge they had sought, on the approach of the British army; that the females were insulted with abusive language, and threatened with death by Austin and his party, who would not suffer the mother to dress her children but drove them out of doors naked.