"He opposed the dismemberment of the empire, and put his life and property at stake to prevent it. In 177(5, he was appointed a brigadier general in the royal service. Skinner, of New Jersey, Brown, a former governor of the Bahamas, Arnold, the apostate, and Cunningham, of South Carolina, were of the same grade, but their commissions were of later date. Gen. de Lancey was, therefore, the senior loyalist officer in commission during the contest. His command consisted of three battalions, known as De Lancey's battalions."

" Previous to the Revolution, Gen. De Lancey was a member of the Council, and was considered to be in office in 1782, though a constitution was formed in New York in 1777, and a government organized under ir. By this government he was attainted

a Sabine's Sketches of American Loyalists.

254 • HISTORY OF THE

of treason, and his large property confiscated." ''At the evacuation in 1783, he went to England, and died at Beverly, Yorkshire in 1785, aged sixty-eight. His body is interred in the choir of the Minster, while a mouument standing near the transept records his services." "His son, Oliver de Lancey, jr., was educated in Europe; put early in the 17th Light Dragoons; was a captain at the commencement of the Revokition ; became Major in 1776, a Lieutenant Colonel a year or two later, and succeeded Andre as Adjutant General of the British army in America. On his return to Europe, he was made Deputy Adjutant General of England ; as a Major General he got the Colonelcy of the 17th Light Dragoons ; was subsequently made Barrack Master General of the British empire ; rose through the grade of Lieutenant General to that of General, and died, some six or eight and twenty years since, nearly at the head of the English Army list.