Neither of them stopped to ask the politics of horse or cow, which they drove into captivity ; nor, when they wrung the neck of a rooster, did they trouble their heads to ascertain whether he were crowing for Congress or King George.
" While this marauding system prevailed on shore, the Great Tappan Sea, which washes this belligerent region, was domineered over by British frigates, and other vessels of war, anchored here and there, to keep an eye upon the river, and maintain a communication between the various military posts. Stout galleys, also armed with eighteen pounders, and navigated with sails and oars, cruised about like havvkSj readv to pounce upon their prey.
Vol. I. 25
194 HISTORY OF THE
" All these were eyed with bitter hostility by the Dutch yeomanry along shore, who were indignant at seeing their great Mediterranean ploughed by hostile prows ; and would occasionally throw up a mud breast work on a point or promontory, mount an old iron field-piece, and fire away at the enemy, though the greatest harm was apt to happen to themselves, from the bursting of their ordnance ; nay, there was scarce a Dutchman along the river, that would hesitate to fire with his long duck gun at any British cruiser that came within his reach, as he had been accustomed to fire at water fowl.
I have been thus particular in my account of the times and neighborhood, that the reader might ihe more readily comprehend the surrounding dangers m this, the heroic age of the Roost.